Wild Wild West

WTF. Okay, can you guys please leave me alone so I can actually concentrate on adventure racing and Nationals?!? You know, I've always planned on getting a gun since moving to Texas about 5 years ago, mostly for the novelty of it, but now I'm convinced on getting at least two to make these assholes pay dearly for trying to "liberate" my gear from me, especially since I've worked so hard to get where I am now. I'm thinking Mossberg 590 pump-action with mil-spec. Some of you already know what transpired Saturday morning, at about 4am...Bang! Bang! Bang! Mo starts frantically trying to wake me up, asking me what the hell is that noise, which is so crazy since I was up about 30mins ago, having trouble going to sleep. I get out of bed and there, I hear the loud, bone-chilling noise. The house is shaking on its foundations. That's when I try to find anything to brain whomever is out there making all that racquet. The only thing I had close to me, which is sad, was my crutch. The banging was coming from the back door, so I went around through the dining room to get a better angle of attack. As I creep to the first back door of the kitchen, there appears out of nowhere a dark sillouhette of a man! I was already on the phone dialing 911 and I made sure whoever the home invader was knew that I was making the call. I shook my crutch at him and he immediately fled through the busted down 2nd door. I was in full defense mode at this time and told Mo to stay in the bedroom and not make any noise as I tried to get a squad car to come down here. I figured it would be a one block trip for them since Shipley's Donuts is usually always packed with them. First call, disconnected. 2nd call, I finally get to Houston Police after being routed through what sounded like a central calling bank. About an hour later, nothing. And, by the way, the asshole had cut the power, so we were sitting there in complete darkness.

We had finally had it, we couldn't wait in the house anymore. We walked out the front door and over to Shipleys to see if any cops were sitting there. Of course for the first time ever, no one was there. We then walked over to the fire house that was also just a block away, but no one answered the door and the door was locked. Nice. We walked back to Shipleys and along the way we saw a couple of suspicious-looking people...and they were acting really suspicous. They kept looking back at us and changing their direction. Most likely they had done it, but how would we have known--I wished it wasn't so dark so I could have identified the guy. Anyway, we sat there outside Shipleys, shivering in the 50deg temps, waiting for anyone to stop by. Then, we had thought we found salvation--a pair of cruisers were flying by on Main St. and we tried to wave them down. First one ignored us (nice) and then the 2nd seemed to hesitantly stop and turn back around. Apparently we looked like crackheads because the cops stopped us from approaching their car. We told them our plight and then they proceed to tell us that they had NO JURISTICTION HERE and COULDN'T HELP US. They were Metro cops, not Houston Police. Well, that's nice to know. All these cops around us and they couldn't help, WTF. They did ask the Shipley's donuts manager if we could wait inside to get out of the cold, but that was it. They left. Thanks.

I couldn't take standing in the Donut shop anymore, so we went back into the dark, cold house and started fumbling around looking for a flashlight and/or matches. Since we had just moved here, everything was not where it should have been--all my flashlights were in the garage and I had no idea where the matches were. We finally found matches that Joe had left in the house and started lighting candles. I kept looking out the window, hopeful that the police would be arriving any moment now. 2.5 hours later, nothing. After calling one more time, we just finally laid down in our bed since it would be daylight anytime now anyway. Just as I was getting to sleep, I hear talking on radios and then finally a knock on the door. They were here. That officer had just got on duty at 6am, so I don't know what happened to the officers beforehand. Perhaps they were in the middle of a shift change, but that is just ludicrous--over 2 and a half hours after my initial call, and the first call was when the intruder was in our wash room. Again, WTF. The officer was actually pretty nice and was disappointed in Metro (they in fact could have helped us and I looked on their website which says they ARE granted FULL JURISDICTION in Harris County) and in the fact that it took so long for someone to get over here. But he did suggest getting ourselves a firearm, which I was already convinced on getting. It is sad that normal citizens have to arm themselves since the Police seems to be short-handed and cannot respond to every call expeditiously, but I guess this is Texas, the Wild Wild West. I wonder if I can get a gun rack installed in Touraeg...

