Two years later...and I am back baby

Okay so it's been about 2 years since I posted on the blog. I had to abandon my 2010 marathon attempt due to a very bad hip injury (bursitis) that required a few months of PT and ultrasound. I am happy to report that it is fully healed and awesome. I ended up doing a few half marathons that year instead. I did okay, they were slow, but I got the miles in. So in 2011 I had a break through year on the running front. I dropped about 10#, and trained for my next marathon using the First Program, in which you only run 3x per week. I really got quite beaten up last time, and I think that was the problem. My body is just not good on more than that. Anyway, it worked like a charm and I ended up doing my second marathon in 4:22, 29 minutes faster than the last effort. I never walked, never had problems like hitting the wall. I was just very well trained with 5 20+ mile training runs in. Then I started training for a triathlon again, as I really did enjoy doing that back in the day. I was sucking at swimming still, but getting it done. I also decided to buy a road bike and LOVE it. While training for my tri, I took a program called Good Form running, and adopted the style of 180bpm running, to shorten my stride and get my body position corrected. Here's the thing: I went from running 9:15 min/miles on mid-distance runs to 8:30s. It was insane. So after running my tri, I ran a 10 mile run for Randy's Race and did it in 86 minutes. What? Then I ran a half marathon in GR and, after falling in the first few seconds of the race and holding back for the first 5k, I managed to finish in 1:56, PRing by nearly 13 minutes. I felt great too. At that time, I decided to do a Half Ironman triathlon. I wanted something big, and thought I'd skip the marathon in 2012. I trained quite hard, joined Masters Swim class and improved like crazy thanks to a great coach and good friends, and I got more fit. My half Iron went well, 6+ hrs in 90 degree heat. I bonked badly on the bike, and now know where I really need to focus to destroy it next year. I also ran a super sprint, 2 intermediate distance tris and two Olympics, doing very well in all of them. So in closing out this race season, I am left with one bad mutha of a race. My friend Tracy convinced me to do this, and I am kinda glad I did so as to not drop fitness. In 8 days I am running a 50k trail ultramarathon. I am nuts. I am crazy. But I have 2 20 milers under my belt and I feel really quite fit again. And it's a low pressure race so I know I will have fun. I have a little downtime after the race, and will be joining in on the 60 day Insanity Challenge that Cuz Jaime is organizing. I'd like to drop 10# more and see if I can strengthen my body a bit more to hold up to the beat down I'm gonna get next year during race season. So there's where it is after this hiatus from blogging. I'll update this more often again, as I am really looking to put the heat on next year on the ironman and tri front.