Whoa it has been a LONG TIME.

I am not going to lie. I've periodically thought about updating this. The thing is, life has a knack of happening.

Previously in Aubrey's World:

I kept riding. Always. Maybe not much, and maybe not well, but I've kept riding. I went through several Big Life Transitions - a very painful breakup, moving, finishing grad school, starting a business, finding someone new and wonderful, moving again, and getting another dog.

And now I want to come back to it. I'm in the age range where if it's not weddings on Facebook, it's certainly babies and young children. I feel old and young at the same time; my knees ache like they never have before. They're worse when I haven't ridden, and better when I have. Yoga makes everything better when I commit to doing it.

I've been learning how to backcountry ski. I started on some skinny shorts, and now I have done one test run on my longer, fatter beauties. Where do people get off thinking fat is bad? Fat skis are the BEST. I'm itching to get out on them again.

I've ridden enough to wear out my mountain bike, Kona (ok, I'm not very creative with names, it's what's written on him, and yes, my bikes are boys) and I'm looking for ways to get afford buy a new one. This whole starting a company thing didn't come with a salary, exactly. I have my savings, but I'd like to keep that cushion until I know I'll have a salary coming from the company, or just a real job. Either way. I'm proud of how I haven't made a dent in it (How's THAT for going into debt without you, asshole? This might be an explanation for later....).

To be continued.....

Races! Just not Tri's

I feel like I haven't raced a single time this year. Which is strange, because technically, I have. The thing is, I haven't done a single (real) tri. I'm excluding the winter tri from the "real" category because, c'mon. That's not a tri. Though I have to say that was fun. Substituting the swim with a ski was a whole new kind of torture. And I'm clearly becoming a Canadian because I'm excited for next year's snow (WHAT????).

The races I have done: mountain bike, road bike, mountain bike. I was going to do the Jay Benson while I was visiting the 505, buuuttt it was cancelled....le sigh. So I feel like I'm in good shape, but I have no idea because, well, in terms of fitness I'm only really *ok* for bike fitness (compared to cyclists, so that's normal) but when it's all put together is the real test of my fitness...that's how I train.

The good news is that I'm planning on FINALLY doing a tri next weekend...haha we'll see how that goes. It's hard to feel like the one sitting on the sidelines when my other tri friends are out there killing it! I feel like that child saying, "Can I come play? PLEEEAAASE??"

Now if only I could find a local offroad tri to do, that would be awesome!

On another note, it was a muddy long run this morning. So much so that I was slipping and sliding all over the muddy trails, and the dog and I both ended up in the shower afterwards. The rest of the day has been a pajama/data analysis/pot-o-tea day. Not too shabby.

...So it's been while......

I realized that the last post I made was very nearly a year ago.....ha well it happens. Honestly I was super burned out on racing anyways. I actually went on and did decently at Kansas 70.3 again, but since I hadn't been running all that much (due to a sprained ankle) my run failed me. Oh smell. It happens. Besides, noone reads this anyways :-)

After that, I was done. Completely. Finished. Finito. Quit.

And we were moving to Canada, eh. So I took time off, did what I wanted. I rode/ran, but all things considered not much. I seriously thought I was done. Did some cyclocross racing last fall for fun, but it was routine that that was my major workout of the week (a 45 minute race....yeeaahhhh).

Then the first semester of grad school came. I was so stressed out, not because it was all that super duper hard, but because I hadn't been in school for a couple years and I was just, well, scared. I felt like I was under all sorts of pressure. And my course load was pretty heavy.

I thought I wouldn't have time to "train" per se. So I hired a coach. See the logic there? Actually what I found was that while I was sitting there staring at the computer freaking out, I was VIBRATING because I've clearly just got too much energy...ADHD much? While the coach didn't work out for me after a few months, I'm so glad I worked with him when I did. It meant I didn't have to think about what training I should be doing because I didn't really have time to. And it gave me a starting point for not having swam for 4 months. Hahaaha.......

Oh and there's something else: I'm in Canada, where there's this stuff....it's white, umm...snow? I think?

