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I didn't fall off...I'm just not on the wagon yet

I'm sure some of my endurance sports readers are wondering, "hey, didn't that guy sign up for a triathlon? He's been oddly quiet about his training." Well, dear readers, I can confirm that our gym membership is being started tomorrow. Of course, with Kelly out of town next week, it will probably be the end of the month before I can really start to hit the pool, but I'm getting myself mentally prepared.

I've literally done almost no exercise since setting a PR in the Chicago Marathon in October. So it's going to be a bit of a climb back to decent condition. But I'm fully ready to having my old gym bag packed to go and I've been itching to get back on the bike...though I will confess to being the typical outdoors-lover who doesn't relish the thought of being in the basement on the trainer. And, you know, I'll have to start eating well...says the man currently still working on the big bag of famous Chicago caramel corn Kelly brought home the other day.

My actual training plan doesn't begin until the first week of March, but it'd be nice to not be struggling to catch up and start with a decent base. So my goal is to spend February swimming given the weather. Really, I plan to be very light in the running department overall. My emphasis is on my weakness--the swim--but time spent on the bike is not only more enjoyable to me but more productive at this point. For those of you not familiar with the triathlon world, you spend about half of any given race on the bike so it's beneficial to be stronger there than the run.

But I'm definitely getting in the mindset lately. I've been browsing for some new pedals. Getting ready to tackle putting my new tires on. Planning my bike's spring tune-up. Tomorrow night I'm attending a seminar by Joe Friel & Ryan Bolton sponsored by the shop my bike is from. Saturday is the Chicago Bike Swap so I'm planning on checking that out to see what I can find.

So despite my lack of updates about "hey, I did a 10 mile ride today," it's just that I'm in the ramp-up phase. Don't worry, you'll be getting too much tri soon. I'm actually considering starting some sort of special hashtag or coded warning system on my social media feeds to help people ignore what will probably turn into wayyyy too much info about endurance sports. We'll see how things progress.