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Ok so things have been a bit frustrating lately and thats partly the reason I have not posted. When all you have to say is bummer stuff I dont tend to like to dwell and thats what I feel like I am doing now. SO I will briefly put up the good stuff.

My first race of the year went really well. The weather was perfect and I felt really good. I shaved 9 min off my time last year and did the whole thing in like 1 hour and 18 minutes so I nailed one of my two goals. the other goal was a top 10 finish. well my age group this year was a lot larger and a lot more competitive and I was 20 out of 33. SO still not bad. I only have a few pics and they are only ok. We forgot Lisa's camera so she took a couple with her phone while taking care of Kaiya so they are ok but not like last year. I have them but just dont feel like posting them today. Maybe tommorow.

Now my frustrations!

Training is going ok but not as good as I would like. Im having a lot of issues making all my workouts and in general and getting maybe 60-75% of them in. I have not swam in over 2 weeks and yeah im just trying to get it all in but its really hard to juggle the training and work and family. I thought I had it down for the first couple of weeks b/c I shifted my work schedule from 7:30-4 to 6:30-3 and that made a world of difference and gave me a good block of time in the afternoon to get a second workout in. But I was told to go back to my other schedule and I have to say im still pretty annoyed by that for a number of reasons. SO thats been really frustrating. However I have made a solid effort to not miss the long workouts for the bike or the run. Each week I have a long bike and a long run and these are key workouts so at least that is good.

My other frustration is equipment. I started off the year with some ideas of some things I wanted to get to make the ironman easier on me. Now im finding that some of my neccesary items are no longer functional. Since I have gone back to training full time I discovered my bike pump no longer worked so I had to replace that. cant really make it through the year without a bike pump. Next my Heart Rate Monitor has crapped out on me and I have had to replace that. Those are not cheap by the way. But my whole training program is based around time excersising and heart rate zone so I cant really make it through the year with out it. And now lastly my helmet is starting to leave a lot to be desired. Besides being hmm oh I dont know 10 years old and probably in need of replacing anyone the interior padding has deteriorated and has exposed rusty metal grommets and hard plastic which is starting to cut into my head while riding. SO I feel like I need to replace the helmet now too. This is just starting to feel like one thing after another and is kind of getting annoying.

SO thats pretty much what im up to. Trying to maintain my training schedule and keep all my crap from breaking down while trying desperately to get my workouts in and I feel like im failing miserably.

Cheers!