I have been pretty banged up the last couple of weeks and it is really affecting my sleep and my training. I have several nagging and a few painful injuries. First of all my lower back is in a lot of pain and my right hip keeps shifting and is causing me some knee pain. Also, my left ankle and Achilles tendon are very tender and lastly I am going in for an X-ray on Friday to see if I have a stress fracture in my right shin. Oh, and I have had a headache for about a week. Sound fun, right? So due to all of these injuries I have decided not to run the Cowtown Marathon and focus on my Half Ironman races for the time being. The swimming and biking do not seem to aggravate these injuries and I have enough of a running base that I should be ready for my first race in April.

One final update. My diet is back on schedule. I've lost about 8 pounds which puts me at 175 and heading in the right direction. I would like to get down to 170 by the end of the month and I really feel on track to hit my mark. I would like to be at my normal race weight of 165 by the end of March and 160 by the time hit I Cozumel in November. 160 had been a tough weight for me to hit. I have reached it a couple times over the last couple of years but I have not been able to maintain it. My fear is that I would have to take off a lot of muscle to reach that weight and that is not how I want to get there. I'll work on the details of the diet, perhaps with a Nutritionist, to get this all worked out.