So my workout plans for that morning were of course shot. We went to the backyard with the officers and confirmed that they had turned off all the breakers in the fuse box, so the first thing we did that day was buy a lock. Joe stopped by Sunday as we had also called him right after the incident--he was very receptive and wanted to help as much as possible. He immediately talked to a carpenter he trusted and had the door fixed the next day, with additional reinforcement around the jamb. Thankfully Tina and Lisa's "Its Greek to Me" Halloween party was Saturday night, as we would have some tension release of some sort. Nick and Jaunda were in the area that day looking at a house, so they stopped by before the party to change and have a few glasses of wine. Nick really wanted to play with Nikko, methinks. We eventually left the house for the party. With an RSVP list of about 50, there was a really good showing. We had a good time, but because of the lack of sleep the night before, we turned in pretty early. Let me tell you, every little noise that night had me almost all the way out of bed, looking for my 15lb workout bar to use as a ground and pound instrument.

Sunday was a bit easy too. I had to go to the park that afternoon to load up my gear for Nationals--Rick was very kind to purchase a trailer and haul all of our gear to Santa Barbara. I got there and all the HART and MOAT teams were there. It was good to see everyone and joke around a bit. Then I headed back home for a pumpkin carving date with Mo. It was fun as this was probably only the 3rd or so time that I've carved a pumpkin and this was her first time. Since we were out late last night for the party, again, we turned in pretty early to get some rest before work the next morning. Workouts are/will be light this week since the race is coming up fast. Yesterday I went for an hour easy ride around the fruit loop and today I swam and plan to run an easy 3 miles later today. Then that's pretty much it. Its finally here, but I can't say I'm feeling the excitement yet--the effect of the home intrusion is still lingering over my brain. Man, get off the fucking crack and get your own fucking stuff, crackheads.

Cheers.

Nine Days Left

Yes, nine days left until Nationals. Man, its creeping up on us! Rehab is progressing nicely. Working out during lunch was a bit erratic last week as I had a few meetings during that time, but I was still able to get out a couple times to swim and once to do weights and spin. While last Tuesday's HART training was the first time I hit the picnic loop since the accident, Wednesday I returned to the scene of the crime on my road bike. I went a bit later to avoid the crowds as I just wanted to crank hard for an hour and see how my leg responded. I went hard and had no problems leg-wise. I was able to keep it around 22mph for the most part. Then I saw Tara doing the lap--hilarious as I know how much she LOVES the fruit loop! Okay, I don't like it that much either, but that's the only place in town where its safe to just pedal and not worry about cars. THEN, I saw the Warship! He was on his mountain bike and it had looked like he hit the trails and he was already in cool-down mode, so I was able to just breeze by him. I didn't intentionally speed by him, I just didn't want to slow down as I just wanted to uptempo for the whole hour that I had. But that was funny to see him there. Craziness.

Went to HART training again on Thursday. We jogged to the pullup bars and did sequences of pullups and cals intermittently. Then we did a tempo run around to the next pullup bars and did more pullups. I felt a bit more fleet-footed this time around. I took Friday off to let my leg rest from the pounding as this was the most running I've done in a while. Saturday we were supposed to go paddle with the Hyperturtles at Hunstville, but they bailed. Good and bad thing was that I didn't get their message until we were at the park. Good because it was a great, cool, crisp morning to paddle. Bad because I didn't want to get up at 5am and rush to get there on time! In turned out to be good altogether as we had the lake pretty much to ourselves for over an hour. I was then thinking about driving to Rocky Hill later that day to support the 24hrs of Rocky Hill participants, but I got lazy and decided to recover some of the sleep time I had lost this morning.

Instead, we woke up early again on Sunday to get to Rocky Hill in the morning for some team training with Lisa and Tom. We got there and the place was packed with mountain bikers! Since I had to bail on our team for the race, Jason Maloney took my place. They were in all doing well, but Nick had a couple of bad laps during the night, including a crash, which he has yet to detail to me, so they were a bit behind when we got there. After a few minutes of socializing, we left them and Mo, who had brought some beverages for the racers, and mounted our bikes to do some hillwork at nearby Buescher/Bastrop. That is a nice, hilly road that is very nice to ride early in the crisp morning air. Again temps were cool, so we didn't have to worry about sweating our brains out. All in all it turned out to be about 30+ miles of hills. We got back to the ranch to change out to paddle those damn sevys. Apparently Lisa hated the idea more than I did, because as we got down to the put-in at the Colorado river and started pumping up the boats, I suddenly hear a loud pop. We all immediately laugh out loud as we know that the sevy Lisa was pumping had blown up, bursted at the seam. Irrepairable, we gave up on the idea. We had all paddled the boats a week or so before, so we weren't too worried about it.

