This Week in Numbers:
Swim:  10,600 yards
Bike:  50.86 miles
Run:  19.6 miles
Brick (Bike/Run):  35.49
TOTAL TRAINING TIME:  13:19:17

Okay! This is NOT REALLY St. George.....but how COOL is that snow drift?

It feels like winter has finally arrived in St. George.  Yeah!  I know.  We live in a very nice climate and we rarely have stormy days, but live here for an entire year and you will understand my next comment…………We live in a place of extremes!

In the summer we are dying of dry heat.  It is scorching most days and you have to be hidden away in your house and under your air conditioner by 9:00 a.m.  If not, you will most certainly get heat exhaustion from walking to the mailbox and back.  I know….I know….but it is a dry heat.  Try this exercise:  Take a blow dryer and place it on the hottest and highest setting.  Place it 4 inches away from you face and turn it on.  That is the summer in St. George.  Just a dry heat, right??? 🙂

Then comes the Fall and Winter.  It has finally cooled down enough that you can go outdoors when there is daylight without your flesh melting.  The nights are beautiful and the mornings are even more spectacular………BAM!  Daylight Savings ends.  Who turned out the lights?  Those evening rides that you enjoyed for two weeks.  Gone.  Those morning rides; getting a bit chilly.

Not St. George, but definitely how I've been feeling this week.

Enter late-November:  I thought it was suppose to be warm here?  Wasn’t it 100 degrees yesterday.  50 feels like an icebox.  I figure that most of the problems I have in the cooler weather is the fact that I am constantly under-dressed.  I live in the desert right?  It’s hot here?  You don’t need a coat.  NOT!  It gets down right cold here……Who’d of thought?  Before I know it I am donning the same winter cycling outfit I have been wearing for about 6 years attempting to get in mileage outdoors when there is actually daylight.  If I do ride outside, it takes me almost as long to thaw out my toes when I get home as the time I spent in the saddle.

Okay……I know……I’m complaining.  Many of you are in far dire circumstances.  At least it doesn’t snow here, right? (Well it does, but I won’t complain about that right now.)  It’s just December and it is feeling like Winter.  The majority of my miles this week were done in the comfort of the indoors where light prevailed and the temperature stayed a constant 70 degrees.  I actually don’t mind working out indoors on the “dreadmill” or my trainer.  The ‘mill helps me to control my heart rate to ranges that make Coach M so proud!  Sometimes I actually like my bike trainer more than riding outside.  I can do it when it is dark and cold outside and get a KILLER and efficient workout even when I have two kids to keep track of.  My indoor High Intensity Training Group Cycling classes (those are not your mother’s Spin classes) started up 4 weeks ago and I have 50 people riding with me each week that keep me MORE than entertained.  Honestly, things aren’t so bad……. The sun does come out (okay it is usually out) and actually made for a spectacular 2.5 hour outdoor brick this past Saturday to wash away the indoor doldrums.

It’s been a while since I’ve done a brick (and this was a short one), but they are back on the menu and it felt so good to feel like a triathlete again.  Barring the pick-up trucks that tried to run me off the road continually, Saturday was a pretty great……….and then I sat down to watch the Ironman World Championship Broadcast……..

I cannot believe I have signed myself up for Ironman St. George!  What was I thinking?  Instead of my usual teary-eyed, inspired-self…….I found myself scared out of my mind watching frame after frame of people unable to control their muscle function from sheer fatigue.  All I saw was carnage.  All I could think of was that I was going to be just like the guy falling, no breaking, through the barricade on his final stretch to the finish because he couldn’t stand up straight!

Am I really up for this?

I usually watch this broadcast with awe and jealousy.  This year was totally different.  I’m honestly pretty freaked out right now.   Even the man of steel, Craig Alexander, was giving into the cramping in the final stretches (he was working for a World Record, but he was HURTING!).  I watch Chrissy Wellington in amazement as she smiles her way past her opponents.  I want to feel and look like her!!!!…..I’ll just say it……..I would like to BE her….but I’m afraid I will be the guy who ran (literally ran) out of control because his legs wouldn’t respond to his brain’s message to turn the corner.  YIKES!

So on to Week 7.  Ironman is only about 4 1/2 months away.  What seemed to feel like a lifetime to wait just a month ago, is now pounding down my door.  So I train on……..and on……….and on……………Ready or not………..Here I come………..I think????