Back to the routine...

Wow. It has been a while since I last posted.

I feel like time has just been slipping by since I returned home.

I think I slept for about 3 days when I got back from China. I then took a few more days off before resuming really easy training. Since I had come back from Europe really unfit and pretty exhausted I decided to take a week to just ease back into the idea of training. So, for the first week back I just did what I felt like, which amounted to a lot of riding, a fair amount of swimming and less running. However, after that week, with 4 weeks until race time in China, I knew I needed to get back on track and quickly.

I took a little bit of time to catch up with my surrogate family and my friends out here. I have seen a few movies (Dark Knight = AWESOME and Tropic Thunder = totally hilarious though slightly inappropriate at times), have gone out to get dinner a few times and have just tried to mentally take a deep breath. It has been so nice to see everyone, I definitely missed my support network out here while I was away.

The small hiccup in the normal routine was the difficult decision that I made to part ways with my current coach. I just felt like where the group was headed and what I saw myself needing were two different things. I am so appreciative of everything that Siri has done for me and I really credit her with getting me back on track and helping to really give me back my dream. So, without a coach, I had the difficult task of trying to figure out how to train myself. I have a rough idea of what I need, how many kilometers and hours per week, but it is certainly hard to write yourself a program and to actually follow it when no one is there watching you and you have no one to train with or to make you go out and do the session. But, in the end, it is my dream, so if I want to make it happen, it is ultimately on me and no one else.

After a few emails with my brother's coach back in Boston, Tim Crowley, he sent me along a basic weekly structure and I filled in the blanks with specific workouts and distances. At least, I had a plan to follow for the week!

In the meantime, I have been hard at work doing research. I know that there isn't time to mess around as London is just around the corner, so I want to find the right coach and right program to take me to the next level. I got a few email addresses and started to approach some coaches to find out what other programs are out there. I quickly found that is is a rather hard time of the year, with the Olympics just ending, because everyone really needs a break at this point. But they were all quite responsive and gave me some solid options. I'll have more news to come about my final decision and what may be the biggest adventure for me, to date, which is just around the corner.

Until then, it is back to work. I've got a race to go after in Suixian, China in a few weeks time!