They say excuses are like a$$holes; everyone has one and they usually stink. The problem was, I had several. Some of them were real issues. Well actually most of them were. Some of them still are.
When the Ironman idea first started getting kicked around I was fat. Really fat.....which has happened before but this was the fatest I had ever been. I started a diet (another entry in itself) at 279 pounds in mid-August 2012. Thus, way too fat to even start getting in shape. I needed to lose 50 lbs just so I could start running. There was no way I could do an ironman unless I lost more than 100 lbs. Yep, game over, impossible!
In June 2012 Lindsay and I found out we were expecting a child. This may be another blog entry later but I will touch on it a little here. We were excited, but we were not ready. We weren't even trying to get pregnant if you catch my drift. Our time was now spent getting ready for child. There was carpet to replace, painting to be done and a last hurrah hunting season to make sure occurred. Some of it got done, some didn't. And we hadn't even had the baby yet! Summer and fall quickly came and went and before we knew it our son Miles Patrick arrived. Without a doubt he was the best thing to happen to us. Life and priorities greatly changed. Free time? Rarely happened. There was no way I could find time to train with this new responsibility. But wait, Chris has three kids, Marisa is pregnant with their fourth and Chris was considering doing the Ironman. If Chris could carve out time, so could I. Lin and I worked out a schedule were I could get about 8 hours a week of training in. We knew it would have to increase down the road but it would have to do for now.
These were/are the two greatest challenges for me. There are others, which will come up, but weight issues and family commitments were the toughest.
Thank you Lindsay for help in both of these areas. As I write this, I weigh 185 lbs and Miles is a healthy, beautiful, 4 1/2 month old.