Take a towel swimming

As I write this I am somewhere over Austin, TX flying back from St Louis. I travel a decent amount in the current roll I am in which has become a challenge making sure I am able to get my workouts in. Today’s workout was a 2400 meter swim so I had to locate a pool that had swim lanes that I could use. I found a local gym not too far from the location I was working and decided to go around lunch. Well what I hadn’t thought about was a towel….. I went ahead and did the workout knowing I didn’t have one and when I got out I had to dry off somehow since I had a flight to catch in about two hours. This gym for some reason didn’t use paper towels and only had hand blow dryers like the ones that never dry your hands after you wash them. The only thing I could find was toilet paper, so I started unrolling as much paper as I could and spent about 10 minutes trying to dry myself. I must have flushed a roll of TP down the toilet and I am sure all the people in the locker room wandered what the heck I was doing. But at least I got my workout in right? Coach Dawn would be proud.

So last week my family went to Lake Tahoe for a couple days for a short vacation before my high school hall of fame induction and it was great. My 18 month old son Hudson did great on the plane. He is such a great kid! I am scared to have another because I fear I am in for it with the second. We went hiking all around Tahoe and had a great time. I was also able to get a couple good runs in while I was there.

When we got back I had a long bike ride planned the next day with another guy on my tri team that is headed to Ironman Maryland in a few weeks. He was leading the way at about a 20 mile per hour pace and I am only used to going about 18 mph. It is significantly faster than normal but I was able to keep up pretty well. Without even knowing it we were already to the turnaround point and we had ridden 30 miles! Now we had to ride back and I was starting to feel the pain. I wasn’t going to stop, I don’t know the word "quit" so I just gritted my teeth and plowed forward. At about the 55 mile mark I was hurting. I was able to gut it out and finish with a 19.3 mph which is fairly respectable but I will need to keep around a 20 mph for the 112 when I get to IM Texas. All in all it was a good first long ride and I felt good about where I stand on the bike.

I also started my fundraising campaign for “Save the Children” last week with a few posts on TexAgs. I am amazed at the positive comments and donations to this great charity and to help me get to Kona. Currently the amount raised is $2,307 and my goal is $20,000. That is an amazing first week! I can't thank you all enough, from the bottom of my heart THANK YOU! If you would still like to support this great cause please go to http://savethechildren.kintera.org/IronmanTX/agdodge50 and donate even $1 will help these kids. I have many other events and posts that I will be sending out to keep you all up to speed on my progress and training. I plan to post an update to my blog around once a week and I will be going into many things including Aggie Football, my time in the Army, my family, and some of the things close to me personally so please continue to follow the blog. I hope some of what I share will help motivate you to believe that if you put your mind to ANYTHING big or small you can achieve it. I came from a life where nothing was handed to me and I had to work extremely hard for every inch. I have been very blessed for the doors God has opened for me and will always do my best to glorify Him. Thank you so much for all your support!

Gig’em & God Bless

Mark Dodge

Romans 5:2-5