We went back to the race to find out that the team of Nick, Tommy, Weihan, and Jason had placed 2nd, AGAIN! I figured that since they upgraded to Jason that they would win this time. Oh well. It looked like everyone had a great time. We shortly headed to Whataburger and then back home after the awards ceremony. The last couple of days I went to HART training and it felt good. Monday I didn't bring my bike, so I was on foot the whole time, for about 7 miles. Yesterday we were on bikes for the whole time, about 8-9miles. Good times. Hopefully I can get out for lunch and swim a bit, to loosen up the muscles. All right, that's it, get back to what you were doing. PS, this is a clue for my Halloween costume...

Nothing But Pain From Now On

Another good week of rehab and recovery. Swam three times and did weights once last week during lunch. On Tuesday I ran about 4 miles, doing loops on Heights Blvd. It was raining, so the temps were a little cooler. Wednesday I got on the bike (outside) for the first time since the accident. I rode from the house to Heights blvd and did loops. I saw Tina there--looked like she was doing a run/bike combo. At first I was a bit sore, but as I got warmed up, the motion became more familiar. I got up to 27mph at one time--I had to do it as sprint intervals since there were several lights along the way. It felt good. I was very amazed that this outing went so well. Friday I ran the Memorial jogging loop twice. Again, amazed that my leg was okay for that long--it was more of my loss of conditioning that was hampering me.

Saturday, I took the day off to plan for our PQ viewing/House warming party. Its amazing how it took the whole day, all the way up to 6pm when we were opening the doors to visitors. We even moved the Esperanto out of the house (I thought it would be nice to keep it inside--"now that's an adventure racer!"). And as you would have it, Matt and Nancy were there, punctual as could be expected. The thing that took so much time was making the sushi. We had, in hindsight, overestimated the fervor for sushi and we had a lot leftover. Even though I was a HUGE fan of sushi, there was no way I was gonna finish that all by myself, so we eventually had to throw it away. Sad. Mo had made very tasty guacamole and onion dip, and we supplemented this with some store-bought dip, chips, and crackers, so we were not in short supply of food by any means. Matt and Nancy bolstered our beverage selection with two full coolers, so this too wasn't in short supply. It was a good turnout, about 15 altogether. Any more and I think the house would have been too small.

Primal Quest was the main attraction, but Nikko seemed to be the big hit. She was so social and didn't hide at all despite all the new people! I was so proud of her! She played with everyone who wanted to play and the laser show got oooohhs, aaaahs, and boisterous laughter. Too funny. That's our kitty on crack. Nikko even convinced at least one person at the party that they should get another cat. :)

While the party seemed to be a hit and fun for all, a disturbing phenomenon started to reveal itself. It began when I first went to use the bathroom. There, on the foam soap dispenser, was a cutout of my head. I stared for a second then laughed out loud. It was hilarious! Next thing we knew, the heads were showing up everywhere: in the cupboards, on pictures, and also in the microwave! Not only heads, but full body cutouts! The best was the one of the Warship with his apparent new tattoo, "Out For Blood". Hilarious! They wouldn't fess up to it, but I think the Hyper Turtles had a hand in all of these shenanigans.

Sunday morning was supposed to be paddling. It had rained all night long and was still raining when we got up. We laid there in bed. I hoped that Lisa wouldn't call. But she did, so I wasn't off the hook. We loaded up the boats in the driving rain and met Lisa at Starbucks. From there we headed over to Lake Woodlands. Along the way, I had noticed that our new red solo boat was moving, so I told them to keep an eye on it. The bars were slippery, so I don't think they had a firm hold on the boats. Eventually, the red boat slid perilously off of the bars and was barely hanging on. I had to make an emergency stop! Sacrificing my life on the side of the freeway, I tried to quickly tie down the boats more firmly this time around. I'm sure the nasty wind and rain had something to do with the boat getting unseated.

We finally made it to Northshore park and since the rain was still driving, Mo had decided to pass on the paddling--she gets sick easily. So it was just Lisa and I in the wonderful rubber duck called a Sevy. We had a good hour paddle despite both our seats losing some air due to leaks. I'm still pissed off that we have to paddle these damn boats at Nationals. WTF. Anyway, we got back and we unloaded the two solos so I could try the red boat. Since Mo wasn't going to paddle, Lisa tried the eliminator. She loved it--its a fast boat! I had issues with the more tippier red boat--I actually tipped it the first time and struggled to keep it upright the whole time. My last attempt I was able to paddle for a good distance without fear of tipping it. Man, I doubt I could paddle that thing in choppy weather. So after a short trial paddle, we loaded back up and headed back home.

