From Wildflower to Vineman

After Wildflower there was a lot of personal issues and drama that took place. I will gloss over the details. Anyway, Kathryn and I were having issues and that really distracted me from training. I got very depressed and ultimately ended up on and off medication. The issues turned to break-ups, getting back together, some inbetween time, and eventually we devolved into not even being friends and I quit the team to keep the peace. It was sad to quit the team and to not finish what I had started, and it was sad not to do the race with Kathryn like we had planned. It is what it is.

In doing so there was a discrepancy over the room costs for Clear Lake, which was a training weekend. Kathryn and I finally split over Clear Lake and Josh was supposed to take my room. Being the douchebag that he is, he never showed up. Kathryn had told me she would work it out and that never happened and Mike Kyle decided to act like a nutcase with me, so I finally let him have it. Seriously, at Mike’s age he ought to know how to act like an adult, but I guess he felt that he needed to crucify someone and I got to be the lucky recipient. Mike and many others decided to “take sides” in my breakup with Kathryn, though I never asked any of them to. It is too bad that people decided that they needed to take action, but it showed me the true character of people and made me thankful to purge false friends.

So, time passed and I wasn’t really training at all. I did a few long bike rides until about May and then pretty much stopped training at all. I focused on getting my life back together early on, then I got a new girlfriend that I was focused on, and then lost my job and was focused on finding a new one. All in all, it wasn’t the best time.

After not running for 3 months, I decided it would be a great idea to run 24 miles off-road the week before my Ironman. I went there with the intention of watching and endedup grabbing my stuff out of my trunk and signing up at the last minute. It went better than I thought it would and I got some good confidence out of it, but I don’t think that was the best idea overall. I did discover a love for trail running though, and might have gotten a little respect from Jeanette, my new BFF, who also did the race (she did the 50K).