cough, cough

Cough, cough - the dust is bad in here! Sorry folks, it's been a while. I've been putting in some long hours at work, and I think it's paying off. There are indicators that we are at the bottom of whatever economic crisis we are in right now, and heading up. Good news for RV salesmen. Seems that we are the first to dive into the recession, and the first to get our noses up. The season for RV sales is the winter time - folks from the barren tundra you call the Northern States head south to escape the snow. These folks who still have money, hopefully will let some of it out of their bank accounts this winter and trickle it's way into my bill collector's hands. Bypassing me completely. Funny how that works.

A little success in that regard goes a long way toward motivating me to shed some weight and get back in shape. I'm 20 weeks away from the Gasparilla Marathon - this will be the last year the city of Tampa runs this race, and I think I'll run it. Two weeks later is the Gator Half Ironman down here in Sarasota in early March. It bills itself as the fastest half Ironman in the country - so I'm guessing it will be pretty flat.

Coming up soon will be the Hilly Hundred (Oct 18th) and Horrible Hundred (Nov 15th). Nothing like a hilly century or two to get the legs pumped up. The trick after those will be to balance the run volume with some bike maintenance so that the Gator can be a good race, and I can PR the Marathon.

Next May will bring the Cross Florida Bike ride - this one run by a bike club, and better organized and less greedy. I've got a good feeling about the organization, and feel like it would be important to tackle that event.

This is way premature, but the Minnesota B2B - abandoned this year due completely to finances - could be back on the table for the end of July '10. It's early to say if this RV season will be a good one, but if it is, I'd really like to try and convince a couple of wack'os like me to hit it.

Then what? Who knows? Firmly entrenched in summer, any training after July I've come to learn, is pretty much torture. This week marks the first break in days above 90 degrees since they started at the beginning of the summer. I won't plan any further out. I'm not signed up for any Ironman races for '10, although my buddy Lee seems to want to put IMFL10 on the schedule. But that's just not going to happen.