So I am currently playing the waiting game with my wife. Yesterday was our due date but still no baby. I know plenty of people go through this everyday but this is my first experience with it. I was secretly hoping that she would go into labor a few weeks early and just surprise us. But here we are, 1 day past due, just waiting.
My wife is a trooper. She has worked everyday like she is not pregnant at all. She went in this morning just like it's another day. Fortunately, this week she does have some additional help at work. So if she does go into labor, then she can just leave when she needs to and not leave the rest of her day's patients onto her other full time PT at the clinic.
But I have stepped back from racing as a "professional" (if you can say that I ever did that). I never raced for the money and that is what it takes to consider yourself a "pro." I always just raced to the best of my ability and got to a point in my career that to be my best, I needed to race against some of the best. Sure I got my doors blown off numerous times, but I also had some fantastic performances. At the time I didn't view them as such since I "only" finished 4th or 7th or whatever place overall, but looking back, I went FAST. Oh to be young and naive. I just would race and welcome the pain that came with going fast. Now a days, I am a little older, don't have the 5-7 years of uninterrupted training, and am a little more injury prone. I have to be super careful with what I do and need a rest day every once in a while. And since I'm not lining up against Frodeno or Keinle, I don't need to be in my peak physical form at every race. I don't mind jumping in a local 5k to test my fitness and end up 7th place. Or jumping in a Masters swim meet and swim the 100 or 200 freestyle and getting destroyed by some ex-collegiate swimmers. Sometimes these are fun and a great way to learn something new.
In fact, 1 week ago, I raced in my 5th Music City Triathlon. This is a race that I have won 3 times in the past and got 2nd in 2013. I will argue that 2013 was one of my better races in this race because I was coming back from a major injury and hadn't been training seriously for very long. But I will now say that the 2016 race is my best. Chris Douglas from Atlanta came up to race and was only a 1/2 mile from winning the race. Unfortunately for him, the heat caught up with him late in the race and he pushed himself past his limit and never made it to the finish line. I commend Chris on racing so fast and hard for that long and pushing me close to my limit that day. We ran side by side for 5 miles before he wavered. I was able to win this race for the 4th time and do so in front of hundreds of friends and family that I now have here in Nashville. My wife and I are truly grateful for the relationships that we have developed here in Nashville and look forward to starting our family here. I will continue to race and have fun with the sport. I may continue racing as a "pro" or I may step back race as an amateur in 2017. I may focus on qualifying for the Boston marathon and only jump in a triathlon every few months. The only thing that I know for sure is that this blog will now be a resource for coaching. Having been a runner for 14+ years and competing in triathlons since 2005, I have a lot of experience and knowledge about the sport. Hopefully, you can use this website as a source of knowledge about nutrition, racing tactics, training methods, etc. I will do my best to keep it updated and make sure that each post doesn't take 2 hours to read.
I'll post my first blog in the next few days about how I "faked" my cycling fitness at the Music City triathlon and what I did to help my bike split.
T
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