2018 IMWC

Ironman World Championships is in the books!   What a wonderful wrap up to this year.  Thanks to Jayne for making this happen.   Thank you to Sandy and Mark for traveling out, Kim and Andrew for volunteering and the Big Island for being such a wonderful host.

What a year!!!

I won a lottery slot to the 2012 Ironman World Championships in Kona Hawaii!!!! This means I will do Boston Marathon! 70.3 Worlds and Ironman World Championships all in 2012! What a great feat for me this year. I a really excited and looking forward to getting super fast in the next year. Kona will be marvelous and we have already made travel arrangements through the famous EST! Despite tough times, things could be looking up!

A Dream Come True

Even a couple weeks after the race, I still cannot believe I am writing this. After 9 years of focusing on one goal, it finally came to fruition. The goal was lofty for me and at times seemed completely out of reach. Going from what I thought was an "athlete" to back surgery to multiple stress frectures, I never thought my body would allow me to put enough effort in to make this dream come true.

Whatever great things you have heard about the Ironman World Championships in Kona, it is 10 times better!!!! I love this race and I love this island.

My goal for the race was simple.......relax, smile and have fun, no racing anything

GOAL COMPLETED 10:31:26

I had a great couple weeks there and met come great people! I can't list them all but here is a start:

Erik and Ben from K-Swiss

Michael, Nick and the InfinIT crew

Mike from BlueSeventy

Allen from Blue Bicycles

David from Nathan

Sydney and Trish

Shawn

Mark

Bree

Dede

Belinda

Thanks to Classic Travel in Okemos for getting me out there!

Thanks to Jayne for keeping me sane and the great support as well as the trip to South Point.

What a wonderful time! I still can't even explain it.

More to come...

Kona Qualification

Well after 9 full triathlon seasons and 7 Ironman races, I finally qualified for The Ironman World Championships. On August 29th, 2010, I raced to 10:06, giving me 4th place in the M40-44 Age Group and was 35th overall for the event.

Prior IM races have been:

Ironman Wisconsin

Ironman Lake Placid

Ironman Coeur d'Alene

Ironman Louisville x4

I can thank many people for this but Jayne, my solid training partner, Sag runner, equipment hauler and motivational guru made this possible.

I can say this: Working full time, having kids and two additional owned businesses do not make training for Kona an easy task. I am thrilled to finally make it!

Train Smart,

Jimi

Closing?

Please shoot me an email if you are reading this blog. I may close it very soon and just keep updates on the web page.

Sunny 20+ Afternoon

It was an unusually warm weekend for February in Michigan. We had a huge meltdownon Saturday and today were blessed with some sun.

It was the kind of sun that shines through the largest window in your home and inspires you to do something. On a day that I could easily have taken off of working out I was able to get my butt off the floor and out IN the sun.

While I felt like a turtle and my time confirms it, today I squeezed out a little over a 20 mile run. While I have A LONG WAY TO GO, I am thankful I was able to run this far. 6 months ago I was laying on the couch on my side with stitches in my back and drugged so rolling over didn't hurt. I was doubting I could ever run again.

Even weeks after surgery I could barely walk around the block. Thoughts of selling my new bike and never being able to train, let alone race absolutely consumed me. Racing in Kona is my absolute dream.

I thank all my doctors, family and friends and sponsors for standing by me. Today, I thank Jayne for riding her Mt. bike for just shy of 3 hours, listening to my training and life babble.

Hopefully there is way more training to come.

30 miles finally

This week has been an up and down week.

The low light was: A horrible Wednesday mid-day swim session after a long sleepless night.

The highlights were: A 16mi run, teaching a tough spinning class (preceded and followed by a run brick), an 11mi run with one of my athletes, who is doing fantastic so far this year.

I look forward to hopefully gaining more strength and having a good year in 2009.