Eaglewoman

Its official, I’m in the Aqua Velo for Eagleman. This is a fancy word for people who will only be swimming and biking. Not only do I get to do one less sport, but I get to pay an additional $25 for it! Makes you want to not switch and just stop after the bike and hand in your chip, but I know it’s the right thing to do. I have to confess first – I have not been the most diligent little triathlete since injury struck. I have certainly still been working out, just my bikes have definitely not been as long or nearly as intense as they would’ve been if I was still committed to the full half ironman. I’ve been swimming 3 times a week, biking usually 3 times, and aquarunning twice a week. At the beginning I had this grand plan of riding like 5 times a week since I would have all this extra time from not running, but somehow it just hasn’t worked out. Ah well. It will still be fun to swim and ride knowing I don’t have to run afterwards. I’m just trying to think of the last time I actually rode that far… :)

This weekend will be fun. My entire family is heading into the Triangle and my 9 year old niece will be doing her first triathlon at the Swim for Smiles youth triathlon. This is a big volunteer event for our Triathlon Team. Last year, in our drought-ridden summer, was the one day that it absolutely poured so we're all hoping for better weather this year. It's great to watch all the kids compete.

Almost 5 Years

I realized the other day that I've been blogging for almost 5 years now. You can go back in time and read all about it in the link to right (My Archive from Years Past). Except we didn't call it blogging back then. That term might have been around, but I'm not sure. We just called it making updates. Marty's website dates back to 1999, and after he deemed it acceptable, he allowed me to make some updates myself. Just kidding, he really lets me do what I want, I promise! So at the beginning there weren't a whole lot of people that I knew that also had webpages that they updated frequently, except for these guys, so I waited patiently for them to make their own updates. They were the extent of my blog roll at the time. Over the years, and really in the past 2 years it seems that blogs have absolutely exploded. I can barely keep up with reading them all - and they sure do pass the time when I have slow days at work :) I used to think, come on! Update already! But now I don't really have to say that since there are so many of you out there that I enjoy reading. Anyways, it's pretty neat to go back and read what I wrote back then. I would never remember some of the things we did except for the archive. I certainly don't expect other people to go back and read it, but I'm definitely glad I have it. Kind of like an interactive scrapbook for us non-creative types.

I like putting up pictures on this thing, and this is a picture of Marty and I from 2003 (the year I started blogging! Pay attention!) I was a lot younger and Marty had a lot more hair. The guy in the middle was a pretty good triathlete back in the day. Pop quiz and a gold star to whoever says who it is first :) Now if you are a VERY astute reader, you may have noticed that yes, this is the same dress I wore to Aaron and Casey's wedding at the beginning of May. Five years later and still getting my money's worth.

Age Group World Championships

I know a lot of people who will be racing in the Age Group World Championships in a couple of weeks. I'm a bit envious because I know it will be a great time and competitive race! Good luck to you all.

Last year Marty and I drove to Chattanooga and raced in the Chattanooga Waterfront Triathlon. Marty had several clients in the Chattanooga area, and he had signed up well in advance. But it wasn't until about a month before I decided I wanted to make the trip and race there, too. I had never been to Chattanooga and it sounded like a fun race. That was about all I knew, until the night before when one of my teammates emailed me and said that age group winners get an automatic slot to the Age Group World Championships in Vancouver.

Marty and I have never been to a World Championships before - always because of cost. We've done Nationals twice (the first year in Shreveport, LA, and the second year in Kansas City, MO), and we've qualified for World's at both those races but let our spots roll down. I think Portugal was the site for the first one, and despite our friends saying how nice it would be to honeymoon there, no I did NOT want to race a triathlon the weekend after our wedding! Switzerland was the next place, and it doesn't get more expensive than that. Marty had already decided that even if he got a slot in Chattanooga, he wouldn't take it (he did get the slot, by the way). I was thinking it might be cool to get to a World Championships, and this one in Vancouver would be much cheaper than the other two I had qualified for. The race went well and I finished 2nd overall (however, finding out I had lost by a mere 10 seconds in a time trial start was tough to swallow!). They pulled the top 5 out for awards, but I also ended up winning my age group. Marty kept telling me that if I wanted to take the slot, I could. But after thinking about it for quite awhile, doing the financial analysis (whaddya want, we're both MBA's), I decided to let my slot roll to the next person. That person happened to be Marit Chrislock-Lauterbach, who would've been a fantastic representive for our age group. But she proceeded to break her butt and can't race either. I'm not sure if it then goes to the next person or if there will be an empty spot where one of us could've been. Not that it matters at this point since I can't run right now! The picture above is from the awards ceremony. Right to left is 5th through 1st (chick who got 5th, Marit, Amy, me, chick who won). Even though Marit and I have raced against each other a few times, we've never formally met. But now we're blogging friends - the wonders of the internet :)

In a little bit I'll be going for a bike ride with my sister. Marty DID manage to get up this morning and is currently racing the Woodlake Triathlon. Later on we're heading to a friend's lakehouse for an afternoon cookout. And tomorrow, which happens to be my birthday :) my friend Alysia is inviting people over for a bbq just for me! Should be a fun weekend and no work on Monday - YEAH!!

