Habits, habits habits...

I have finally had a chance to sit down and write this... It's been a crazy couple of days in the life of Anthony and so it's been tough to get down to business. Actually, I'll be writing this over a couple of days as I am just about exhausted right now so it might take me a few chains of thought to have something that makes any sense.

So I ran the Portland Marathon this weekend and had a fun race. Kristina, Paul and I drove down on Saturday morning. I was happy to go on Saturday although we had not been able to get the official check in changed at the Hilton, so we were going to be stuck with the Friday AND Saturday on our hotel bill.

We went and watched Jackass 2 the night before and Kristina and I got popcorn and chocolate. Probably not the greatest pre-race snack but it seemed like a good way to relax.

And it worked, for the most part. I had a phenomenal first half, finishing in 1:32 for 13.1 miles. Considering my run in February at the 1st Half was a 1:33 that shows that I've had a lot of running improvement. However, I definitely paid for the speed, in that I had lost my legs on the back end of this marathon. At the 18 mile mark, my speed dropped from 7 minute miles to 8 minute miles as my legs just gave out. I have felt this before... Always when I've run a marathon within 3 weeks of another marathon.

So, I can definitely tell the toll of ironman has still not left my system entirely.

I am taking the next two weeks off completely, culminating in my October 14th return at the swimming clinic on Saturday.

I have gotten out of the habit of writing on this blog, so I'm hoping to get started back up again. It's an interesting process trying to figure out what relevant subject matter I want to plug into here, since Ironman training is in a rest phase. Maybe it's the rest phase that I'm struggling with. I stare across the room and look at my bike, and feel as though I am both anxious to get back going, and happy that I don't HAVE to get back going anytime soon... A very odd sense for myself.

Still, I'm fighting back a bit of a cold right now, and have Thanksgiving this weekend, so now is not the time to get too anxious. I really am just trying to enjoy the downtime. My body needs the rest more than ever. My thumb is still not 100%, and mentally I'm a little worn out.