My good friend Paul Sears and I have been training with Team in Training to raise money for The Leukemia & Lymphoma's society mission to help find a cure for leukemia, lymphoma, Hodgkin's disease and myeloma.

If you'd like to support our fundraising efforts, please check out Paul's Fundraising page here: http://pages.teamintraining.org/sd/ironnz12/psears

We have been involved with the organization for over 8 years -- training for various events such as century rides and triathlons (up to a half ironman). When given the opportunity to train for an Ironman in New Zealand we jumped at the opportunity!

We are less than 2 month away from our big event. Training is brutal this month, I am already tired :)

Thank you for your support!

We are now hitting 16+ hours of training a week. We've been slowly increasing our base up to this point, but it's "Ironman" training now! My coaches have set up a training plan to help us get through the season injury free, but at the same time making sure we cross that finish line under 17 hours. Many of my teammates are shooting for 16:59:59. I am hoping to finish within 15 hours. The pros/elites finishin in 8-9 hours! This makes planning race nutrition a big challenge for us who will be out there twice as long. Right now I'm trying out Toaster Pastries (plain, no icing!), CheezIts (it seems to be our team snack), and Honey Stinger Organic Chews, and Hammer Perpetuem as my liquid nutrition. So far these seem to work okay when we are training in aerobic pace... the question is how will I feel during the marathon?!

Every Wednesday I meet my run buddy for morning run at Los Penasquitos Canyon East. We are usually greeted by a few critters here and there, such as small birds or rabbits. We noticed Wed mornings are unusually quiet, we're lucky to see 1 or 2 mountain bikers or joggers (in contrast to the weekend). I've been fortunately enough to watch some deer grazing in the wooded areas, and unlucky enough to be bitten by a pretty mean spider...we've even seen a coyote skitter across the trail.

Today was like any other Wednesday morning except his time, my run buddy couldn't make it because of a conflict. It was pretty foggy this morning, and I questioned whether I should hit the trail or not. I finally decided on the usual Penasquitos Run.

The workout called for a 10-15 min warm up and some Fartlek's... So I went on my merry way, starting at Canyonside Recreational Park on the south trail, heading south, then west on the main trail. I probably was on the trail for no longer than a minute when I noticed I noticed a critter ahead walking east (toward me).

Hm, too big for a coyote I thought...

Definitely not a deer...

Doesn't walk like a dog...

Kind of walks like... a very.. big.. cat.

The big cat proceeded on walking slowly, sort of checking out its surroundings... I don't even feel like he/she noticed me, but instinct kicked in and I decided to return to my car. Let's just say that was probably the fastest zone 2 to zone 5 leap recorded on my Garmin.

I called the ranger line to let them know I might've seen a mountain lion. The ranger was so excited to hear the news and asked me if I had any details to give (what color was its tail, etc etc). It made me wish I spent a little more time appreciating the animal rather than running way from it, but given the circumstances I think it was the safest thing to do :)

Anyway just wanted to wish everyone a safe week. Happy trails :)

My team participated in the San Diego Tri Classic last weekend for practice. We had a great time practicing our transitions from swim to bike to run. I think I took in a little too much ocean water :o) Here I am finishing the bike course and getting ready for the run!

My team has set a goal to raise $500,000 so I have increased my personal goal accordingly :)

"Official" Ironman specific training has started! Most notably, our swim distance has increased quite a bit! Our coaches are preparing us for the winter months where we will have consecutive long swims, bikes, and runs! (Bye bye weekends!).

Early this summer, we have been working on building our endurance base so we can prepare for more strenuous training. Several teammies had been training for a 1/2 Ironman and just finished 2 weeks ago. Saturday marked the first workout where the entire team was there! We rode a beautiful 37 mile route along the coasts between Torrey Pines and De Anza Cove, followed by a jog along Mission Bay.