I really hunkered down this last week and did only what was absolutely necessary. I trained alone for all my workouts an just tried to simplify things down a bit. I was successful in putting to bed that panicked, I don't have enough time, feeling. I feel better in that regard. For those of you who see a lot of MAF work on your schedules...this ones for you. I almost rear ended the guy trying to take this one!

Annie finished Kindergarten this week. She is also almost up to my collar bone, and she is 6. It's only a short matter of time before she passes me on her way up. We put her in swimming class this summer, in hopes of getting her into swim club soon. She's a little fidgety and energetic so I'm hoping the swimming will help, I think of Michael Phelps sometimes when I can't get her to sit still.

All the times we have dragged her to the pool with us has really paid off. Her first swimming lesson she was put into level 6, the highest level and her teacher told us she is ready for stroke school. After stroke school it's swim club, so we are close! I can not describe the joy that watching her swim brings me. Learning to swim as an adult I have such an appreciation for the little swimmer in her. She's so fearless. I was similar as a kid, just not in the water, not after my eye sight went south and I had to wear glasses. That was the end of the confident swimmer in me.

Since I have been laying low this week I took the opportunity to catch up on my reading. Several highly anticipated books in the endurance world have come out recently.

Chrissie Wellington - A Life Without Limits: Humm, I was expecting to be blown away. She's a great speaker so I thought there would be a lot of rah-rah in there, but not so much. It's more a story that is equal parts her life before Ironman as a civil servant, and her life during Ironman where she kicked ass before she even knew that she was kicking ass. You understand what makes her tick by the end, that's for sure!

Rich Roll - Finding Ultra: I was pretty blown away by this book. I found it to be more genuine and real than I was expecting. It was inspirational, and he was really honest about the demons he's faced. It was also interesting to read about how he found his way to being vegan, and I would say he is now known as Mr.Vegan hot endurance athlete. Quite a change from where he came from. I really dug his point of view.

Scott Jurek - Eat and Run: I think I pulled more usable gems out of this book than any I have read in awhile. Scott has won so many ultras in his life, so many 100 milers, and a guy who spends that much time with himself knows how to navigate pain. I dug his stories and I had trouble putting it down. He was also vegan before Rich Roll even knew what nutritional yeast was, and he provides a sort of real time tested look on it. I also like that Scott tries things, he experiments. Sometimes his races don't go well. He doesn't chase perfection, just progress. That was a breath of fresh air.

Any other good endurance/sports books anyone has gotten though recently? I heard Amanda Beard wrote a great one, need to download it. I want to start 14 minutes - the memoir by Alberto Salazar.

I've also been trying to eat really well. After the set back I wanted to make sure I got lots of good food back in my system.

Oh, I also signed up for another Ironman. You always gotta be thinking a year ahead with these things. This time, more that anything I really wanted to mix it up and go exotic. It may be on a shoestring, and we may be sleeping on the beach, but I'm so excited to get another punch in my passport for what will hopefully be Ironman #9 for me (after CDA and Kona this year). Oh, and Troy signed up too. Yes, the man who had never done a triathlon is now signed up for two Ironmans.

Well, that about sums it up. I'm a little less that two weeks out from Coeur d'Alene now. 10 days until I leave. They will go by fast, they always do. I hope all of you that are in your final workouts for this race are feeling fit and ready to go. See ya there.