My inner Action Hero has

a prominent 6-pack, upper arms cut from steel, a confidence you can see and feel, and a blue with gray stripes Tyr swimsuit. She gets up at 4:30 a.m. to be at the pool by 6:00a.m. She gets everything together the night before, even though she's exhausted, so there will be no delay in the morning. She swims her program even though she is sure she is going to die towards the end. She swims slow but that means there is no where to go but up. She finishes feeling stronger, both inside and out, and shouting, "I AM AN ATHLETE"

So, as you may be able to tell, it's been a good couple of days. Yesterday I got up and ran my running program and this morning was swimming.

I've changed my focus a little; focus being the operative word here. I've decided to use this year as a building year. I need to get faster in my running and get more confident in my swimming. So I'm going to enter 2 marathons and a number of 5 & 10K's during the year. I'm also going to enter 2 sprint tris but these will be towards the end of the season September/October. I may also include an offroad tri just for something different.

My next event is a 8.25 mile race on President's Day. My running program is to run this distance in 70 minutes. Okay, that probably won't happen (I'm just not that fast) but I figure it will make me a bit faster. For my swimming, I've found a program that will have me swimming a mile straight in 6 weeks. That's what I really need to work on with the swimming, the endurance. So that's my focus for the next 8 weeks; running - speed, swimming - endurance.

I'm happy with this decision. I think if I really work on skills this year, next year I'll be ready to tackle a 1/2 Ironman and who knows, maybe an Ironman in 2008. I was feeling very disorganized and not sure where I was heading. Now I know and I'm really looking forward to the journey. I have a focus, I have a plan, and I have a goal. How exciting. Now all I have to do is pick the races. I may do the Las Vegas marathon instead of Honolulu (they are a week apart) and I'm either going to do Maui in September or the Volcano in June. The Volcano is literally over the volcano and the trail is really rough. That may be a little ambitious. Maybe I'll do that 10k and then the Maui. I don't know, things to think about......