“Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without your accordion.” —Norman Schwartzkopf

“Thanks for the bruises and you can keep the stool sample…” -Chevy Chase, from “Spies Like Us”

This is gonna hurt!

During a party with our triathlon friends over the weekend, Melissa and I signed up for Ironman France to be held next June in, Nice. We’re a little intimidated but strangely enough perhaps, really excited about going through the whole process of training for another 140.6 mile race. Eight months have passed since our initial Ironman experience last November in Cozumel – enough time that the aches and pains endured during the race are distant memories, replaced long ago with the warm satisfaction of having completed the race and all the training that preceded it. That  feeling can become addictive, and so here we are again. In just over eleven months, we’ll tow the line once more. The race course will be radically different, at least in terms of the bike portion of the event. Gone will be Cozumel’s pancake-flat island roads, replaced by perhaps the most challenging bike course of any Ironman race, including nearly 12,000 feet of vertical climbing over the 112 mile course. On the positive side, should we avoid cardiac arrest, we’ll enjoy scenery almost universally described by past participants as “breathtakingly beautiful”. The bike will be book ended by a 2.4 mile swim in the Mediterranean Sea and, unavoidably, a 26.2 mile marathon along the streets and beaches of Nice – a portion of which, from what I hear, is a topless beach (inspiration comes in many forms). Melissa and I will be joined on the course by our friends Andre, Martin, Thomas and Lori (and hopefully a few more!), not to mention the all-important merry band of “Sherpas”.  

I’ll be back with more training updates as we get closer.