Good morning!

Good morning blog followers!

For those of you following us from Inspiration Stardust Dreams, I figure I owe you an explanation as to why I/we started the new blog.

When we created IS Dreams, the idea was accountability. We would blog about our workouts and essentially keep ourselves responsible. Well, as some of you probably know, that got old. Real quick. Eventually my blog posts could have been copy and pasted and it wouldn't have mattered. Occasionally I would put something good out there, but it was rare. So I got to thinking...why does it have to be a workout-specific blog? Why blog about just the mundane workouts that I do? No, there's much more to both of us.

Last year, I did my first triathlon. My Way or the Tri Way. It was a sprint triathlon in Aurora, CO. There was nothing special to it...on paper anyway. 750 meter swim, 14 mile bike, 3.5 mile run. And my time wasn't exactly impressive (2:10:56). Yet something happened when I crossed that finish line. I became something else. I became hooked on this sport. And my dreams and ambitions soared.

My ultimate dream is completing an Ironman, but that's obviously a long way off. Instead, what I am shooting for this year is a 1/2 marathon and an Olympic triathlon. Other things will be mixed in there, but both those are the apex of my year.

So anyway, that all being said, the year has begun and in turn, my workouts have as well. I started out on January 3rd. I swam 800 meters in 17:20. You may wonder why only 800. Well, the idea for January is starting back at the beginning. A few months back, I bought us a whiteboard to keep in our room. We use it for our work schedules, our list of stuff to do for the week, and most importantly, our workouts. At the top, I write a theme for each month. For instance, December was continuation. November was explosiveness. And so on. Our theme for January is TBITEITB, or The Beginning is the End is the Beginning, a song by the Smashing Pumpkins. We're starting at the beginning. Breaking ourselves down and starting over.

Yesterday we both put in a 3 mile run, even though it's January and Colorado for some reason doesn't want to get warm. Bundled up beyond belief, we set out and ran 3.19 miles in 36:08. No, that's not very good since it's 11:37 per mile, but for being cold, and for starting over at the beginning, I'm really happy with it.

This morning, I woke up the same time T did and went to the gym to swim. Again, 800 meters. Today, it was in 18:40. I really concentrated on taking it slow.

There's a theme to my month. Breaking it down and starting over. Like a boxer. Boxers forget everything they know. They start over at the beginning numerous times. Train hard, train hard. Then start all over. That's the idea here. Here's what I hope to accomplish this month:

- Swim 800 meters twice a week
- Run 6 miles a week
- Exercise bike once a week or ride my bike once a week
- Treadmill sprint once a week

For those of you that don't know what the treadmill sprint is that I do, it's a 45 minute workout, alternating between 2 minutes walking and 3 minutes running on the treadmill. I set the incline at 2 or 3, I walk at 3.5, and I run at 6.5 usually. It is a great way to torch calories.

Anyway, that's all I got for now, but I'll be back. Continue checking in and welcome to Team Baby Dinosaur!