I have 22 weeks until Barb's Race - my HIM. Two weeks until I start "training."

I had all sorts of grand ideas about what I was going to do through the winter. Most of them didn't happen. Whatever... I am still in better shape then I was last year at this time.

Last year I did Barb's Race as a fundraiser. I don't think I'm going to do that this year. My pool of potential donors is pretty small and I don't like hitting them up every year.

I've been thinking about my goals for the race. I expect I'll still race Athena. I weigh 154 right now. The Vineman people cut off Athena at 145. While i can certainly picture where I could take off ten pounds, I don't see THAT happening.

Last year I unbelievably placed third. I won the swim for the group, with a time of 34:34. That's good enough for me right now and I don't plan on focusing much training time on the swim again.

I placed 4th on the bike with a time of 3:37. I definitely want to improve there. I was 4th on the run with a time of 3:07. I think I ran maybe 1 out of the 13.1 miles. So lots of room for improvement.

Who knows what this year's field will be like, so I'm not even going to think about placing again. Although I was only 4 minutes behind second and 37 minutes behind first.

I think I'd really like to get the total time under 7 hours. I think most of the time will have to come off of the run and a bit off the bike.

The time change is coming , the weather is getting warmer and I'm getting into a training frame of mind. Finally.

Veronica