Unfinished Business

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Short Version
Today (Sunday), my friends Kylie and Libor are racing Ironmans. Kylie is racing IM Louiseville & Libor is racing IM Canada. Both of them have already completed Iron distance races before. They both had awesome training seasons and I think they will do well. Please send them Safe & Speedy thoughts if you can. :)

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Long Version (in a rambling mood - as usual :P )

I took these photos at Vineman last year, an Iron distance race in wine country here in California. I was supposed to be racing. Kylie (#1 & #2) and I trained together, signed up together, and drove up together. She finished the race. I didn't. I DNFd after one lap, 1.2 miles, of the swim. One year later, it still bothers me that I didn't finish. It's like unfinished business hanging over my head.

My training didn't go so well for Vineman. During training, I was hit by a car in January and also crashed my bike May. What I thought was going to be my cinderella year in triathlon, turned into a mess of injuries and missed training. I think I pushed my body before it fully recovered from each crash and recovery took much longer than it should have. After the race, I pretty much put away my tri gear. Training with injuries had taken all the fun out of it. I still rode my bike but only to work and home or to run errands. Running was half-hearted and continued my knee problems and I stopped in January. I haven't been in the pool since last September.

But I think the spark is coming back. The time off that I took from running and swimming let my knees and shoulders finally heal. And my body feels good again. If a little pudgy :). I'm going to stick with the plan of no racing this year so there is no pressure. But I'll be back. I know it. Because here's a secret. I'm jealous of my tri friends - Kylie, Libor, Tim, and Bolder (also a photoblogger who's Ironman is next month) and I wish I was doing an Ironman this summer. That must be a good sign. Right?