And that's a wrap on 2017

You know, if you don't count pretty much the entire spring, 2017 was a good year! It definitely didn't go as planned, but I feel good about it. And I even managed to beat my mileage from 2015. Just barely. Had to do a long bike ride to get there this morning, hahaha! (wasn't even close on the 2016 mileage, but having to take about 6 weeks off will do that...)

Swim: 200,110 m
Bike: 6164.4 km
Run: 1779.5 km

A few highs and lows from the year:

Highlight - solid training block for Around the Bay

Going through pics and trying to pull out ones I haven't posted before. Boy, we really didn't get much snow last winter, did we? This winter is proving to be a bit different so far...

This seems so long ago now, but I really put together a good block of training leading up to what was going to be a PB attempt at ATB.

Lowlight - not actually getting to run Around the Bay due to flu.

Which was then followed by coughing my lungs out for six weeks. The less said about April and most of May, the better, really.

Highlight - getting back on my feet in time for triathlon season

It's a love/hate relationship with the bike trainer

Yay exercise!

Lowlight - feeling really unfit, especially running, for pretty much the whole summer

Pretty sunrise but the running part kind of sucked

Highlight - having some really awesome races and results!

Milton was a lacklustre race (although given my lack of training going in, that wasn't a big surprise, but everything got a lot better from there! A surprise age group place at Guelph Lake I; a race that actually felt really good and well paced at Niagara. Then probably my favourite race the whole year, Iron Girl. 3rd place for my (really large) age group was incredibly satisfying. And the feeling of running out of transition leading my age group from T2? Wow. Definitely something I'd love to recapture again! And then I topped it off with a pretty great race and another 3rd place at Guelph Lake II.

Random sunrise run

Heading to the finish at Iron Girl, deep in the pain cave but super happy

Solid results all around! But now my t shirt drawer is full...

Things didn't start great, but I really enjoyed my summer of races, and once this whole Iron Man deal is done, I think I will probably focus again on sprints/olympics. It's really nice to do races that are wrapped up before noon and don't leave you in pain for a week after...

Lowlight - utter failure at the Oakville half

This one doesn't show my face, which was NOT HAPPY.

Ugh. Man that race did not go well.

Highlight - signing up for Ironman Mont Tremblant and putting in a really solid block of base training over November/December.

Pick up heavy things, put them down. I have been noticing a really big difference since I started lifting semi-regularly in both my shoulder soreness (gone) and my sciatic problems (quiet). All the more reason to keep it up!

Since signing up for Mont Tremblant things have been going really well. Solid amounts of swimming! Regular training rides! Lifting weights semi-regularly (don't check if I did any this week, though. shhhhhhhhhh). And running feels really good again! So many exclamation points!

In the vein of taking things more seriously, this little book has prompted me to extend my swim workouts from my old standard of '2,000m of whatever I feel like and call it a day' to 'do actual sets with purpose' and more like 2500-2800m workouts. Figure that can only help with my endurance for the Iron Man!

And on that note, it's time to kick things into gear and start officially training for this thing. Yikes. Things are about to get serious, including hopefully remembering to write a weekly blogpost going forward!