Okay, so Post #1 of Chasing Long:  1 year-1000 miles.  First thing I think is the what and why of the title?  Actually, I get the “why” question about WHY I do any of this crazy stuff all the time, but I digress.  “Chasing Long” are two words that pretty much describe what my wife Carole and I do for fun and adventure.  We’ve spent the last 13 years running marathons [110 so far in all 50 States and 9 countries], swimming across lakes, sloshing and slogging through triathlons [from Sprints to Iron-Distance] and long-distance cycling events [long, longer, and I can’t feel my butt distances].  The philosophy is that if we can’t go fast-which we don’t-we might as well go long.  Okay, who are we kidding; we “chase long” so we can travel to cool places, see stuff and drink beer.  And if we can stay off blood pressure meds so much the better!

So, how about the 1 year-1000 miles?  As with most good things it started with beer.  C and I were quaffing a brew and talking about how many total miles we run in a year and figured we were close to 1000 miles so why not make that an unofficial goal?  Makes for a pithy little title for a blog too!  Full disclosure:  1000 miles in a year sounds is a long way to run but we have running friends who probably do twice that or more but we also train for other events like, well, an Ironman.  Yea, keep reading.

So let’s continue this little stroll.  2017 is an Ironman Year for C and Me.  My 4th and C’s 5th.  This year is IM Wisconsin in Sept.  When you pick an IM the training tends to dominate the whole season.  We’ll train and pick other races based on whether they help us prep for Sept. or won’t hurt our prep for Sept.  Why not just skip races all together and focus on the IM…like any reasonable person?  Well, boring comes to mind. So in addition to swimming, running, and cycling around our home in northern Idaho we’ll toss other events just to keep it interesting.  What about that 1000 miles?  Didn’t forget!  That’s the reason for the title.  Pithy, like I said.

Like I said I get asked why all the time.  So I thought you-that is YOU my dear reader-would like to follow along for our Ironman Year.  How we train, what we do and see and who we meet along the way.  So sit back, crack a beer and come along as we go Chasing Long.

Post Script-I didn’t want this to be just a log of miles but rather a blog about a journey, but given that it is a journey of “1000 miles” I should, at least occasionally, give you an update on how far we’ve run.  So…..since Jan 1–80 miles.  Not to bad for 3 weeks!