The rain was non-stop! Our driveway was starting to flood--we are definitely redoing that if we do buy this house! When we drove to work Monday morning, White Oak bayou had jumped its banks--that park right there at I-10 and I-45 was no more. Craziness! Our Nationals team was planning to go to HART practice that day, but it had been cancelled by Rick. Yes, amazing. That tells you how bad the weather was. We instead went to HART last night. It was a good outing for me, especially for my first practice after over a month hiatus. I was strong for most of training, but got a bit winded during the last mile of the final run. Oh well, can't get it all back at once I guess. I was still happy about my progress. But it is going to be nothing but pain for me from now to November. I don't mind. As long as we finish the race I will be happy.

That's it for now. Wouldn't you know it, the weather gets all hot and humid again as soon as I'm ready to get back out there...love it. PS. here's the Drive+Play installation (the display is on the dash and the control is that round knobby thing on the lower right). Its sweet, all except the FM transmitter. Can't wait to get it hardwired!

What's That Smell?

So this past week has been another good one, in terms of recovery. I've hit 24hrfitness pretty much everyday the past week. On Friday I went swimming during lunch, and to my surprise, I was able to do my regular interval workout without any pain in my leg! I was a bit slower, but not because of my leg but because of my loss of conditioning. Still, I was able to PR on one of the intervals towards the end. This increased my confidence 10-fold. Later that evening I set up my indoor trainer that I had purchased the day before. This is when I realized that my seat was too low on my road bike--I was not fully extending my leg for a full revolution. The main reason I noticed this is because on the up-stroke on my injured leg it was a bit painful. So I raised my seat, which was a workout in itself--I need to cut off that excess carbon stem! It was definitely quieter than my old magnetic trainer (this one was a fluid trainer), but it still seemed to be jerky at times. After riding for about an hour, I started to smell burning rubber and the tire seemed to loosen from the trainer! I stopped and took a look--the tire was wore down a bit and it was definitely melting onto the metal roller. Is this normal?!? Man, I'm glad I stopped because this was one of my good wheels--I'd rather wear down a set of spares than these! My ride was cut short until I could figure this one out.

Saturday, Mo and I went over to Southwest Paddlesports where Mike, CR100 director, sent us. We were looking into buying a couple of Cobra Eliminators, the same that Deb has. Sure enough, we called in and they had a couple at bargain price! That morning we took them out to Lake Woodlands to take them out for a test drive. I had forgotten to bring bungee cords, so we had to scrap our plans of having a picnic out on the other side of the lake--since it is a racing boat, storage is minimal. Another artifact of it being a racing boat, it is a little more tippier than a regular touring kayak. Even so, Mo and I took to the boats with no problems and were off and paddling in no time. Mo was having some problem steering it, but that is mostly because she has never steered before. I told her that this will solve itself in time. The boat is fast! The only problem I had was for some reason my butt was hurting and then my left leg was going numb. It was probably related to my injury, perhaps a loss of muscle in that region was now causing a pinched nerve or something. Anyway, I had to stop after a couple of hours, plus we told the guy that we would be back by 3hrs.

I was ready to pony up the money for both boats, but Mo did not like the lime color of the boat I was paddling. So, instead we picked up a similar boat, a Riot Endurance. It was a couple hundred more, but it was pretty much the same shape-wise. We plan to take it out again next weekend to test it. If we don't like it, we'll just switch it out for the other green boat. Sunday was sort of a rest day. I say sort of because we still had a lot of work to do on the house, especially since we were hosting a Primal Quest Viewing Party. My main project was the garage. I put together a sweet storage system for the new kayaks using Rubbermaid FastTracks.

Well, I think that's it for now. I have big plans for this week too, which include getting on my bike outside of the house. Hopefully that goes well. My range of motion is all the way back--its just the soreness of the leg that's bothering me.

The Warship Sank My Battleship

Ok, its been 3weeks and less than a day since my fateful meeting with the Warship's deadly wake. Alright, I can't blame him, I suppose it was my fault. Oh, I guess I better explain the event for those who haven't heard through the grapevine...

