The excitement is building!

This is week zero.

The first week of January was week -8; now, nine weeks into the year, I'm nearly at week 1.

That is, week 1 of my 24-week training and countdown to Ironman Canada.

And I am so excited! I'm just itching to get started, to do long bike rides followed by runs, to swim in open water, to feel the sun on my face and, hopefully, the wind at my back. Even to feel the burn in my quads when I'm climbing a hill on my bike, or in my calves when I'm running up a hill so steep I'm on my tip-toes.

Danielle, Nancy and I did hot yoga this morning, and it was wonderful again. I woke up sore and stiff and left the class limber and flexible. It actually was harder because I really was sore - too many squats yesterday in circuit training - and I even had to sit down and rest a few times when I got dizzy. But it was great nonetheless.

When we left hot yoga, the sun appeared to be peeking through the clouds. So I asked Danielle if she was available to meet me at noon for a bike ride. Yay! She was, so we did 25 miles around Lake Sammamish at a moderate pace, chatting and just enjoying being outside on our bikes. I did something stupid at a stoplight and fell off my bike (it took FOREVER for me to fall, too - I was clipped in on one side, but the bike was falling towards the side on which I was clipped in. I kept trying to swing the bike over to the unclipped side, but all that my actions did was keep the bike totally upright, with me knowing I was going to fall and being unsure how to prevent it. Eventually I swung the bike too hard to the unclipped side and I landed on my right hip, thigh, and knee. Ouch!), but other than that it was a nice ride.

Later on, a couple of guys in a pickup truck pulled up alongside us to say, "We like your bikes!" However, we were both on our road bikes - hers is the Terry Fast Woman and mine is the Specialized Ruby. We interpreted "We like your bikes" to really mean "We like your butts," because we're quite sure these guys wouldn't know cool bikes from not-so-cool. But they weren't trying to run us off the road, so we were happy. I'm thinking that when we both ride our tri bikes - and we both wear our Terry fleece-lined cycling tights that hold everything yucky in just right and our gorgeous pink Cannondale jackets - that we're in for quite a few more comments. (I love these pants and jacket so much I'll be a little bit sorry when it's time to wear shorts and tank tops outside. But even today, which probably had a high of 60 degrees while we were riding, it was too warm for the jackets.)

And you know what? If it keeps them from running me off the road or doing other stupid things in the car, I'm totally cool with that!

So this is my last weekend without formal training - I plan to snowboard tomorrow morning, then ride my bike with John Sunday afternoon. Both will likely be in the rain - but whatever. If you don't train in the rain, you don't train - and when you train in the rain, you get used to playing in the rain, too.

(As an aside, when it's raining and I'm running, one of my favorite things to do is sing songs that have a lyric that mentions "rain." Try it sometime, especially with friends - it makes you feel a lot better about being cold and wet!)