No really, I've never spent so long on my trainer. I've taken up cross country skiing, though and I'm planning on next year doing some backcountry skiing/snowshoeing. I topped the winter off with a solid 2 hour skate ski (which is like a super duper workout) for which I was proud of myself. Especially considering I started out just falling on my face all over the place. Really good technique still evades me, but that's what the Significant Other, and next winter is for :)

I'm restarting this because I'm feeling cautiously optimistic for this next season....I'm only doing 3-4 tri's but I've got road races, crits, mtb races, and cross races planned. I thought that a winter of no really long rides (that I used to do) would mean the end, but I went out for 122km (haha yes I've converted to metric) and it was easy. Easy smeazy. No problem. Not even tired the next day....hit the trails for a 2+ hour run.....this makes me think it might be a better season than I previously thought. My legs feel like they're getting their speed back.

I'm recovering well again, which, since Worlds in 2008 I've been dealing with health issues that meant I couldn't recover well.....and now it's all coming back like before that 3rd degree sunburn. I'm still avoiding gluten, but really I think that if it ain't broke, don't fix it. I'm also not coming off of a year of injuries like last year and the year before that.

Well, here goes nothing. Again.

Matthiesson *Muddy* Mountain Madness!!!

Yesterday was my first mountain bike race! I've long been sort of scared to do a mountain bike race; even though I'm not really that bad a rider. This race was kind of hilarious. There was one section of trail that was just stupid to ride - the mud gummed up on the tires so bad that the wheels stopped spinning, only made more interesting by the fact that you had to go up a trail that would have been rideable under normal circumstances, but pushing up a 70lb bike with wheels that don't spin meant that you were probably going 0.5 mph and maxing yourself out just to move anywhere. I ended up stopping on the hill a couple times just to take myself down to only barely dying. The rest of the course was great. It was slick enough to make it interesting, but not gummy enough to stop you. There was a lot of sideways riding going on, and not to mention the parts where guys ahead of me would crash and let out a long string of loud curses. Well, we all kinda felt that way. 

As for the "race" part of it, I started out super strong, figuring that I'd bury myself and see if I could hang on. We all (and by "we" I mean the six sport women total and ALL of the 50 odd sport men) started together. I got a good glob of mud in my eye right off the start. Riding with one eye closed is a great way to start a race with a million other people. The course went through a grass field first, where I didn't gain any time and we ladies ended up behind a lot of the sport men once we hit the single track, a lot of the guys ahead of us couldn't ride stuff, creating a huge traffic jam. It went pretty slow there for awhile. Once we got really going, I was dukeing it out with the top two girls up to the point where my wheels stopped spinning. Then I was done. It was just kind of a slog-fest after that. I still ended up in third overall, but I don't know how I really would have compared with the top two since they cut anyone coming in after a certain time. I wasn't that far behind them, I believe. A few minutes.

I bet I would have had better luck if I'd had something more suitable for mud than my slickish crosscountry tires. Hey, not bad for a first race.

Fed Up

I can train through rain. I'm ok with that. Snow? Fine. I did it all through the horrible winter last year. Even in minus 30 degree temps. It was hard but it was fine. Long swims in the late evenings/early mornings? Check. What I can't seem to deal with is being injured. Of course, being a little hurt and having to take time off is one thing, but this is getting pretty ridiculous since now I'm completely losing motivation. It started in February last year with ITB crap. I didn't really get it sorted out; it was involved all the way up in my hip. It was bad enough that it meant my running speedwork was basically nonexistant. I was getting it worked on, felt like it was beginning to improve, barely, by the end of June. That's when I crashed and broke my elbow.

That kinda forced time off.

I started healing up from that, only for the ITB/hip issue come roaring back to the point where I couldn't run a 10k with any sort of grace. It totally wasted my USAT Nationals and scrapped my last two (expensive and big) races of the year since I couldn't run for even a meager 5 minutes without excruciating pain. So then I took more time off, and time seeing people to try and get it sorted out. Then I finally felt like I was getting it figured out, and had a great first-ever cross race. Then I crashed again, November this time, and this time destroyed my Ulnar Collateral Ligament in my thumb. Well, you kind of need your thumb to hold on to bike handlebars, you know? I couldn't do anything resembling real training for awhile after that. I slowly came back around in the winter, using my trusty trainer to get some non-balance-required miles in and slowly built up running miles again.

