With 2006 all wrapped up and the results posted, I figured I’d do another run of IMNA statistics for the current year like I did for 2005. Again, this snapshot is just the raw numbers of how things played out this year. Like last year, I left out the swim splits:

“You will notice that I didn’t do swim splits. I chose not to since the swim times should vary the least of the three in all the venues, but mostly because IMNA’s display of swim data sucks. A sub-hour swim time is represented as 59:59:00 while an hour swim time is represented as 1:00:00, which messes up my auto-tabulations and I’m too lazy to go fix the sub-hour entries. :P”

So without further ado:

My observations:

• Arizona folks went 6 minutes slower on average than last year. Folks got around 10 minutes faster on the bike, but 15 minutes slower on the run.
• It looks like Ironman Coeur d’Alene had the biggest change in time from 2005, with its competitors going 37 minutes slower this year than last. Bike times were 11 minutes slower and the run was 23 minutes slower on average! The finisher percentage also decreased by 7%. Seemingly, the conditions were harder for athletes this year than last.
• Placid again surprises me with a very high 92.74% finisher rate. I hear that the course is supposed to be one of the harder ones, but folks that do the course seem to have a good chance of finishing. Does LP just attract a more fit crowd of athletes who prepare better during the season? Overall times this year were about 12 minutes faster than last.
• Canada gets the consistency award by having the average finisher time differ from last year by only 18 seconds. :)
• Wisconsin… the only one that I’m personally familiar with. It looks like 95 degrees or 55 degrees, folks seem to bike the same on that course with bike splits differing by less than 1 minute. Run splits were substantially faster though with an average decrease in time of 36 minutes over last year. Times were only 24 minutes faster overall, though which leads me to believe that either people swam WAY slower this year. Or more likely, people were spending a lot more time in the transition area changing clothes and trying to get warm between events.
• Florida gets the speed crown again this year. While it did once again post the fastest bike splits of any other IMNA event, it wasn’t by much – only 4 minutes faster than Canada. And the average run splits in Florida were actually 3 minutes slower in Placid. Again making me wonder what’s up with these Placid athletes and why are they all on the juice? :)

It’s about that time. That time where I wake up from hibernation and say, “Oh crap! The race season is going to be here before you know it!” It’s been weighing on me (quite literally as far as my knee joints are concerned) these past couple of weeks that I should probably start doing something other than being glued to my couch. These days, I’m pretty much disgusted with how far I’ve actually let myself go.

So for the first time in a long time, I ran. Well, I did something that resembled putting on running shoes and going outside. I wouldn’t so much say that I ran as I’d say I sort of shuffled along wondering if and when I’d go into cardiac arrest. And wondering if it was safe to run considering all the sludge that probably built up over the winter and if a big chunk of cholesterol was going to break off one of my arteries and end up lodged in my brain. But I went out and did something, and as much as the run itself sucked it reminded me that I actually like being outside and exercising. Sure, it was gorgeous out this weekend which totally helped. But it was actually a fresh change from being cooped up inside the house watching me have to go down yet another notch on my belt.

So this is it. Yeah, I think it’s it? OK, it’s it. Stamped on my blog and for you all to call me out on it if you don’t hear from me regularly. The season starts NOW!

Twenty pounds heavier than I should be and my HR was somewhere close to infinity just by standing up. But this is the bitter sweet part of the season. Every workout I do sucks, but almost every workout that I do brings me noticeable changes in weight, HR, and RPE of my workouts. It doesn’t feel like I’ll ever get back to where I was, but I’ll have to trust that I’ve done it in years past and that I’ll get there again. It’s good to be “back”.

See you all out there!

I’m out for Wildflower.  Sorry for the false alarm.

… forget the fact that I can’t run more than 2-3 miles right now and that I haven’t sat on my bike since October. Hypothetically if I were interested in signing up for Wildflower, is it still possible to arrange for lodging and transportation this late in the game? Will it be a logistical nightmare trying to arrange to do this race this late or will it still be possible? I know a ton of you guys are heading out there to do the race, so I figured I’d ask the masses. My friend is wanting something on the calendar to kick start the race season. And seeing that I’ve got a 20 pound blanket of fat surrounding my mid-section that wasn’t there last fall, I probably should do the same.

Twenty pounds and trying to get enough base to do a 1/2 in seven weeks? It sounds pretty stupid, but it might just be the kick in the ass that I need to get going.

If you Wildflower goers can provide any details and/or comments on your experiences signing up and planning out this race, I’d appreciate any comments/thoughts that you might have. :)

Rebates have such a way of making things look like such a great deal. And usually the worst of it is having to figure out how you’re going to cut the UPC code out of something. But I’m sure more people than not have run into something like this:

Seven months and eleven days later (and a half dozen or so emails in between), I finally got my rebate. I suppose I should feel lucky that I got anything at all. A simple Google search shows that I’m not the only person that has had an issue trying to get rebates from that company. I’ll never buy from TigerDirect again.

Now back to our blizzard that we’re having over here…