Crazy weekend, trying to stay sane.

Tough weekend in H And D retirement land. It started out by a 5 hour wait in the Emergency Room on Friday night with H's mom, Bea. Can I just say what the hell happened to our medical system? It was ridiculous!! There was no less than 50 people in the waiting room. We had my 87 year old mom-in-law, who was suffering and in pain and needed to lie down. She was "next on the list" to get an ER bed. I talked to a poor girl next to us who had a burst ear drum and she had been there 5hours. It was all based on acuity and since Bea was next in line, she got the "first bed" AFTER THREE HOURS?? What a nightmare! To make a long story short, they admitted her. To protect her privacy, though I can't imagine her ever reading my blog since she cannot even open e-mail, I will only say that her chronic condition has worsened and our days with her may be limited..She is home now and still a very sharp woman. I cannot even imagine living life without her but that is something it looks like we do not have to deal with at least in the immediate future. We meet with her Dr. on November 10th to get a treatment plan so will know more then..

In the meantime, if she gets in this situation again, we will be calling 911 or getting her Dr. to admit her directly...That ER stuff is WAY out of control!!
I will say once on the hospital...thank GOD, she got such good medical care from the nurses and aides, had a great private room. It was almost worth the wait..

Our training went to hell. In between hospital visits, we attempted a long run on Sat and long ride on Sunday. Between Dr. and family calls out on the road, we only got 50 miles in on the bike. We still saw Bea when she got home and helped her get settled in and somehow made it to dinner with some friends. I collapsed last night in a heap and woke up to ants on the kitchen counter from leaving the dishes dirty for 2 days...Yuk!

Today our daughter, son-in-law and granddaughter, Avery will be here to cheer up Nana. We have our next bike and swim lesson with Eric today. Hopefully we can stay on task today after such a crazy weekend..

Short non-creative post..really..

The whole world seems to be going to hell in a hand basket on the economic front, but I choose to keep the blog light:

It is four and a half weeks before the big day of IMAZ and the birth of my grand baby, little Hadley. Which comes first is to be determined by the little one..

My week has looked like this:

Saturday: 100 mile ride, followed by a 30 min brick run.

Sunday: 3 hour run

Monday: 20 miles on the bike with our new coach Eric, in the foothills up and down hills. Followed by a 3500 swim, with tips from Eric again..

Tuesday: hour track workout with 3 & 6 minute intervals. Also a quick gym workout.

Wednesday: 45 mile pretty easy paced bike and 1:10 min. easy paced run

Today: We will do a 4500 yd swim and short weight workout.

Why I am not curled in a ball in fetal position is beyond me. Actually as the week as worn on, I am feeling better and better..go figure.

A few things I have changed in this last month of training. Don't most people hire a coach to get them through the last month? Probably not..but I am SO glad we did. H wanted some bike tips...I am along for the ride mostly on that. But the swim..now I am cautiously saying this but I think after 7 years of triathlon, I may be getting faster! I have learned more from the Coach in 2 swim sessions than I have since I started swimming again as an adult. And this includes all the years in Masters I swam. I got so excited I ordered a new wetsuit yesterday:





Yep, a new Blue Seventy..This should give me the best chance for a swim PR..













I also decided to get a round of A.R.T. before the race so my back would stop hurting. It has bothered me for about 6 weeks now, getting more consistently painful over time. Dr. Scott is helping me with this and after 2 treatments, I have no pain at all. Magic!! I have always heard good things about ART and now I know...it works..

I feel as if all my creativity is kind of on survival mode right now so that is it....Just a report of the latest training stuff. And Becca is feeling good and pregnant..things going well there. The rest of life goes on..the laundry piles up..I am incessantly hungry all the time..my weight is the same.. some of my family is getting annoyed because we are training so much and not available..I have already voted...I found a new bike mechanic...etc...

Less drama this week...

The weather man lied. The wind blew about 15 MPH for the last 2 hours of the ride. Mostly headwind. We got through a total of 100 miles including 2 pretty big hills, a couple of flat tires. The first one was H's. I am faster in tire changing Dept. and he is better cooking. So it all evens out at the end..as I was putting on the spare tube, my finger ran along the inside of the tire and OW! I sliced my finger on a piece of glass stuck in the tube. I could be really dramatic here and say how I bled like a stuck pig and had to have intense pressure on it to stop the bleeding before I pulled out my trusty band aid, which I now carry on all my rides...oh that is exactly what happened. Here i am in the middle of that episode:





MG thought it was Facebook worthy. That is blood on my mouth and tongue. I look like I just got done eating a wild animal or something...



We carried on without any more real excitement. At one point with the wind in our faces, I was bitching and Michi said At least it is not hailing! That made me laugh because now all our rides will be base lined against the ride from hell last weekend, which makes all other bike rides seem like child's play..

MG wanted to go up another hill at the end and there was mutiny in the troops and we decided to do the last 40 miles flat-thank god!!!

Total miles: 100
Time: 6:42
How I felt: Like dog doo-doo the first half, pretty decent the 2nd half.

Followed by a 30 minute brick with MG and Michi...

After a call from Mark and Lorna, who thought we may be hungry..Oh no not at all, we are just about to wolf down anything we can get our hands on..we met them for a great pasta dinner and now.....I am wiped out..

On to a 3 hour run tomorrow..

Riding tomorrow AND...

This is the forecast for tomorrow:

Sunny
High73°FPrecip0%
Wind:
W 9 mph
Max. Humidity:
36%
UV Index:
6 High

nuff said...

Less is more..

I am crying uncle!! When I feel like I am over training, I start to get diminishing returns on my biking, running and swimming. Today we took off for a 3 hour bike and about halfway through I felt so lousy and could barely push myself up the hills. So I cried UNCLE! and said I needed to go home. That was that, I was done... Not to mention there is still friggin' wind here and I was freezing when we started into a headwind. I am having PTSD from Saturday's ride I guess. My back hurts, I am exhausted -so I am bagging the run I was suppose to do today. I am in my pajamas and it is mid-afternoon. I am laying on the couch and feel like I may not move for a week.

Such is life in Ironman training world. It consumes everything. Very selfish unbalanced sport really when I think about it..That is why no more "just 2 IMs" in a year. The half Iron distance seems to be just enough to not completely take over. The full IM training just feels like too much. Even though I am not working it still is overwhelming training right now. The thing that makes it tolerable is training with H and looking forward to seeing him finish. I love the long rides with my crazy IM Outlaw friends, even if they are torture like Saturday's ride...

We are hiring a swim coach. I know a little late in the game. We found this fellow who appears to swim like a fish and that is what I want! I want to be 25 years old and swim like a fish! OK, well maybe not the 25 year old part is possible but I really think I could PR this whole IMAZ thing if the stars are aligned right and I have the race of my life. Anything is possible...Swimming better will help.

I looked (unfortunately) and out of the 60 or so women in my AG at IMAZ, I am 2nd to the oldest! That kinda sucks for me...So if I happen to get a PR, it will have to be among the youngin's in my AG. Damn!! There goes my Kona slot. Ha!