I have had a great late winter/early spring thus far with already putting a century in on my bike before April, and having taken first overall in a 10 miler trail race (Gasp! That NEVER happens to me!!). The only problem is that ever since that trail race, my ankle has been wrong. I know I did bad with not running enough trails before the race, but I didn't think I'd actually have a problem with my ankle. With all the other things going on in my body I figured it'd be ITB (there was some of that, but it's mostly gone, now) or plantar fascia (there's that occasionally, too). Oh and all this joy is on the left side. My right side is perfectly fine. Now after the trail race it was hurting, but I figured it'd be a few days and all would be back to normal. WRONG. It's been a full month minus one day since the race and my ankle still hurts. Yes I've had it looked at, yes it feels (like a million times) better than it did before I had it adjusted by my chiropractor. Zapper therapy makes it feel better, too. The thing is it's so finicky. It's fine one day, and I can run for a bit - 30 minutes even one day - with no pain. The next day, however I'm unable to even walk right. Riding bothers it but doesn't seem to make it too much worse, and if I try and "stretch" it (knee bent - ankle isolating) it hurts. It feels fine if I'm just stretching my calves with knees straight. Doing yoga makes it feel better, too.

This is just the latest in my wonderfully long string of injuries. So much for my time off of school to train, right? Oh well. It's raining today anyways so I didn't really want to go run.

My Dog, the Shadow Eater

My dog follows me everywhere. Every so often she'll get distracted and be out chasing something, but usually she's somewhere within ten feet of me. It's how she is. I love it. But she also has this strange quirk of not eating unless I'm (or sometimes Casey will do too) in the kitchen. We'll dish up in the kitchen, she'll eat. We go out to the living room to eat and she follows and waits till we get up for more. And while she's eating she grabs a mouthful and watches you while she chews, making sure you're not leaving, I guess. When you look at her, she gives a little butt wiggle and grabs another mouthful. Then you leave, and she's right behind you. This is my dog, the Shadow Eater.

Wholly Training, Batman!!

Wow this has been a crazy week and a half. I went down to Southern Illinois with the Wildcard guys (and gal :D) and did two of three days of riding with them. I would have done all three days if I could get off work on Friday to go, but the person who was supposed to cover my shift quit. So thanks for leaving me stuck with that. It was probably for the best. I was fresh for the Saturday century that way. And the hill climb day Sunday. I made up for the lack of miles with the simple goal of blowing up my legs on the hills Sunday. It worked. The 20 miles back to homebase were pathetically slow, and even if I cared, I had no chance of keeping up. Thankfully Alexei felt the same way!

It was a great time, hills, booze, food, and bikes!!

Hand Update and Plans From Here

The hand has healed pretty well, I suppose. I got the sutures out, was given a lovely splint thing and told not to do anything "stupid." So I didn't tell them when I started riding my bike again with the splint on, and I certainly ignored the follow up appointment to be told that I was healing up well...not gonna spend $2000 for THAT valuable intel. Thanks. So this is how the thumb looks now:

It's more knobby than it was before, less flexible, and much more tempermental. Heat feels good, cold does not. It doesn't like mountain bike handlebars, and if I overdo, it lets me know. It's also kind of a sexy scar, if I do say so myself. If I ever got manicures, it would look kinda badass next to red nails. But I'm usually too lazy (efficient!) to get them. They just crack and come off anyways, right? I'm slowly losing the feeling that I'm going to fall on/stub/doanythingbad to it, and if it warms up here soon, I want and probably need to get out and mountain bike again since I'll probably be forever a chicken if I don't.