So it was September 13th, around 6:30pm and I went to the fruit loop to get some training on the road bike, to train for a 40k TT that was coming up that weekend. This was the first day I had put on the aero bars, but I have trained on them before, so I was pretty comfortable. Even so, I made sure to get out of the bars on sharp turns, just to be safe. I first warmed up by riding in a big echelon. As I rode on, I was thinking of just staying in the group for the duration since they were going at a good pace. Then I saw the warship shoot by me like we were standing still. He didn't tell me he was going to be there...I of course now had to chase him down.

I caught up and said "wassup." We continued to push the pace with a few stragglers in tow at around 25-30mph. We kept pace even after one lap, then came that chicane that we have probably done about 1000+ times by now. Warship led most if not all the way, because, well, he's the Warship. Then we got to the turn and for some unexplainable reason he lost control. In an instant, he hit the deck and I was right behind him, so I was scrambling for an emergency bail out. It didn't show its face. In my attempts to avoid his yard sale, I ran off the road and next thing I know I was heading straight for one of the wooden bollards that line the entire fruit loop course. Whack! For the next several seconds I was rolling in the sand, screaming unrepeatable explitives and asking Warship "why?!" I was in serious pain, so the first thing that came to mind was, "I broke my leg." I quickly tested it to see if this was the case, and thankfully my leg was moving properly despite the blinding pain. Several nice cyclists came over to check on me, making sure I hadn't hit my head and that I was ok. I extracted the lifeflight phone and called Mo to have her pick me up. She asked what happened and I retorted, "just come and pick me up and I'll tell you then." Apparently she had disobeyed every traffic law known to get to the park.

Warship was standing, so I figured he was ok. I then checked on the bike. It surprisingly looked like it fared the best amongst the 4 of us--Warship's ride seemed to be battered in the stays. Wasrship himself had some serious road rash everywhere, but thankfully he had not broken or bruised anything...taking a bath must have been unbearable, but at least he was able to walk away. I on the other hand had obvious problems. My leg was tight and there was some instability in my knee. I was praying to God at this point, not a torn ligament. I was able to ride back to the parking lot, but could not seat my left foot into my pedal as my thigh was too tight. It had obviously sustained a direct impact and the internal bleeding was filling up every cavern of sinousy leg.

I somehow got into the car and Mo drove me back to the house so that we could quickly get it elevated and iced. I was actually very good this time and didn't wait to ice it or anything. We pulled out my circulating icing machine and put it on my leg where it was obviously swelling up. I then took a quick nap. After a short time I woke up to unbelievable pain. My leg had ballooned to twice its normal size--it was nasty-looking. We were now in scramble-mode...it was obvious that I needed to get to the emergency room now. We called Iris then headed over to St. Luke's minor emergency room off of San Felipe. Poor Mo had to carry my ass out of bed and into the car--my leg did not want to bend anymore. In my zealousness to pray for no ligament injury, I forgot "please not a debilitating thigh hematoma." We got to the hospital and after some waiting, we took some x-rays. The doc looked at them and was afraid that I would suffer from "compartment syndrome", which is basically the swelling impacting the nerves and muscles through my leg and thus causing paralysis and cell death. Sounded pretty serious, so he forwarded me to St. Luke's main emergency room where they would be able to better diagnose it. Nice, more waiting. At least they sent me away with an injection of morphine to calm the pain a bit.

It was probably 3-4am by now and they didn't seem to think my leg was an emergency. Man, I would have hated to think what would have happened if it was compartment syndrome. One of the nurses finally saw me and put me in a room, where I pretty much took a nap waiting for the doctor. A doctor, not the one I was sent over to see, comes in and looks at my leg and basically says its not compartment syndrome. He pretty much acted like all was fine and in 5mins, my visit with him was over. Mo came back in time for the final diagnosis from a food run--it was 5am and we had not eaten dinner. They sent us home with a trifecta of drugs, but no real concrete advice on what to do next, except rest. We finally got home and I was obviously not going to make it into work, so Mo called in sick for me. Apparently word spread fast and later that day I had several emails from co-workers and a call from my supervisor wishing me well. That is what I love about Stress--that definitely wasn't going to happen at Exxon. Anyway, I was laid up for the rest of the day while I contemplated Nationals. Man, it figures. My only goal race for this year and a little over a month away from it I get into a major accident.

