Its been a while

I apologize if this is lengthy, but its been a while since the last time that I posted on my blog and I have alot of things to cover.  They say that there are always road blocks when you go forward to becoming an ironman and this past month was definitely a speed bump.  Don't forget to go to my fundraising site at http://www.daaa.org/DAAA_ironman.html.

To start with, Annette got word that her mother's cancer had taken the turn for the worst and that she only had a week or two left, so with little discussion, we decided that she needed to be in Germany.  I am so thankful that she was able to spend the last week with her before she finally passed away.  It was a very sad time for the family, but we pulled through.  The kids are still too young to really understand what happened, but they occasionally start crying because they miss Oma.  We all miss her.

When Annette left, it wasn't the best thing for my training either, although I would give up a few weeks of training anytime under those circumstances.  I spent alot of time on my trainer while she was gone, doing some hard power intervals, but running and swimming was hard to find time to do since I couldn't leave the kids home alone.  My parents helped out a few times and kept them so that I could get a few long runs in, but I didn't get to swim the entire 2 weeks.  Oh well, my body probably needed a little rest time.

We have had a trip to Hawaii scheduled for over a year and we were playing it by ear the entire time.  Annette was pretty sure that we were going, but under the circumstances, you never know.  Her mother died 4 days before we were supposed to head out and we decided that this was an opportunity to get away and get her mind off of things, so we held out plans to spend 2 weeks in Hawaii.

On the first week, we went to Kauai and stayed at the Marriott Kauai Beach Club.  It was a beautiful property on Kalapaki Beach with the largest pool on the island.  I rented a bike from a place called Outfitters Kauai, which seemed like a good bike shop on the internet when I made my reservation.  In reality, it was a tour place and they were not in the road bike business.  Oh well, at least I had the opportunity to ride while I was out there.  On my first morning, I woke up at the crack of dawn, saddled up, and headed out for the ride.  It was sprinkling a little, but I went ahead and rode.  The sprinkles constantly increased until it was flat out pouring around 10 miles out and I decided that it probably wasn't the best place to be on a road bike, so I headed back.  The next day, I gave it another shot and it was beautiful.  I made it about 50 miles and I learned quickly that islands that are formed by volcanos are not flat.  I covered the entire south side of the island.  My legs were shot by the time I was finished.  Later in the week, I rode the entire east side of the island, so I circled half the island. 

I also found an awesome run trail that goes along the beach the entire way.  It was on the east side of the island and running that trail at sun rise is a sight that you can not put into words.  I was not able to swim much, except for playing with the kids in the pool, because the ocean surf was horrible.  This would have been ideal if I would have been training for the surfing championships, but I am training for an ironman, so that didn't work for me.

The highlight of the week was a kayak tour on the Wailua River to the sacred falls.  I definitely recommend this trip and we will do it again the next time we are there.

After a week on Kauai, we traveled to my favorite island, Maui.  My first stop after getting checked into the hotel was at West Maui Cycles, where they had excellent rentals.  I asked the guy at the shop for suggested bike routes and he told me that the West Maui loop was his favorite.  It was a loop that I could get on at my hotel and circle the western half of Maui.  It was the most beautiful ride that I have ever been on, but also the toughest.  It was about 60 miles, with only about 2 of them not having a view of the Pacific Ocean, but it also had about 4500 feet of climbing.  It went through back country where there are no resorts or even houses.  The roads went down to single lane and circled around cliffs that you couldn't see if there was an oncoming car.  Luckily, there were not many cars, so I was safe.  I enjoyed the ride so much that I had to do it again before we left.  I did get out a few times and get a few open water swims in and some really nice runs.

While on Maui, we spend a day on the Four Winds snorkel boat to Molokini.  If you are ever in Maui, that is the best boat to take for this trip.  We also went on a submarine trip, but I would suggest to save your money on that one.  We also snorkeled around Black Rock and Brett was excited that we had a sea turtle swim right next to us.

We have been home for a week and I am back full strength in my training plan.  The first swim was a little tough, but after that, it was like I haven't been away from the pool.

I am headed to Nashville this weekend to do the Music City Olympic distance triathlon.  This will be the first triathlon that I have ever done that is not wetsuit legal, so I am a little nervous, but I know that my swimming is doing great and that will translate to a good swim and a good race overall.