Happy New Year Updates and Totals for 2018

I hope you are well and are conquering any challenges the end of 2018 presented.  I am!!!   As some may know, the end of 2018 was a bit challenging for me. While riding the DTE Energy Foundation Trail (close to Chelsea), I took a fall on my mountain bike.  The fall wasn't caused by landing a big air jump or speeding over rocks and roots.  I recall a rather low speed turn with my rear tire sliding out and a force I don't recall ever feeling previously as my left shoulder hit the ground.  After the forceful fall, I sat up, reached over the feel my left collarbone area and immediately realized something wasn't right.

Here's what it looked like:

About ten days later (after surgery), I had another new look with a titanium plate six titanium screws binding the two ends of the broken collarbone:

 

As I write this, I am about two weeks post surgery, feeling better every day, and I am Iron Man!

I am also hopeful about the outcome of my appointment with the orthopedic surgeon on January 2.  I'm mentally ready to run again even though this is likely premature. My questions will be like:
- What can't I do?
- Is it OK to ride a stationary bike and put weight on my left hand?
- Is running slowly on a treadmill at an 8% incline OK?
- When can I run outside?
I'll report back about what the doc says.

More than anything, I happy to report I'm getting better.  Thanks to all my family and friends for their texts, call, notes, care, support and love!  

Totals for 2018  

Let's check out how the year went relative to working out along with comparisons from two other years when I ran full Ironman races: 

	2012 - 43 years old	2015 - 47 years old (hamstring injury Feb - Oct)	2018 - 51 years old   (broken collarbone in Dec)
Swim	137561 yards = 78 miles	120884 yards = 69 miles	198935 yards = 113 miles
Bike	2721 miles	2811 miles	4768 miles
Run	897 miles	1069 miles	1025 miles
Time	374 hours	352 hours	424 hours
Races	-  Ironman Muncie 70.3 -  Ironman Mont Tremblant - K2 Marathon	- Boston Marathon - BQ! - Ironman Muncie 70.3 (sub 6 hours) - Ironman Boulder (huge bonk)	-  Ironman Wisconsin 70.3  -   Ironman Lake Placid

Highlights of 2018:

- I was amazing this year!  More swim and bike miles than every before along with 50 more hours working out than every before.  Wow!!! 

- Swimming - 113 miles and almost all of that happened from January through July. As you know, swimming is hard for me so I'm particularly proud of this stat.  The outcome of this work was a pretty darn good swim for me at Ironman Lake Placid.

- Biking - 4768 miles...that's a big number for me.  There were a lot of hours on the trainer this year and quite a few road miles too.  

- Masters 50+ records this year!  Since I turned 50 this year, all races were records but my time at the Detroit Turkey Trot 10K in November was one that stood out for me...something like 40:17 on a course that Garmin measures at 6.37 miles every year I run it which comes out to something like 6:20 miles.  Not bad for an old guy.

- Using TrainerRoad for triathlon workout plans. This was new for me in 2017 (thanks to RCK's encouragement). The plans ask for a lot (as I've written here a number of times), but they work for me.  I wish I had been able to run some flat races like at Muncie or Steehead (instead of the insanely hilly Ironman races in Madison and Lake Placid).  It would have been fun to see how this year's fitness played out at those courses.

- ALL WORLD ATHLETE! BOOM!!!  For the first time ever, I was awarded All World Athlete bronze by Ironman based on my results from this year at Ironman Wisconsin 70.3 and Ironman Lake Placid. 

Overall it was a great year.  I just have to get by the rather large end of year bump in the broken collarbone road.  I will share an update about that soon.

Thanks for reading....hope you are getting through your end of 2018 challenges.  It really is a good idea to get out for a run/walk or hit up the gym for a 20-30 minutes :-).  Take it from this broken collarbone guy who spent 60 minutes on the stationary trainer this afternoon.