I wasn't going to just sit on this injury, so I called into Kelsey Sebold for Dr. Varner, someone I had seen before for my ankle issues. But unfortunately he was just a foot specialist. So they forwarded me to a doctor at their Fort Bend branch. Almost a week later I see him and he takes a quick look at me and basically says that I need to immobilize it for 4 weeks. No motion at all. WTF. That's when I realized that my doc of old, Dr. Braunreiter, was in the same area. That's when I decided to get a second opinion. I called him and he was very happy to hear from me, which was good. This was Thursday or Friday, so I had to see him the next week, which would make it 2wks post-accident. I was starting to decend into a grand funk as time was running out for me without a firm diagnosis. In an attempt to cheer me up, Mo took me test-driving on Saturday as we desperately needed another car, especially if I was gonna have to go through physical therapy. We started at Audi, with the Q7. Very nice! It is a bit big and the biggest turn off was that the back wasn't tall enough to fit my bikes in, which is one of the reasons I wanted an SUV. So, even with the sweet ride, as if I was in the A4, it didn't look good for the Q7. We moved on to Volkswagen, for the Touareg. Mo was apprehensive since she had not heard anything about it. We went in there and was happily to find out it had almost all the same features as the Q7 except that they were standard and it was cheaper. One of the coolest features is the keyless entry and the keyless start--push button! That was it. I was sold. We took home T-Reg that same day. I was happy again.

Now Monday. It was a good visit with Braunreiter, catching up, and he did suspect a sprained MCL and a bad hematoma in the thigh. He wanted an MRI to see exactly what was going on, as there is usually some kind of collateral damage when it comes to ligaments (eg, meniscus tears). So the next day I had to sit in the tube for about an hour. That was fun--I forgot how loud those things are!

Then came the waiting, again. It seemed to take the films forever to make it to Dr. Braunreiter's office and I pretty much called everyday until Friday. In an effort to cheer me up again, Mo took me iPOD shopping. I can't believe it has taken me this long to get on the bandwagon--welcome to the 90s, Kenny. While walking through the Galleria, Braunreiter calls and lays it down for me. He doesn't see any damage in my knee, just some residual fluid from my leg swelling. He is now more concerned with the hematoma and tells me he is going to consult his good friend, Dr. Lintner, to see what he thinks about it. Happy that there was no ligament damage, I went on to buy the iPOD and an adapter for T-Reg. Unfortunately, my suspicion about an FM-transmitter revealed itself Saturday morning as we drove to REI to check out the garage sale and get a roof rack for T-Reg--the static gets unbearable for me. So, we are now planning to hardwire my iPOD using the iDrive+Play system. Will let you know how that goes...Saturday, with Mo getting tired of my mopey ass, she commands that we drive over to Rocky Hill to support HART teams at the Terra Firma race. I go apprehensively, but it turned out to be a good decision as it was enjoyable to see everyone again after my 3wk sebbaticle. Unfortunately, there was a very bad injury--Jill had taken a fall on the bike and broke her ankle. Again, I was reminded that it could be worse for me--she has no choice for Nationals. She was in a cast. Unbelieveable. After that, I was grateful and vowed not to take my luck for granted.

Monday rolls around, almost 3weeks after the accident, and Braunreiter says he wants me to see Lintner. He is now thinking it needs to be drained, which would mean zero chance for me to race Nationals. I of course would defer to the 5th (and 6th) doctor in the series to see what he (they) thought. First came his understudy, who liked my Suunto T6. Then Lintner came in with my films. He said we had options: 1) draining (no Nationals); 2) waiting (slim chance of Nationals). Of course you know what direction to which I leaned. He actually wanted more MRIs done, but I said screw that. No more waiting. I tried going swimming that day, but the pool was out of order. So the next day I changed my 24hrfitness membership to everyday and started the path back. I did weights on my leg, to counteract the atrophy that had engulfed my thigh and calf and then did some cardio work on the bike. Pretty good. Yesterday, pretty much the same thing--again good. Later that night I decided to roll the dice and ran down Heights blvd on the trail. It was good for the most part, with a little pain, but the bad part was that I had just had a full dinner, so that wasn't sitting well. I had to stop a couple blocks before the finish, but was able to start up again, painfully. I did 2 miles, which is pretty good considering. Next week is when I plan to go full bore and try to get back on the bike.

So that's pretty much it. I will keep you up to date on my progress as the days tick on, ever closer to Nationals. I'm still optimistic, but there were some shaky days where I wasn't sure I would be able to hold it all together. For those who called or emailed me, thanks and don't take my unresponsiveness for lack of gratitude. Its just that going from working out pretty much everyday to not at a lick gets to you. If all goes well, I'll see y'all out at training sometime next week...