T minus 235 days . . . training begins for Liz!

Hi all, Liz here.

Yesterday marked the beginning of my Ironman training!! I’ve taken four weeks to rest up from the NYC marathon and thoroughly enjoyed it. I did a whole lot of nothing and ate lots of excellent, delicious food. I had some serious knee/foot pain after the marathon, but it seems to be fine now. I doubted how much a marathon could destroy the body, but I now stand corrected.

I celebrated the start of training with a 50 minute run last night through the streets of Boston. I usually do my runs along the Charles River but with it dark by the time I get home and little lighting on the route, I chose to skip it and take alternative streets. I get annoyed running through Boston because like any city, there are traffic lights at the end of each block which makes for a lot of stop and going, but last night was relatively calm. All the holiday lights made for nice run and helped pass the time. Happy Holidays, Boston drivers! Discovered a sign on my run announcing free metered parking on Saturdays for the month of December, pretty cool. Also, did you happen to look up last night? The moon, Venus and Jupiter made an almost perfect triangle in the sky and all three were visible. It was a cool sight. I tried to get a picture but Jupiter wasn’t showing up - here's a pic from online.

John has me doing a small swim focus this month and spending my winter riding. Jus and I both signed up for a swim clinic in January to help turn us into sharks : ) Sounds like the clinic and increasing my yardage will really help me out. I am by far the weakest on the bike, hence the riding focus this winter. It’s going to suck to have to ride for hours in the dead cold but I just gotta do it! It will all pay off, that I know and I’ll be telling myself that throughout each ride to help me get through them.

That’s all for now. I do a 45 min swim tonight. It feels like forever since I’ve been in the pool.