In other news, we have a definite new home post-Illinois. We are going to Canada! (eh) Yep folks, that's right. I'm actually really excited, for many reasons. For the first time in a while, I'll be doing school and um....actually using that grey matter in my head. So I'm a bit nervous but also super excited. I'm excited for the green spaces in Calgary, the beautiful mountains, and, yes, even the cold. I'm going to learn to cross country ski. Oh yeah and speed skate (because, you know, I'm totally good at not crashing). So I'd better improve my mountain biking skills, since there is real mountain biking in the Rockies as opposed to flat and sad Illinois. Just saying - Illinois MTB Champion is an oxymoron. That doesn't mean I can't at least work on it, though!

Effed Up Hand Update

I've successfully done it again: taken myself out of the game for two months. The thing is, I'm not all that pissed anymore. Sure, I'm bored and with the usual training load I would have, boredom was almost never an issue. But I kinda can't do much about it, anyways.

I had the hand surgically "fixed" on Friday. What does that mean, exactly? Well it means taking out whatever bones (I swear I remember hearing growth plates, but maybe, maybe not) had fallen INTO the thumb joint - the middle one - and repair the "shredded" tendon ligament that, you know, you NEED to have to use your thumb. So in theory it's back in place where it should be where the bones were keeping it from going before surgery. But I can't see it because it's wrapped up in plaster and gauze and ace bandages that make it look like my thumb is bigger than the rest of my hand. It twitches every once in awhile like it keeps hoping it's free, but alas, it is not.

So what does this mean for training, then? Well I can't do much till I have my follow-up appointment to get the sutures out and hopefully a removable thumb support. At that point I'm hoping I can start lifting (light) weights again and hit the pool. That's also when I'll start riding Skippy since I can - and have - ridden that bike one-handed. Otherwise I probably won't ride till two months is up. That sucks. I miss my bike(s).

Positive note: this totally gets me out of the embarrassing excuse of an attempt at snow sports when visiting the bf's family this winter. Because, you know, I can't be falling on my bum hand.

Slide, BOOM........Ouuuuuccchhhh

So it was an interesting Thanksgiving for me - with one hand! Yeah, I crashed yet again in spectacular fashion. Requiring an ER visit and the whole shebang. I'm definitely not happy about having broken myself yet again on a bike. This time it was on a much harder surface, too - slippery concrete.

This is how it happened: I went to the weekly UCR ride - the night ride around town on mountain, or in my case, my cross bike so that I can keep up without issue. We all met up, and not even five minutes in, we headed into the unnamed parking garage for our warmup. They all started taking off fast, so I joined in, not to be outdone as the only lady on a bike that night. On the second turn, I didn't even have time to react before I felt my head hit the concrete and myself slide for awhile. I came down on my left side, and I must have tried to catch myself with my right hand without realizing it, since that is the one I really messed up. I laid there for a few moments trying to gather what had just happened as I hear Dan start to make fun of me for going down - and my usual snarky responses were out of reach. My mind kept scanning my body to see what was wrong, which was when I realized that there was another body next to me. I was one of three or four that went down! And we weren't even going that fast!

It took a little bit for me to come back from lala land, and at that point I finally realized that my hand didn't feel right. Or look right, and it was still in my glove. I pulled it out very carefully and saw that my thumb was pointing in the wrong direction. The guys instantly said "Oh it's dislocated," so I was about to simply pull it back into place but they stopped me, probably for the better. Even though that's what the doctor ended up doing later that night at the hospital.

It was clear that they didn't believe me at the hospital - they asked quite the list of questions about any drug use and any "abuse at home" before even really giving me a look. They took xrays, gave me a "pain reliever" shot in the bum that did NO good whatsoever, and were about to splint it up and send me out before I protested that it was not in the right position. They finally backtracked and retook the xrays, this time with my good hand as a comparison. Then they claimed that the first set looked ok, but the second didn't. Probably because they hadn't actually looked at the first set.

That's when the doc decided it would be best to numb it with a shot and pull it back into place. That wasn't much fun, either, but at least it looked like it was more *normal* in position than before. Then they gave me the plaster splint that I'm not allowed to take off, and sent me home.

So then I had to cook all the Thanksgiving goodness we'd already went shopping for with a messed up thumb. Notthatmuchfun.

I didn't accidentally chop anything off, so that's a plus.

