I’m Still Here, and I Just Committed to Something Big

I love July. I always have. I am in an ongoing argument with friends who were raised in the upper midwest about whether winter or summer is the superior season. They are a bit biased toward the cold. I know we all have personal preferences and all, but I think I can claim that summer is objectively better than winter. It’s a simple fact. Permanent summer means constant good times and social events, food grows all the time, vitamin D abounds. Permanent winter? No food, no sunlight. But hey, you can ski. So there’s that. I think I win this argument. Besides, my dear midwestern friends actually believe that the great lakes are just like the ocean. Yeah, ok.
So where were we? Ah yes, July. For me, July means busy times for my vocation. We do a week of day camp with school age kids, there is a very big carnival that I get quite involved with in many ways, and this year we did our week at Camp Mount Luther in July. Add in a couple days of vacation at the start of the month, and my schedule has been very different. I spent over 25 hours this month just twisting balloons for church functions.
Add to this hectic schedule, the injury. I returned from Watkins Glen with a self-induced whiplash. The last three weeks, I haven’t run. I swam once. I practically forget what a bicycle looks like. I’ve missed my last two scheduled/registered races. The first was June’s Tri Tri again, which I have already written about. The second was the MidPenn Trailblazers Wildlife for Everyone 5 Miler, which we missed for a funeral. The next event on the calendar is the Beach Bum in South Carolina, which is next weekend. I am not anticipating a great time. My “A” race is supposed to be the Lewisburg Triathlon, but with these training pauses and setbacks, I fear that finishing will feel just like Danville and Annapolis: happy to finish upright.
I hope to surprise myself. I finally took a run today. It’s hot and humid, but I got in 3 miles in exactly 54minutes. 17min/mile pace. Not great, not even good for me, but hey, it’s been a while. The important thing is, I feel good. I feel more human today than yesterday, when my neck was really a problem. I had a rough night again, but the last few hours were ok. I decided I had to run today, I just had to. Even if it hurt. I now think I should have been running every day this month, because there is only a tiny bit of soreness in my neck right now. I really must get on the bike this week. I swam a bit last week at camp, but since the one attempt at an OWS in the wetsuit, I haven’t been in open water for weeks. Time to get back on track.
The realities of the work schedule and the injury have been the real reason I have been off training, but I have to admit, the lack of events on the schedule didn’t help. I may have pushed myself to get out there more if I had a race last weekend. Maybe I needed an extended break. Whatever this month was, it’s over. Onward and upward.
So now the announcement: July may not have had any events to put on the calendar, but it did afford the opportunity to look ahead. This Monday, registration opened for the 2012 Eagleman. Eagleman is a half-ironman, 70.3 miles. It’s run by the Columbia Maryland triathlon club that does several great events. Eagleman attracts a lot of professionals, and has qualifying slots for Kona, so it is a race that sells out. With the exponential growth in triathlon, some events sell out within days, some within hours (like the recently announced inaugural Ironman NYC.) i had no idea if Eagleman would sell out early, so I didn’t take any chances. I left day camp at 9:20 and found internet access, and registered right away.
June 10, 2012, I will be doing Eagleman. I can hardly believe I am typing those words. That’s less than a year away, and just over 18 months from the time I started running.