post Ironman fun

Well it has been a while since I posted any thoughts of my own or substance, so I will do a quick catchup post of the past few weeks. Jocelyn and I had some Steelers tickets for the Vikings game back on October 25th thanks to her age group win at the Steeler's 5k earlier in the year. I'm thankful we were at that one and not this most recent bungle against the Bengals.The following weekend included some fun and Halloween partying, most notably at Chraly's (Chris & Alyson) house in Crapopolis where Jocey and I were dressed as the Cornwoman and a hippie, respectively. Check out those tight jeans.
I was good about not running at all for the first week after the Ironman and generally did very little for the first two weeks post race. I eased back into some activity with swimming and mountain biking, and the main goal has been to have fun these past 5.5 weeks while staying active. That means no trainer rides and very limited Forerunner watching, keeping all runs at least of the MAF intensity. I have been doing quite a bit of mountain biking though, and while the heart rate probably does spike more often than it should powering up some steep kickers, and mainly from chasing this guy, I have been having a ton of fun at Bavington, North Park, and the Sewickley Heights trails.Last Friday afternoon our marriage certificate came from the State of Hawaii, officially making Jocelyn a Cornman, or cornwoman, as was previously shown. That was exciting, and then it was off for a busy weekend of activity.
Friday night my family met Alyson's for the first time at Willow and had a very nice evening discussing family stories, nuances, places lived, and drinking a fair amount of BYOB wine, and then a little extra that the Brantley women smuggled in. The triathletes pictured below had legs that were too tired, or wine filled, to hold them upright.
Over the last few weekends I have also been staying entertained with my virtual spectating experiences of IM Florida and Clearwater 70.3 Worlds, the latter totally blowing my mind with the times that were thrown down by the winners. Michael Raelert of Germany won the men's race in 3:34:04, running his way to victory with a 1:09:06 half marathon to close, breaking the previous world record and last year's winning time by 6 minutes. Insane, although maybe not so much since that race seems to have evolved into some sort of ITU-70.3 hybrid.

This week has been back to the grind, but last night I had my virgin night mountain biking experience with Pop. This dark mtbing was a wicked good time, and think my winter sanity may very well be pulled back from the evil clutches of indoor training riding. Unless of course Jocey and I get the desired CompuTrainer. A self portrait from last night taken at the top of the Y trail before descending back down into town to call it a night.
So that's it for now, off to bed so I can hopefully get up before work and get a run in, but stayed tuned for upcoming posts with some big news and good pictures!