Four days post-crash and I can use my fingers better, but I don't particularly like to. And if I try to use the thumb it lets me know that's not OK. My hand is swollen to the point where I don't have knuckles anymore, and it's all purple-yellow grossness that you get when you bruise something good. The other bruises I got from the crash aren't all that bad - it seems that my hand absorbed 90% of the impact. Maybe it saved my collar bone, maybe not. I prefer to think it did.

Here's to hoping I don't need surgery. I go Wednesday to find out.

Gonna have to go see my massage therapist this week to get my angry muscles worked out, too.

Now I have to be more creative about getting my workouts in, but I'm mostly just hoping I can get back to swimming soon. I have the road bike on the trainer already, and it's going to be back to riding Skippy around town since I don't have to use my right hand on that bike. And I'm not really going to allow myself to run before I get *cracked* back into position.

Gotta work back into it yet again.

UCR November 16, 2011 by ablapat at Garmin Connect - Details

Night rides on bikes! Yes we were going everywhere. No, we didn't always have a clue as to where we were. It was a blast though.

Home from France and Spain!

I spent the last two weeks (as of last Thursday night, I've been home) in Europe. It was awesome. Though the one thing I have to say is that I'm so so tired of cigarette smoke. It seemed like everybody smokes there. Which made my nose hurt.

I got to ride a (very crappy and loose in all sorts of ways) bike in France and a different one (in better shape, slightly) in Spain. Didn't get pick pocketed, and I, at least, avoided food poisoning. My poor mother, notsomuch. I learned that while my favorite shoes are the cutest darn things ever, they are not so great for travel in as much as they started stinking to high heavens. And I can't decide if it's worth trying to wash them/sanitize them or just throw them out.

Maybe just toss them....

This week marks the official beginning of training bonanza 2011/2012. Starts with a whopping 8 hour training week. Haha I like the beginning.

Going a new direction

So since I've been sooooo so SO injured this year, since, ha oh yeah, February...ok that basically makes my whole season the time of being injured...I'm going to take a different approach. I'm going to start running barefoot. No biking, obviously, but running. Why, you ask? Isn't that dangerous? Hmmmm no. Here's why.

The body has the most amazing ability to adapt to it's environment. When it's not important or useful to be strong in some areas, those areas get weak while the areas that need to be strong get stronger based on the forces and work subjected to that particular part of the body. What this means is that the feet, that which supports your whole body need to be strong. What we've done by wearing shoes is confine them and not allow them to be the awesome adaptive tools that they are. We instead engineer padding and "support" under the arches to keep them from flexing. But the arch flexes because it is designed to do that. So since your foot isn't taking the hits, what is? Your legs....really it makes perfect sense. At least, it really resonates with what I've experienced running in my nice and supportive winter training shoes all last winter. And then ended up with seemingly chronic overuse injuries all year. And by chronic I mean one after another after another after another....very very frustrating.

I'm not quite as eloquent as explaining it as this guy is. What it breaks down to is that I'm giving up on running like I've been running for the last couple years. Hasn't worked. Everything else seems ok, just the running isn't good. So, I've really got nothing to lose on it since I've hit this impenetrable barrier on my running speed. Just can't train enough speed to get faster because I get injured just from building up the base to properly do the speed I need to do. Boooo. So I'm only going to build base via bicicleta and build up my running distances based on what my (barefoot) feet allow. Which means I don't have to spend another $100 on some foamy running shoes that only last me a few months. And I'll of course lift weights and build my core strength to address inherent imbalances and improve power yadda yadda yadda. If it ends up being a bad winter and biking is off the table, I'll have to track down some snowshoes and hit the cornfields or something. And hit the pool since that'll be indoors...and there's a sauna in there too...hehe....

Heading to France on Friday this week...three days till I fly out!! Should be a stellar trip with my mommy :)

Sartwhat??

So in my searching for healing, we (and by we I mean me and my massage therapist) have found a new culprit!!!

I'm actually pretty excited about this one - the sartorius. And yes, it hurt to get worked on, but I already feel a lot looser, so I'm betting I'm going to be heading out on a run in the next few days...hehe I'm excited.

Yep, it was a good night.

