It's been awhile!

In the blogosphere, I'm sure that is a understatement. If you don't write a new blog post in a couple of days, your readers will go elsewhere. I've seen it happen; I've done it myself; it's just what happens. If I look back over the last few weeks - really the last month and all the changes from the move, to vacation, to illness, to Nate beginning his new job today, I realize that it has truly been a whirlwind. Because of that, my marathon training went out the window. It's not good. It's not right. But, it is what it is. I can't go back, I can't change it. All I can do is move on and do all I can do today to help prepare. I got back on Myfitnesspal.com and am tracking my food and my exercise.

Last night I watched the Olympic swimming trials. Bob Costas interviewed Ryan Lochte and discussed how much he improved since the 2008 Olympics. They have been talking about this every night - how Ryan came back from 2008 and has been training relentlessly for four years. They mentioned how he has been incredibly focused. So, I was very curious as to what Ryan would say in the interview. Bob asked him what were the most important things he did to prepare. I assumed Ryan would say things like, "I increased my swimming" or something similar. Instead, he said, "I watched what I ate. I cut out fast food." It really surprised me. I think of athletes being able to eat whatever they want and whenever they want because they work it all off during their training. He also mentioned that he increased his level of strength training. What I noticed is that nothing he mentioned had to do with swimming. He knows how to swim. He knows what to do there. He needed to improve and focus on other areas to make his swimming even better.

So, if it's good enough for Ryan Lochte, it's good enough for me. I'm excited that next week we will be joining the Yale gym, where I'll be able to do the strength training with the weights and will also be able to add swimming to my "non-running" days. I have three months people and EVERY day counts!