Injuries, Recovery and Hope

Fortunately, not my own injuries...  For the past two weeks, our dog Hope has been recovering from ACL surgery on her back knee.  She's had to wear a cone around her head this whole time to keep her from chewing out the staples, and she has used it as a battering ram around the house, scratching paint off walls, scraping our calves, and knocking over everything not nailed down.

She is by nature a very active dog, getting a long walk each day and having constant access to our backyard to run and play.  Keeping her in an enclosed space has been difficult to say the least, but the vet has insisted on it for her to recover.   This is what she had to say about that:

 

Our bathroom doorknob, or what's left of it, is now a constant reminder that Hope does not like to be trapped in such a small space.  After this episode, we moved her recovery to our bedroom, more specifically, our bed.   We are not dogs-on-the-bed people, but she has been so pathetic (and stubborn) that we've just given in.

 

I'm doing my own recovery this week as well.  The fourth week of every month is a recovery week in our training schedule, and I'm in week 4 of month 2.  Yay!  I need it!  Lots of additional bed time for me too, much of it with the cuddlebug that is our pit bull. 



How to Reverse Your Farmer's Tan

With all of the time that I've been spending outdoors lately, you would think I'd be rockin' a fantastic tan, but the London-like winter here in Austin has kept me pasty white.  We had a brief respite on Monday, and I took advantage of the nice weather (and having MLK Day off) to do a long swim in Barton Springs.  I thought to myself beforehand, "this should be a fine day to work on the tan," but I was forgetting the wetsuit.  The only tan I got was on the backs of my ankles.

Maybe this will at least counteract the sock tan that I'm sure to get later in the spring when I start riding without tights...

The good news is that I had a successful swim.  I did 3200 meters in 1 hour, 10 minutes - not fast, but a solid time for me.  The Ironman has a time cutoff for each event.  Athletes have to be out of the water 2 hours and 10 minutes from the start.  A friend of mine went to volunteer at the Arizona IM this past November, and he said the worst part of his day was watching the officials tell the last folks out of the water that they were finished racing for the day because they didn't meet this time cutoff.  How incredibly devastating it must be to have trained so hard for all three events and then to only get to compete in the first and shortest of the three.  For those of us that are weakest at swimming, this is a frightening thought.

The overall distance for the swim is 4000 meters, so if I kept up the pace that I swam on Monday for the additional 800 meters, I'd finish in about an hour and a half, giving me a 40-minute cushion.  BUT, I did the swim in a wetsuit yesterday, which provides a significant advantage.  It keeps me buoyant and allows me to use less energy than I otherwise would.  I expect that my time without a wetsuit would be 15-20 minutes slower.  Until race day, we won't know for sure whether wetsuits are legal, but Houston in May isn't exactly cool.  Wetsuits are allowed only if the water temperature is 78 degrees or lower.  No one expects this to be a wetsuit legal race.   Bottom line is this:  I'm in decent shape to finish under the cutoff but need to keep on swimming!

New Skips for Inspiration

Bad. Ass.  The only two words that can be used to describe my 2011 athlete obsession, Chrissie Wellington. 

Most people outside of the triathlon world can't name a single professional triathlete, but if you can name only one, it's probably her.  She's won the Kona Ironman three times.  She didn't race this year due to an unfortunate illness but then came back a month later and CRUSHED the women's Ironman world record  at Ironman Arizona.  She's all smiles, sportsmanship and service.  At the end of the Arizona race, she hung out for hours and gave finish-line hugs to all the amateurs.  Incidentally, she also eats "chips," as her UK homies would say, leading us to mistakenly believe that she's just like us.

Her half-iron PR: 4:07.  Mine: 5:56.  Like I said, just like us.  So, maybe she'll complete the Ironman, have time for a massage, a table full of burgers, a nap, and a press conference before I even see the finish line.  The important thing is this:  we will be wearing the same shoe. 

Behold my new Chrissie Wellington edition T7 Brooks racer.  Note the glimpse of the Union Jack on the heel.  Hey - if you can't win, at least you can be stylin' like the winner!

Winter Break

I have been an unapologetic slacker the past week.  No swimming, no biking, no running, no core, but plenty of muscle soreness nonetheless.  Jody and I flew out to Salt Lake City last Wednesday for a ski trip in Park City.  Our friends Erik and Avery joined us from D.C., and we had four beautiful days of sun and snow.  I'm back with refreshed muscles (well, except for my thighs...) and excited to gear up for month two of IM training!