This photo is not of Phoenix, but it can get pretty cold here in the winter. Photo by NOAA Photo Library (Creative Commons License). It’s 201 days until Ironman Mont Tremblant 2021, just over seven months until race day. There are very few valid excuses for not doing a workout, and “It’s cold” is not one of them. Suck it up, Buttercup. Triathlon training means training in the cold. My triathlon coach, David Roher, has recommendations for when his athletes can switch from wearing shorts to tights. When I’m doing a long workout, I dress based on the…

If you told me 20 years ago that I was going to be a devoted vegan, I probably would have laughed. And the reason would have been simple: animal products taste good. Burgers are delicious. Pizza is awesome. Cheesecake can be so good, it’s “orgasmic.” I’ve never been opposed to veganism; I just didn’t think it was something I would want to do. As a student at Oregon State University, I learned a lot of the basics merely by being around people who were vegan. When “The L Word” came out, two of our friends were roommates and…

Shortly after Rosie passed away, I said the over/under for when I got another dog was six months. Who had 145 days? Searching for a Dog and Finding Faith About three months after Rosie passed away, I was ready to start looking for my next basset hound. The Arizona Basset Hound Rescue didn’t have any hounds available for adoption, so I expanded my search to include my local animal control, basset rescues in southern California, Craigslist ads across the entire southwestern U.S. I was even looking as far as St. Louis, Missouri because the humane society there took in …

I’m doing my first full Ironman race in 229 days – Ironman Mont Tremblant in Canada. I was supposed to do it last year, but the race was cancelled, and we all got deferred to this year. I’ve never done heroin, but this is what I say every time I pay for something expensive related to my race. What is the Ironman? The Ironman is a triathlon, composed of the following distances: 2.4-mile (open water) swim, then a 112-mile bike, followed by a 26.2 (full marathon) run, All in under 17 hours. The race starts at 7am, and you must…

Oh my goodness – I’ve been living in a pandemic-based society for over eight months. All of my in-person conferences were converted to virtual ones this year, and my Ironman race was deferred until 2021. For the bulk of the year, I worked and trained. I only left the Phoenix metro area once since we all started needing masks to leave the house. Even with the monotony, there were still some important events that happened this year: Helping Rosie Over the Rainbow Bridge I’d had a suspicion for months that Rosie wasn’t going to make it to end of 2020,…