Gearing up for 2012

It's that time again!

Race plans have mostly been laid out. The broad strokes anyway, a few details left to fill in. The "off season" is coming to a close and the "on season" is about to begin.

First, the race plans:

Next weekend I'm celebrating the transition from "off" to "on" with a half marathon in LA. My off season has been spent pretty much just running. My running took a huge hit a year ago with major foot surgery and this "off season" has finally given me a chance to work on bringing my running base back up to snuff without worrying about how it affects or how it is affected by the other sports. The half will be a nice little progress check.

My key races for 2012 are IM Lanzarote in May, IM Mt. Tremblant in August, hopefully Kona in Oct. and ITU AG Short Course Worlds in NZ, also in Oct. The stepping stone races are still being worked on but so far California 70.3 in March (maybe), Wildflower Olympic in May (for sure), Vineman 70.3 in July (for sure) and Ironman 70.3 Worlds in Sept. (maybe). Probably also some local sprints.

In a week the buildup to Lanzarote begins. I don't know if I have taken such a profound break from swimming and cycling as this year since taking up the sport so rebuilding should be interesting and challenging, to say the least. I am looking forward to it, but I would be even more excited if the "on season" didn't have to begin in January, about the darkest month of the year. To try to muster some enthusiasm for swimming and biking in the dark, cold and possibly wet days of winter I've been rearranging my past race mementos which had been somewhat haphazardly strewn about my office.

I've saved most of my finishers medals from significant races I've done over the years. I put a coat rack up on my office door and hung these up on the hooks.

The far left hook are all Ironman finishes (less my Kona medals which are hanging more prominently elsewhere), the second from the left are half ironman medals, next two hooks are the marathon medals, second from the right = other major triathlons, far right = other major running events.

I've always saved bib numbers by just tacking them to corkboards. They've been piling up in various geologic layers. I did an archaeologic dig through these. I culled the herd and straightened them up a bit so it is possible to see most of them with the following results.

It's fun to look closely at the bib numbers. They represent a very long, very diverse and very fun athletic life. Unfortunately I did not start saving my bib numbers until I had been running a while and there are many cool ones from later I also did not save.

Lastly I arranged my major awards and other mementos around on shelves and surfaces in my office. A few you can glimpse in the above photos. Here are a few more.

Now, if I need a little inspiration on a cold, dark, wet winter night after a long day at work all I have to do is look up to be reminded of how much fun I have when I train to race.