Ironman Takeover

66 days away from Ironman. I am tired. I ache. I feel really behind on life—job, housework, errands, blogging, being a good friend, etc.

Ironman now owns me.

This may be the closest I get to a 'meltdown' or maybe this is the pre-cursor to a major emotional eruption.

This morning, I left my house at 6 am for my first scheduled run over 2 hours. Now, it took a little bit for it to sink in: I will run farther than I ever have before (except for the miserable marathon that I didn't train for, also known as "The Disaster.") 2:10—I created a run that would be 13.5 miles or so.

1. Leave my house in Wallingford.
2. Run north towards Greenlake.
3. Run around the outside loop of Greenlake.
4. Plan on running down Ravenna to 55th and instead, forgetting and then run down 65th until turning south on 25th to get back on 55th.
5. Run up and over 55th until it meets up with Sandpoint.
5. Down the stairs to the Burke, run towards UW.
6. Take the left towards the IMA fields.
7. Take the trails and roads to and behind Husky Stadium.
8. Cross over Montlake Bridge.
9. Weave around to 25th to Interlaken Blvd.
10. Heave myself up the hill to Boyer.
11. Continue to climb up Capitol Hill to Volunteer Park. Briefly enjoy the view.
12. Gingerly run down the hill to Summit.
13. Cross over the freeway and trot to and down Eastlake.
14. Do all I can to make my way to my office on Stewart.
15. Take a hot shower.

I ended up running 14.5 miles in 2:20. My run was a bit long due to my mistake on 65th. I blasted my Pandora station on my new phone (I left my phone in my rental car last week in California.)

All day, I felt pretty accomplished, just really tired. I wasn't really looking forward to my longest swim of my life—3200 yards. But! I got it done. Sometimes it is just about pushing through and getting it done.

Lots of great things have happened in the last few weeks, I've just been too busy and tired to blog about them. (Somehow, I'll have to write some creative post later to incorporate them.) For now, I'm just happy to get these words out ... taking a little bit of control back, as much as I can.

Oh, and again, because blogs die without photos, here is a photo of the brave souls that did a 4-hour bike ride last Sunday, including two climbs up Mud Mountain.