Well you must feel like the ‘Red-Headed Step Child’. It’s not that I’ve been ignoring you intentionally, really. I think about you almost daily, but I’ve just been unable to ink the pen and write to you like I should.

So in an attempt to make up, and catch up, I think I’ll break this entry into a two-part post; one to recap the past few months and one to look at what is in store for 2013.

So let’s rewind to September. The month started off with my son getting married. It was an amazing wedding, and Charlene and I now have a beautiful and loving daughter-in-law. We are so proud of both of them in this year of transition; new jobs, new home, the Wedding, National News Celebrities, and just recently a New Puppy (Meryl). It has truly been a year they will never forget!

Then a bit later in September;

This year I was in Madison, not as a participant, but as a volunteer and spectator. It was great fun and, I saw some amazing, gut wrenching performances by several of my friends. You guys now who you are (Amy, Dave, Jenny, Milan, Tiffany, Tina, Steve, and Wiseman). You truly do inspire. They each had their own story and journey to get to the start line and finish line as True Ironmen and IronWomen!

The most memorable of the day has got to go to Wiseman with his hair-raising just under the wire swim plus T1 time, making the cut-off by an amazing 32 secs.

I had a blast cheering and helping out. And by the way, I did manage to register for the 2013 race, but there will be more on that later…

Moving on; The 2012 Twin Cities Marathon – Race Report

This will be a very brief review, but if you would like a detailed description along with a training plan for how NOT to train for a marathon, I’d be happy to share. My longest training run between mid-July and the race was 12-miles, and that was in August. I’m not making excuses. I’m just saying that this is not how you want to approach a 26.2 mile running road race.

My travel schedule for the second half of the year was challenging and was not cohesive to good training. So, going into the race I had no real expectations other than just finishing my 3rd TCM and getting another finishers shirt. My strategy was to run 9:00 min miles for as long as I could, which ended up being exactly 17 miles. I ran into a friend just before the the 18 mile marker. Unfortunately, he was also struggling. So for the next 8+ miles, we walked, talked, and jogged our way to the finish line.
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One final bit of news prior to rapping up this post, and since it has been four months, I guess it’s okay to publicize the following news.

I have adopted a whole foods plant based diet. I’ve tilted this way for many years and have experimented during lent with abstaining from meat. I have; however, never attempted to also abstain from dairy in addition to meat. Some might actually use the dreaded V word to describe my diet and lifestyle choice. I’m not quite ready for that label. It has many other connotations beyond diet that I’m uncomfortable with. I’ve chosen this lifestyle change for many reasons, but I was inspired by the following books in particular:

The Thrive Diet – Brendan Brazier
Finding Ultra – Rich Roll
Food Revolution – John Robbins

In addition to meat and diary, I’ve also chosen to greatly reduce alcohol (in four months I have consumed about 3 servings) and caffeine, which has been reduced to green tea and an occasional decaf-coffee.

These changes are the cornerstone of my 2013 training plan:

Eat Right – Sleep Right – Train Right

If nothing else, 2013 will be interesting…part-two coming soon…