Itchy-Gitchy-Ouch!

It's been awhile since I've posted anything - so.....where to start.....hmmmm....

Well, I guess I can start with the fact that I've had at least one solid, GOOD week of training. I had a week where my times were down and body felt good and overall could not complain about anything - including my hip! Yeah! So I was a little less than optimistic about a 100 mile bike I had scheduled for Saturday. Heck - at Liberty, my hip didn't last past mile marker 35.....what made me think it was going to be any different on THIS ride?
I don't know if it was the air temp being extremely low for the majority of the day - but all-in-all I had a great ride. It was even in less time than anticipated. I even followed up with 40 minutes of running. I couldn't beleive it - I FELT GOOD!
But let's back up a bit, to earlier that morning when I was chastizing a fellow rider -Tac Boy and his friend Tri-Turbo Kraut to put some sun-screen on. Well - somehow in all that mothering I failed to add some SPF to my own back. You can imagine a back having not see the sun all spring/summer what a 7 hour ride could do for you. Can you say Krispy Kritter? (speaking of which - I think that was a favorite cereal of mine when I was much younger - very similar to Alpha-Bits - but I digress) Therefore it was an afternoon of happiness and much pain for me. Youch! It is however healing - seemingly very slowly I must add. Of course - it didn't help much that I THOUGHT I was going swimming on Wednesday night. Put the swimsuit on and as I rolled the racer back straps up my back side - YYYYYYYEEEEEEEEOOOOOOOOUUUUUUUUCCCCCCCCHHHHHHHHH! Mother of Pearl!!! HUN? Blister? What blisters? IS there ANY skin on my back left? I was lucky to have ANY skin on my back and quite frankly felt as I'd been skinned and quartered like a deer.
OK - so back to my great self-esteem building weekend 'o workouts...
Quick shower....dressy casual clothes on - oh - did I fail to mention we had a wedding reception/barbecue to go to? Made a cameo, ate some food - dropped off a card and some money - met the family - chit-chatted a bit and said our goodbye's. I sort of felt like we were eating & running. (which we were) Lucky for me the bride knew I had a busy schedule to keep.
So - Sunday brought a couple of obstacles. The Waconia Triathlon. Mark and I had promised a friend of ours we would come out and cheer him on - not to mention my fellow P2er's and Gear West teammates. The triathlon in and of itself does not appear to be an obstacle but when you couple it with a threat of soring heat and humidity and a need to complete a 3 hour run....and the fact that we KNEW it would be at least noon by the time we got out of there - well - silly me....I simply was not prepared to run midday in that type of heat. I've just not acclimated well enough. And for those of you who are thinking - well - there IS Sunday evening....bite your tongue. Sunday nights are religious in our household and are left for watching t.v. and actually trying to cram in 72 hours of "relaxing" into the last few hours of the weekend. That leaves one option - get up butt early and run your 3 hours prior to leaving for the race at 7:00 AM- build in at least 1/2 hour to shower and re-fuel....and another 1/2 hour on the front end to make some oatmeal and cram it down my throat - you guessed it - Clock was set for 3:00 A.M.

At first it was a little errie as it was still dark - but I still felt geeewwwd. 1 hour into things and a few hills later - starting to show some signs of familiarity, resembling Ironman Wisconsin. Hips and quads a little sore. Carbs, need some carbs....ok - refueled....I'm geeeewwwd to go... 8 mile mark - hey - what's that in the middle of road (slight distraction) Oh - hey - it's a baby bunny! Baby bunny - you shouldn't be here....shew! Shew! What are you stupid? Are you have a death wish? Off the road with you!!! Ok - onto running.....10 mile mark - oh yeah.....this is EXACTLY how I felt at Wisco! Ugh - keep the legs moving...... Just think Tif....only 16.2 miles to go if this were the real thing.....11 mile mark - ok - walking for a bit is a good thing - after all - I'm not racing....no - you need to run...pick up your feet you lazy fat a**! Mile 13 - yeah - I'm almost home - I'm turnin' in. I'm tired - I just want to curl up on the sidewalk and go to sleep.....You should really run another 1/2 hour......but you don't have tiiiiiime! Besides - you're barely running! Come on now - what kind of work out is that REALLY? Ok - you win - I'm going home. Three hours next weekend for sure - ok? Yeah - sure - 3 hours. (fingers crossed behind back) 3 hours - you got it!

So - I made it to Waconia and cheered on several friends and teammates and several of those I didn't know - or had just met recently. Chatted w/ my coach who told me I was insane - but pointed out I was clearly ready for LP since in less than 24 hours I had put in over 12 hours of work outs....this made me a little happy. I had tons of fun and it was simply nice that I didn't have to race for once. I was home - back in bed before 1:00.....off to la-la land and dream about next weekends workouts......ooh - that hurts, turn off sunburned back - to side......exit into a peaceful sleep.
I'm happy - I'm sunburned - I think I'm ready.