What do you do when you know you’re going to be away? For the past 6 weeks, I’ve been at swimming religiously every Monday, Wednesday and Friday morning. Now I find myself in the position where I’m wondering if I’m going to lose the momentum. The whole family has been sick for the last three days (it hit me last) so I’m not keen on going Monday morning, and I’m going to miss Friday morning as we’ll be travelling to see family and friends for Christmas. The week after, I’m also likely to miss Friday.

So – how do I avoid that momentum dip? I’m really happy with my progress, but I don’t want to fall behind and lose the progress I’ve made.

The thing is – there will be no pool where I’m going to be and the weather ...

For the past 4 weeks I’ve been swimming regularly on Monday, Wednesday and Friday from 6am to 7:15am. While difficult waking up that early, it has been excellent and I’ve noticed a big difference in my swimming ability – both technique and endurance. That might be because I’m still new to swimming – any swimming is better than none.

I still swim in the slowest lane of 8, but I’m ok with that – it is more about my own improvement and competing against myself than competing against others at this stage of my training.

Today, I literally fought myself. During that hour and 15 minutes, I wanted to quit at least 6 times. I just felt heavy. Like my arms and legs were moving but I was not going anywhere. I’m a bit worried, only because if I can’t make it through 75 minutes of ...

The first post, getting the new blog up and running. Chronicling our journey to IronMan Lake Placid 2007.

There is something exciting about fresh starts and trying new things. In this case, it is a new blog, and a new sport – triathlon.

My wife and I have done three triathlons to date. The first two were “try-a-tri” distances (The Canadian, Sept 2005, Ottawa, Cornwall Transit, August 2006, Cornwall) and the third was a sprint distance (The Canadian, Sept 2006, Ottawa). We consider ourselves novices but are taking it pretty seriously – we’ve committed to completing IronMan Lake Placid on July 22, 2007.

This new blog will chronicle that journey: our training and workouts and our thinking over the next 8 months working towards our goals.