For those of you who haven’t known me a long time, I grew up as a heavy child and probably hit my highest weight when I was around 21. (If I had to guess, I’d say I was around 375-400 lbs). After a lot of hard work and various exercise programs (ranging from weights to walking to handball) I got myself down to around 240.

Since then, I’ve been trying my hand at tons of things I never thought I’d be able to do. In 2007, I ran a marathon for the first time. In 2009, I ran the Goofy Challenge which consists of a half marathon and a full marathon one day after the other. I took a break for some time after that and have kinda been tinkering around with the idea of doing another endurance race, but I really wanted something that seemed REALLY ridiculous. When Traci and I got rid of cable and went back to an antenna, we started getting Universal Sports Channel..which basically cycles like…10-20 events and just puts them on repeat, phasing newer events in from time to time. Among those events is the Ford Ironman Championship in Kona Hawaii. A 140.3 mile race consisting of a 2.1 mile swim, 112 mile bike, and 26.2 mile run. As I watched the race I saw people getting blown off their bikes by the wind, passing out from the heat and exhaustion…and vomiting from time to time. So of course….I wanna do this race!!

I am aware that this will harder than anything I’ve done up to this point in my life (and frankly, doing something more physically challenging than this will be tough as well). I’m creating smaller goals (racing a few sprint triathlons, and racing at least 1 or 2 half-ironmans before thinking about attempting a full ironman) and giving myself 2-3 years to get to the final goal…which is to finish the 140.3 miles within the time constraint (which I believe is 17 hours).

Right now, my training consists of a day of biking and running (I’m going to work the swimming in later once I find a good place to swim) on one day, strength training the second day, and then a day of rest/recovery. I’ll keep this schedule for awhile and build up endurance and then possibly change to a different routine type.

Today’s workout went pretty well. Given that I’m MUCH newer to biking than I am to running, the biking is where I’m seeing the fastest gains in endurance and distance coverage. I covered 12 miles on the stationary bike in just under an hour, and then ran 5 miles (with small walk breaks) in just under an hour. Let’s see how my legs feel tomorrow!

While I do laundry, I’ll just post a bit about myself and what this blog will (hopefully) talk about!

- I’m a semi-professional poker player and coach! I’ll definitely talk about playing and coaching, post some hand-histories, and possibly some videos in the future.

-I’ve been an endurance athlete for the past few years and have run two marathons (including the Goofy Challenge Marathon and a Half). I am currently dipping my toe into the water or triathlon training, with the ultimate goal of doing Kona in 2011.

-I have a pretty non-standard view of love and relationships, I think. I’ve been in a wonderful relationship for the past four years, which has now been open for almost two years.

-Of course, there will also be the standard ranting, mindless chatter, and other stuff that happens in every blog!

I should probably go fold clothes now…there will be more to come, I promise!!