My dad seemed old to me when he was 40, now I'm 48...

Today's my birthday. Although I was born 48 years ago, I consider myself a mature 17 year old in my mind, have the athleticism of a fit 28 year old and the memory of a 90 year old.

So what did I do for my birthday? I worked all day, then slipped out for a dual birthday dinner, my son Reid's birthday was on the 15th and we killed two birds with one stone. Then I spent the rest of the night relaxing...NOT...I spent about 3 hours resetting up my blog.

For 4 years of my comeback I blogged everyday. Then I closed the Training Payne blog, then I couldn't resist blogging and started Training Payne 2.0. Then I quit again. Then I started Training Payne 3.0. Then I quit again and now I started adding posts to 3.0. I set the blog up to look identical to my original Training Payne Blog. Even transferred the url

Why?

I love blogging. I've met so many good friends blogging and I find is relaxing. It's also a great way to capture stories and moments. When I shut down my original blog my last month I had over 8000 unique visitors. I met so many people through my blog.

Today started great. I stepped on the scale and weighed in at 192.6 lbs. Almost 8 lbs down from 3 weeks ago. Great start to the birthday boys day.

It was also nice to wake up to sunshine coming in my bedroom window. For the month I spent in Scottsdale I had to set the alarm to wake myself up because there was no sunlight coming through the window. If there is sunlight, I'm up like a Rooster at sunrise.

I DO miss Scottsdale. I spent 30 days away in a condo on a work-train-cation. It was my cramming for Ironman Cozumel which is now only 9 days away. I was able to do over 83 hours and near 950 miles of swim, bike and run. It worked, the gains from day 1 to day 30 have been remarkable. I left at 14.5% body fat, yesterday it registered 10.5%.

What I miss most about Scottsdale is the lifestyle and weather. First, the weather was awesome, 80 - 90 F everyday.

Secondly I ate healthy without fail. There is something about being taken out of your routine surroundings and when placed into a new place the bad eating habits seem to be immediately broken, especially when you buy only healthy food.

Third it was a great place to work from. My job allows me to work from anywhere I have a computer and cell phone. Whether it's Toronto, San Francisco or Scottsdale. Sitting outside on the patio in beautiful weather working is to die for.

I was gone from the family 33 days and it seemed like it was maybe a couple weeks. At least for me. Now that I'm back it doesn't even feel like I was away. It's strange. My daughter Alyssa even mentioned to me it didn't seem I was away that long.

My feeling is that it flew by because everyday was like the movie "groundhog day". There was no rest , it was all routine. Weekdays it was get up, work, train, call home, sleep and repeat. Weekends was get up and train all day Saturday and mornings Sunday. I was a hamster on a wheel.

Having a Samantha as a room mate helped keep it social and I didn't feel lonely, which has happened in the past when I'm out of town for longer periods of time training. By yourself you tend to get too into your head at times and it becomes a painful experience. I get energy being around people.

Now I'm back. It's good to be back with Alice and the family for sure. I just miss the warm Scottsdale weather. I need to do a long bike ride and I'm going to have to probably do it inside on the trainer this weekend. YUK!!!

Dinner was good tonight, we went out and celebrated both my birthday and Reids together. Reid doesn't like going out to restaurants so he was real happy when he figured we could combine the two birthdays and only have to go out once.

Reid's weird that way, doesn't like Restaurants and doesn't like vacation travel. He just wants to stay out or go hang out with his friends. This summer after our Cuba family vacation of which he wasn't happy, the entire time, I promised him he wouldn't have to come on another one. He was then happy.

Anyways it was nice to have the entire family at dinner, and Alyssa's boyfriend Adam joined us. A highlight of my night was getting a fluorescent yellow cycling jersey. I've been looking for years to find one for safety reasons. Alice found one from Wiggle. It's awesome. I'm always paranoid about being seen when I ride. With all the miles I ride the odd are against me that I will get hit by a car and I want to do everything I can to prevent that and now I have a fluorescent yellow jersey. Sweet. That along with my flashing red light is all I can do.

Along with that jersey I also got cigars and a book on the secrets of Steve Jobs presentations, which is timely, I have some presentations coming up and I'm very interested in learning more and improving my presentation style.

I decided not to train tonight for two reasons, it's taper time and it's my birthday. I plan on doing a solid weekend of training then not much after that. I'm as ready as I'll ever be for Ironman Cozumel. There's nothing more I can do.