2004 Reflections

My final workout of 2004 was Ashley's 8am spinning class today. The room was hot and the sweat was flowing for the hour long class. The last six minutes of class was your own. She played some inspirational music and encouraged everyone to take the time to reflect on this past year.

2004 was a mixed bag for me. A very difficult year professionally that was balanced by the blessed birth of my son, Jack, on May 10th. My life changed significantly and I am now much more fulfilled.

The addition of Jack was not the only reason that I became better in 2004. I developed some great friendships thanks to all of my training. Tommy, Pep, Gerard, Diane, Mona, Vic, Paul and Nancy were there each week at 6am to help keep me going.

With their support, I completed the Chicago Marathon, The Track Club 1/2 Marathon, The Lewis & Clark 1/2 Marathon, The Chicago Triathlon, The Columbia Race For Sight Sprint Triathlon, The Innsbrook 1/4 Max Triathlon, The Babler Beast Triathlon and The Alligator Creek Triathlon just to name a few.

My greatest accomplishment of 2004 was not completing these races. My greatest accomplishment this year was having Jack and developing all of these friendships.

Triathlons are the means, the man is the end. The goal is not to complete the triathlon, but to improve the man.
-adapted from Walter Bonatti, Italian Climber

With friends like these, I improved this year.

Here is to a great 2005!!!

THE DECEPTION

Some guys will do anything to win!!!

After interviewing anyone and everyone who completed a triathlon in 2004, my good friend, Tommy Rosenthal determined that the key to improving performance in the offseason is to log a significant amount of time on a bike trainer. While Tommy was nice enough to share this information with me, he neglected to mention that he had purchased a trainer six weeks ago and has been training morning, noon and night in order to improve his performance.

Not since Nina Kraft was found guilty of doping has the local triathlon community seen such a shady attempt to shave seconds off of their time.

Don't get me wrong, I have no problem that Tommy's addiction to this sport compelled him to purchase this $775 piece of equipment that if used properly will save him an extra :28 seconds during an eight hour race. The issue, ladies and gentleman, is that he kept this to himself. He planned to use his trainer all winter long in secret so that he might enter race season in superior shape, leaving his friends to wonder how he was able to excel despite the fact that he trained the same amount of time as we did???

I would have fallen for it too if I was not over at his house helping his lovely wife install HIS ipod. There it was - HIDDEN in the basement!!!!!!! I wonder if the Survivor contestant committee is aware of the lengths that this guy will go to in order to win. If they did, I am sure that they would select him for Survivor 11 - after all, the ruthless dominate that game.

Makes you wonder what his real time in the Chicago Triathlon was???? Did he really lose his chip or was this more of the same???? You be the judge!!!