One step forward and two steps back

I know it’s been a while since I have posted but honestly my brain has been too scrambled.  Instead of going back and trying to summarize the past several weeks I’ll just commence with the highlights.

At the beginning of the season looking ahead it’s so easy to see the forest for the trees. You have weeks and weeks to go and tons of time to do work. In reality there are life things that come into play…

Such as sickness, travel, taxi accidents,injury, sickness again.. etc. When I last left you all I was rejoicing over the purchase of my awesome new bike. The possibilities were limitless…

Step back- March began with a mysterious fever bug that had me sidelined for a few days. (and off my new bike L )  Then I had this weird cascade injury thing that started with a simple blister on my foot. My shoe heel basically broke, causing this huge bruise and blister on my foot. This caused me to start running with a slightly ‘off’ gait, which caused a big bone bruise on the opposite foot. Then running with that foot slightly turned out to alleviate the pressure on the top of the foot caused me to slightly strain my adductors and hamstring. So that is an injury summary for four weeks running and I am just ‘almost’ back to normal with that!

Possible step ahead- Then I traveled to San Francisco for work for an entire week. I was excited actually because my coach and coaching group, Purple patch are based out of SF.

No wonder they like indoor training out there. This was just the road to my hotel.

Back again- I was hoping to make it to a  bunch of workouts but work intervened (plus I was trying not to run on the foot. The adductor part hadn’t yet occurred J ) I did have one really fun track workout with them, though. Then my plan on my last morning there was to make it to a masters swim before our last work event and departure. It was going to be an adventure in transportation trying to coordinate taxis back and forth and leaving early to make it on time for my meeting looking reasonably presentable, etc.  

I ran over the possibilities in my head again and again, calculating the odds that something would go wrong and make me tardy. In the end I couldn’t have predicted that another car would run a red light, causing a huge wreck that completely totaled the taxi I was in. No one spoke English except for me so I was the go between  for the drivers and the police!

My taxi. I actually didn’t know how bad it was till I got out of the car. Fortunately, no injuries, and everyone insured as far as I could tell

In the end I actually made my swim, albeit a few minutes late (step forward J ) Bad part is that I was so sore from the accident, it was a bit of a setback for the weekend activities and big training.

Happy to be home and had a few solid days after recovering from the accident. Then I picked up a cold that had me down for a few days. That basically brings me to today, and now it’s almost time to rest up for my races, ackk!!

The good news is that even though all this sounds like a lot of setbacks in four weeks, I actually didn’t miss ‘much’ training. I have had a few breakthrough cycling and swim sessions in particular. I know my running is stronger than it was last year.

The other bad news is the progress that I have made with sadie’s cause to help build a shelter to save Fulton County dogs from being euthanized. Thought we have had some marvelous friends donate, (and without you all bring proactive I would still be at $0) overall I have done a very poor job fundraising, and I am ridiculously behind my goal. So if you are reading this blog and haven’t donated and want to help directly save dogs, please consider donating any amount. I have decided to extend my self-imposed deadline to October since I am so far behind my goal.

In summary,  I am planning to go ahead with New Orleans and St. George and see where I land! I will leave you with a few pics. See you at the races next weekend or thereafter!

Snake that Bailey and Sadie were messing with on their walk today. Thanks goodness it was non poisonous or this blog topic may have been different!

Bailey ‘hiding’ from Sadie’s wrath .. 

This is where we’re headed in May, post St. George. Watching the dogs run on the beach is beautiful…