Ready ... Set, Er ... Ready?

Post #: 7
Weeks of training complete: 12 weeks, 2 days
Time until Ironman: 19 weeks, 5 days
Miles swam: 42.464
Miles biked: 572.18
Miles run: 168.06

Goal: $5,000
Total money raised: $270

Heidi, my wife, began a project a while back to digitally archive all of our son's art projects from school - this picture to the left is actually one of the pictures from that archive. But like so many well-meant tasks we undertake during adulthood, it simply became too much.

Day care makes your children prolific artists. There's felt on construction paper, chalk on construction paper, paint on construction paper, shaving cream on construction paper, garbage from the floor on construction paper, pasta on construction paper and various other (fill in the blank) on construction paper projects that come home each week. And that doesn't even count the numerous multi-colored scribbles on paper you get. If the kids could actually sell their artwork, my wife and I might be able to quit work - even if they could just get $10 a pop, I think we'd be pulling in about $17,000 a week.

But one thing I never thought would become too much during this whole training process has actually become one of the most frustrating parts of my day. I am notoriously unorganized when it comes to material items. My brain - it's pretty organized. Staffers at College Times can ask me the date a cover from the last seven years and chances are I can remember it. I keep my schedule in my head and my to-do-list in my mind. But organize paper work? Keep my office clean? No can do. I'm scattered when it comes to that stuff.

And this is why getting my stuff ready each night for the following morning's workout has become such a chore. I can't remember where I put anything. So each day, I have to remember where i threw my work out clothes, my sneakers, my goggles, my iPod, my earphones, my visor, my sunglasses, my sunscreen, my Gatorade, my water pack, my water bottles, my nutritional supplements. I spend close to an hour every night walking back and forth across the house mumbling under my breath while I look for this stuff. As the workouts push 14 hours weekly, this has become somewhat tedious. So I'm trying to fix it by keeping my things in one place - we'll see how it goes. Usually when I get done in the morning with a workout, I'm so in a rush to get to work, I just throw everything all over the place.

In other news, I had a nice vacation - both at home with Heidi (even though all we did mostly was work) - and in Las Vegas with my friend Rob. I've learned how to do Vegas on the cheap and still have lots of fun, and that's made going kind of enjoyable. Won some money in Texas Hold 'Em, broke even on sports betting, spent what I won at the bachelor party we were there for. All in all - a good time. And I got to do my workout at one of the nicest YMCA facilities I've ever seen. It had a rock gym, massive swimming complex, huge indoor workout facility, four indoor basketball courts - and, of course, each section was sponsored by a casino. Guess it helps to have those casino dollars flowing ...

I feel real good physically. In fact, I feel great - strong and energized and excited about the challenges that lie ahead in the training.

I know that coming up, I also need to work on bumping up the fundraising aspect of the training - it's something I need to start focusing on. I have a long way to go to get to that $5,000 goal.

If you'd like to contribute, you can do so by clicking here.

Please let me know if you make a donation, so that I can include it in my totals.

Until next time,
Ed