Jon's Jibber-jabber

One week post-Ironman and I am feeling good.  Physically, I felt good all week.  Looking back I keep thinking "that was it?".  I set myself up for much more physical strain and a longer recovery than I experienced. Perhaps it was that I took recovery seriously this time: getting a post race massage, watching what I ate to ensure recovery, taking off of work, using active recovery swims and runs during the week, etc.  Whatever it is, my recovery is going well.  This is an area in which I historically struggled. Now, I reset.  I have my first sprint distance triathlon coming up in four weeks.  Ft Ritchie is a very hilly course with a long category 3 climb in both the sprint and olympic distance but realistically it's only a dozen miles on the bike.  I have never done this distance and I am looking forward to the short but intense sessions of training.  The temptation is there to do another IM.  IM Maryland is only an hour from my house...

This past Sunday I completed my first Ironman-distance race, the inaugural Challenge Atlantic City.  I had heard great reviews about Challenge Family events.  They are a huge series outside of the United States and this was their first event in the US.  I consider them probably the only major competitor to WTC in terms of Iron and half-Iron distance races. This was an inaugural event so one has to enter with the expectation of a few glitches.  The key was "a few glitches."  I was not impressed with this race at all, nor was I impressed with Atlantic City.   To be completely honest, AC itself is a disaster. Maybe it is from doing too many races in Disney or Florida but AC is not a very nice city.  Even the casino and Boardwalk area looks as if it hasn't been updated in years.  They still permit smoking inside the casinos so the entire public areas of the casinos smell like smoke.  Stained carpets, falling apart rooms and outdated decor wer...