What will you do when Ironman throws you a curveball?

Well that's the decision I was faced with this morning. However, before we get to what I did when the ball got to me we have to go back a few months.

It was this past Winter when we were training for Lonestar 70.3 and several of my training friends and I had our weekend all planned out and Mother Nature had other plans in mind. I don't remember what we ended up doing that weekend but what I do remember from that weekend are the words John Jobes said "when things don't work out as planned because of weather we'll have to train when we can"

Simple enough right?

Back to this weekend, the plans were:

• Saturday, go for a 40-50 mile ride
• Sunday, swim stroke clinic and then go for a 8 mile run

This weekend roll of Ironman was played by Mother Nature. The storms from Friday night rolled right into Saturday morning and it was very easy to just turn off the alarm clock and go back to sleep because it was raining. Shortly after getting up the rain stopped and the wind picked up. Still easy to blow off the ride because wet roads with wind wasn't safe. The little guy in my head said it's ok, it's just one ride and you can miss it and have no problem. True but would one missed ride turn into two, then three and so on over the next 5+ months.

Throughout this decision process I was exchanging text messages with Eric C. and one of his text messages said, "he and John were going to swim and then ride because he wasn't giving in that easy." That's what I needed to hear. The little Ironman to-be inside was kicked in the rear by those words and I said to myself. "Yes you were going to ride today but I must be flexible and get the training in when I can." So after I changed some plans around for Sunday afternoon my day opened up a little more to allow for ride so it was time to go for a run.

This turned out to be one of the best runs ever!! I saw several friends and training mates at the start and then I took off. My pace was fast, I focused on staying relaxed (thanks Coach Leslie), and watched my crossover (thanks Richard). One thought that kept coming to mind while I ran was, if I would have given in to the weather what would this mean for the rest of the summer when Ironman training gets really tough, was I going to give in? No because while the training plan calls this phase pre-endurance training, I think it's really pre-gut check training and time for us to ask ourselves "how bad do we want it?"

Ironman, I'm ready to take your best pitch, show me what you got because I'm ready to show you what I'm made of!!!

Thanks everyone, you motivate me with the small things to keep going