A New Year and a Fresh Start

I know, I got some Splainin' to do. Missing updates and all that...

Happy New Year!

Now that that is out of the way, let's dive right in.

First, let me again remind all you readers that Beginnertriathlete.com's Mentor Groups are now open. Here is a handy link to mine... and although I admit to being on the low end of awesome mentors (and there are some truly great ones) I promise to try my best to be as great of a mentor as possible. I also want to say that these mentor groups, although targeted towards "beginners" are not exclusively for them. Heck, I've had people in some of my past groups that I would say knew a ton more than I did. So just because you're a tri veteran, don't think they aren't for you.

New Years Day I had a 5k, my first since Thanksgiving. I was pretty excited because... well... I love racing. Then I opened the front door at 6a.m. Pouring down rain and colder than my last exes black heart. (okay, not quite that cold)

Brightest shoes in the picture! That counts for something...right?

I'd say I had a good race report to put down, but basically... it was a cold rainy flat 5k. I probably went out of the gates a little too hot (5:58/mi pace for the first mile) and suffered for it the last mile (6:18/mi pace) which is about par for the course... I always have a tough time keeping right at (while still under) red line the first 1/2 mile. I do know that there is no way I can ever wear gloves again while racing. They annoyed the crap out of me at about mile 1.75... I think it was because they were soaking wet, but it could just be that when I start feeling like crap I blame it on something...in this case my gloves. (In Augusta I very nearly threw my Garmin 305 in the trash because I was blaming it for continually "beeping" to let me know I was too slow off pace haha) That said, the Calhouns First of the Year 5k was a great race. Although sub 19' still eludes me, I squeaked out a 19:21. It was good to have another solid foot race under my belt, and of course a great way to start off the year! (/Report)

Christmas brought me a couple of nice little presents. The big dog was the much needed replacement to my poor 305 Forerunner.

Not my arm. I purposefully found the hairiest arm I could... since I have Sasquatch envy.

That's right, a good ole' 310xt was under the tree for me! My 305 was struggling to survive (too many trips in the water under my swim cap I suspect.) and ready for retirement, but I was too cheap to buy a replacement... fortunately Santa found it in his heart to get me one!  I'll work out a review (despite being pretty late to the party) soon, but as a teaser let me just say... man this thing was a PITA to set up. It came with instructions in like 8 different languages (funny, instead of them all being in one big book, there were 8 separate books!) none of them actually said you needed to go to mygarmin.com to get the software needed for it to sync (wirelessly!) with your computer. Frustrating. Nonetheless, after some forum trolling, I got it set up and I'm loving it! It's also quite a bit smaller than the 305, which is good for guys like me with such tiny arms :)

I also got this bundle of joy!

Christmas is every day I can enjoy watching a squirrel with a giant head out my window

Yes, that's me holding a Big Head Squirrel Feeder. Silly and probably a bit more expensive than it should be by looking at Amazon's price, but nonetheless, I giggle like a kid every time I look out my window and see a squirrel eating out of it. I mean... just look at how awesome this is...

Chuckling even as I type this

Maybe It just doesn't take much to entertain me but man I love this thing.

Back to business...

To recap the year, my totals were
- 3313 miles biked
- 1146 miles ran
- 377,650 meters swam

Not a bad year, especially considering I was unable to run / bike much of the first quarter. Of course, I'm looking to absolutely crush those numbers (especially the running one) this year.

All that leaves us with is the New Years Resolution.
Mine, almost embarrassingly, is to learn how to dance. There have been a couple of recent occasions (like my friends weddings) where I would really have loved to have been able to at least hold my own in a slow dance.  I know, an odd goal, but one I want to knock out nonetheless. I'll leave the fitness resolutions to the people who sign up for a 4 year membership to the globo-gym and then quit going by March. :)

Until Next time, I hope your Holidays were Awesome. Here's looking for an even better 2013!

Thanks again for reading... oh and Happy Birthday to all my multisport friends :)

-Christopher Morelock