Race reports, adventures, travel, fun, misc...

In my limited research about summiting   Mount Kilimanjaro in Tanzania I found it described more as an advanced trek vs a true mountaineering experience. Now that I have completed it I would categorize it as a intermediate mountaineering experience. I'm far from an expert and only have 1 real alpine summit (14k Rainier in Washington State) under my belt and a 21 day Denali expedition in Alaska as a reference. My categorization shouldn't take anything away from this very special place and challenge.   Getting to the top was VERY VERY HARD.   My group described it as the hardest and coolest thing they've ever done.   The group consisted of members of a business organization I'm part of.   Here is a pic of us with our guides at the top. This adventure was Jim's idea and after an initial 8 folks that expressed interest in April the 5 of us pulled the trigger and signed up with Thompson Safaris  for this 2 week adventure.   No previous climbing or moun

I was really happy to be back in Lake Placid.   You can't help but feel like a real athlete with all the Olympic surroundings here. This town is also special because it was the first   out of town trip I took with my wife   when we were dating. It was also where I completed my first Ironman in 2011 . I trained for this one harder than prior Ironman events. I cant say enough about my coach Ray Campeau and CX2 Coaching . I followed his instruction as much as I could but only got in about 70-80% over 6 months of preparation.   Thank you Ray Ray, you rock!   The crew at TMB Racing (also run by Ray) is unreal. I can't thank them enough for their motivation and camaraderie.   These guys are super fast.   It's an honor to train and race with them.   You guys made Ironman #5 special and unique for me. Ironman changed the swim start to self seeded waves instead of the chaotic 2,500 person mass start. This resulted in much less traffic and I only got slapped in t