Take the Good with the Bad

Recap of the last few days:

Sunday
Had one of the best swims I've ever had! I went out with Brenda to this new lake we found recently in Water Valley. Sarah and Kevin, the other IM'ers, were there too. We swam a route that we thought was 2 miles. I went slow and steady and had no trouble finishing the route (which we later found out was 2.05 miles!). The water was colder than I expected but even that didn't bother me too much. So glad we did that - HUGE confidence builder.

Monday
Totally off - woo hoo!

Tuesday
Took the kids to my mom's house and went on an, shall we say, an "eventful" bike ride. Took the kids to my moms house and left from there. Rode south of Johnstown and was having a great time when I had to make a pit-stop. Pulled off near a corn field, leaned my bike up against the corn, and went in the corn to pee.

All is well until I see a truck pull up near my bike. Crap!  I start panicking because I didn't want the person in the truck to see me yet I also didn't want Mr. Truck-dude to take my bike either!  I crouched there breathing heavily trying to figure out what to do. He wasn't leaving. What was he doing????  I decided to walk out and get my bike and if he said anything to me, I'd just laugh it off and say I had to use the "facilities" (hoping he would have a sense of humor). But then his truck slowly started to roll on by...thank God!

Then, when I came out of the corn field, I heard more trucks - there were several large trucks that passed me before I stopped at the cornfield - and now there was a long line of them coming. Darn it - I chose this road because it was a "quiet country road" (not!) and i didn't really want to ride back yet. But all I could see were big red trucks coming down the road so I turned around and went back.

As I'm heading back to Milliken, a deer comes flying out of nowhwere and darts across the road. Fortunately I was looking ahead at the time and saw him in plenty of time to slow down. Not too far down the road, a ground hog runs out in front of me. Geez!

At this point, I knew I needed to speed up if I wanted to make this ride worth all the trouble. So I tucked in tight to the aero position and cruised along at a pretty good clip. Yay - I love riding like that!  I turned left at 257 just chompin at the bit to ride up Mad Russian hill. Feeling esp good, I flew up that hill faster than I've ever rode it. I thought seriously about going back down and charging back up it again but just kept going. I managed to keep a pretty fast pace all the way back to Greeley (need to get a computer on my bike so I know what speed I'm going!).

Then, on west 10th, I passed a car that obviously had smashed into a tree. There was no way the driver could have survived that accident and sure enough, I found out later he didn't. Pretty sad.

Not long after passing the car, I flatted - first time in years. Fortunately, I was less than a mile from my mom's house so I walked my bike back to the car. I needed to get the kids and run errands - will fix flat later.

Today, I swam Master's and felt pretty good. Was almost able to stay up with Sarah and Natalie but not quite. That's ok, I can tell I'm faster than last year so that's all I care about right now.

The one thing in the back of my mind all of this time was running. When will I get to run again?  My hip is better but my heel was hurting really bad today and I haven't run since Saturday and even then, it was only for a few miles. I am literally hobbling around the house, most of the time with an ice pack on my hip.

Tonight I am feeling very discouraged. I'm glad that my swimming and biking are going well - thank God for that - but I'm really down about not being able to run. I will try on Friday and maybe it will work out. But right now it hurts to even walk. And it's not just the Ironman that worries me, it's the fact that I may not be able to run at all in the future. I don't want to "awfulize" but it's hard not to when you can't walk without severe pain.

I just miss it. I've been running for 20+ years and it's hard to not do something that has been a part of your daily routine for all these years, something that makes you feel good and something you can do with friends.

I'm tired of the pain too. I can see why people get hooked on pain relievers. My heel and hip hurt a lot and I'm tired of cringing with every step I take.

Well, tomorrow is another day and maybe things will be better. I'm planning on a Spinerval ride early in the morning and then we're driving to Ogden, Utah, for Kurt's Xterra triathlon Saturday. One of my best friends lives in Ogden and it will do me good to hang out with her for awhile. I'm planning to run there on Friday so hopefully I'll have some good news to report when I get back!  We're also planning to ride 80 miles when on Saturday and that will be nice.

Too tired to think....more later.