Ultrasound

I just got back from picking Tassie up at the vet from her ultrasound to see what was up with her heart murmur. She, of course, did great and everyone loved her and said how sweet she was. But the results weren't the greatest. Luckily, it's not the worst case scenario which I forget what part of the heart that involves, but it ends in surgery. She has a problem with the biggest valve. It's not shutting properly and is letting blood get into the chamber. Over a long period of time, this causes the heart to grow larger and the lining to get thinner and weaken. So the heart would get bigger and weaker. The worst news is that her lining is already thinning, which the vet and the ultrasound dude were surprised at since she's not even 2 years old yet.

The vet was very unsure as to what this exactly means - the fact that there is already a change in her heart definitely didn't give anyone warm fuzzies, and probably means that in another year, untreated, it would be worse, and really shorten her lifespan. He couldn't say that for sure since she is not a pure breed that has history he could go on. He said we can put her on blood pressure medication and this should definitely help the condition from progressing faster than if she wasn't on any medication. I asked why we wouldn't want to put her on the medication and his only reason was cost - so I'm thinking it's way expensive like hundreds of dollars a month, but it turns out it will be more like $30 a month. So I said, GIVE ME THE MEDICATION!!! Seriously, we don't want to gamble with her life over $30/month. So that is good news and I hope that it really does help her heart!

She'll get another ultrasound in a year (and probably every year after that) to monitor what's going on. AND another good thing is he said this should not in any way limit her activities - so she is free to run as much as she wants.

Injury What?

I went to another doctor today - they took x-rays that showed nothing, and she said it IS my plantar fascia. She seemed to think that it is extremely inflamed right at the insertion. I'm supposed to take 1800 milligrams of ibuprofen a day and not run for two weeks and then see how it feels. I hope that it's that easy. Although, honestly if it is, I'm going to be a bit pissed that that's all I needed to do and I could've done that FOUR WEEKS AGO. It's not much different than what I've been doing anyways, minus all the ibuprofen. I've taken a bit, but not that much. It seems like a lot to me, but I guess the doc knows what they are doing. How frustrating. I feel like I'm being a wimp, but then when I walk for too long, it hurts. Then I realize I'm not, but it's an endless cycle of berating myself for being so soft, to convincing myself I'm not crazy. If it still hurts in 2 weeks, we move to def con 3.

Bad Dog!

Marty and I had another fun Wednesday night at our group ride. While we were away, Tassie decided to tear up my owner's manual for my new phone - a Blackberry Pearl. This is way too much phone for me and I can barely place a call, so you can see how this is going to be problematic.

I yelled at her pretty good and now she is sad and I of course, feel bad.

Heal Heel!

This afternoon I went and saw a Dr. about my persistent foot pain. He's a top notch physical therapist recommended to me by my sister. It was a bit of drive to see him (he's out in Hillsborough) but I knew I wanted to go to someone who not only knew what he was talking about, but was in tune with running - and he was all of these.

I was honestly expecting him to tell me that I have a heel spur or something equivalent and that I would need to give it some more rest, get into some good orthotics and away we go. Apparently, I should stick to my day job instead of moonlighting as a doctor because that's not what he thought at all. He watched me run and poked and prodded my heel and determined that it probably had nothing to do with plantar fasciitis. If it were a heel spur he said I would still have the classic symptoms of pf like severe pain in the morning. In fact, my foot feels the best in the morning. And saddest of all, for the 30 seconds I ran for him, my foot hurt. Pretty bad.

He thinks it could be a stress fracture or stress reaction. I was a bit floored by this because in all my years of running, I have never had a stress fracture. I've never even broken a bone my entire life. He suggested I get an x-ray, which can sometime show a stress fracture (but not always), so I'll be making another appointment with a sports orthopedist. If nothing shows up, I'm not so sure I'll go to the next step which would probably be a bone scan, but he assured me if nothing showed up I am not crazy. I guess we'll go from there. So in summary, not what I wanted to hear. I have no idea when I'll be able to run again.

In other news, Tassie had a tick on her last night - another new experience for us. She was good and let me hold her while Marty tweezed the little sucker out. We put it in a baggie and then tried to determine if we managed to get the head out or if it was still lodged in her. We think we got it, and she seems no worse for the wear