I know it’s been a while since my last post. I started my training officially about two weeks ago with a new coach and we are starting off pretty slow. This past weekend I did a 2 hour bike ride and that went well. Everything else has been no more than a 60 minute workout be it swimming, biking, or running. Most of my swims have been open water swims in the quarry lake at pure Austin gym. I have to say, my allergies have been wreaking havoc on me. I went to my doctor on Monday to see if there was anything she could do about it. She’s put me on an antibiotic as she says I have a sinus infection and we are trying to wean myself off of the over the counter nasal sprays in favor of flonase. In addition to the allergies, I also wanted to have her check my heart as I’ve been noticing a lot of heart palpitations or what feels like constant skipped heartbeats. So today she sent me to a heart doctor to get a 48 hour heart monitor . As I sit here writing this I have 5 different cords attached to my body with a portable button to push each time I feel it happen. I can still workout with this attached, but I can’t swim, so I guess that limits me to biking and running for the next two days. I’m sure it’s probably nothing, and the latest new bodily reaction to the stress I’ve been under. This weekend I’m scheduled for another two hour ride and a 45 minute run. My new coach is not out to kill me this summer, and I greatly appreciate that. I’m also changing my strategy for the marathon portion of the ironman in light of the fact that there was only a 10 minute difference in my marathon times between the two ironman’s I’ve done, in which I completely ran one of them, and walked the majority of the other one. In light of that, I don’t see the need to kill myself by trying to run the entire marathon portion of ironman when I can walk it just as fast. Pretty interesting. What’s kind of weird about it is that I ran the entire Coeur D’Alene marathon of ironman in 2009 and it was a pretty flat run course. I walked the majority of Ironman St George and it was an extremely hilly course, and the difference was only 10 minutes. Amazing! I was walking pretty fast too, so why run, when I can walk faster???? Considering I will be doing Ironman Hawaii through the lava fields in 90 degree plus heat, I think I will plan on walking it. More to come later….