Leg Issues

So my defunct leg - the left one - hasn't let me run in over a month. Not really, anyways. I tried running a few test runs, but really they ended up being 10 minute walk/runs. Now that finally seems to be changing. I've been going to a chiropractor to get the Active Release Technique done, which I've had before I moved here, but the problem has been that there hasn't been anyone listed in town that I could go to until recently. Well, there was one listed before but he was completely unreachable. So that obviously didn't work out. So the chiropractor I've been going to now has been helping loosen things up, and I haven't really had much progress until this last time - when he worked on my adductors. Now THAT hurt. That means that the adductors are REALLY pissed off. And guess what - today I ran for 15 minutes without having to stop!! So I suppose that means that we found the big culprit! Yay!

So I'm building on that progress by sitting here with my fabulous zapper zapping away at the bad spots. All while I work on those grad school applications. And the training plan for the winter. Yep I've decided that even though I've been completely burnt out from this year that I'm still not done doing this triathlete thing. What it was this year really was dealing with all the injuries that I've gotten. What it boils down to is that I didn't quite take it careful enough in adding more running to the plan and I didn't lift enough weights. I know that if I had been better at strengthening the things that needed to be stronger to prevent overuse injuries I would have been fine. And I wouldn't have pounded my legs into oblivion on frozen hard concrete all winter. Live and learn, right? Oh and I'm adding more aqua jogging to the plan this winter, too.

Better to work the muscles happily, my dear.

Oh and I discovered a hot tub I can use. Can you say SWEET???? I've always been a big fan of them but didn't discover the one in the gym I've been using until yesterday. Definitely gonna make a habit of that!

I'm still hoping to get some cross races in this fall though. The next cyclocross race that I'll be able to get to is maybe on October 9th - the Dan Ryan cyclocross in Chicago...dun dun duuuunnnnn.....so I may be heading up to Chicago for a visit and a hammerfest! I'm interested to see how I'll do against other Cat 4 women. You know, since I beat them by a fair margin at the small cross race I did before. But I don't know if that's representative of the Cat 4 women...probably not gonna worry about moving up till next year, when I'll be willing to pay for a cycling license for a full year instead of what's left of a year (when I'm going to be in Europe for two weeks here soon too - fun!). And hopefully I won't break anything mid season this next time around. Like my elbow. That kinda ruined things. Just a bit.

Things are looking up :)

Cross Race!

Ok, so yeah this is a bit late - like what isn't that I do? Right? I'm always doing stuff "on my own time"....yep.

Anyways the Patriot Cross race was a bit of a shocker for me. I didn't know what to expect, but I certainly didn't think I'd be off the front before the first half of lap was over haha. Ok ok it was a Cat 4 women's field and I know that I'm still crazy fit from my broken triathlon season. But still, I didn't expect THAT!

The girls started way faster than I expected them to; they just shot off the line! So, I just kinda did what they were doing and went with them thinking I'd just hang with them and see how I felt.

There was a line along the shore of lake this race went around that doubled over on itself not far from the start. That's where I went from 3rd or 4th to 1st.

The Master Plan at that point was to just be ahead of everyone at the logs we had to ride over since I was betting it'd be a bit of a bike-person clog. And I was right - one woman crashed out with a broken leg!!

So I just kinda kept going at it as fast as I could, rode the lines I'd practiced, and tried not to blow myself up until I saw the 1 lap to go sign. I was so glad to see that sign, too!

They had quite the series of down, turn, and up steep little hills. It was hard to make those, catch your breath and keep moving quick.

This little dip was crazy! It musta taken me ten tries to ride it on the practice runs, but I know making that hill made a huge difference on this race. It was fast at the bottom, and steep at the top, so it was super slow just as you got to the flat. Fun stuff!

The barriers were totally the thing that worried me the most, mostly because in practices I've kinda knocked them over with my bike...ooops. Got through them each time fine on the race though, so I guess when the pressure's on I can pick up my bike enough. Found out after the race that the barriers were 2 inches taller than they were supposed to be - makes the cat 4 girls all that much tougher!

Every time I hit the pavement, I took a deep breath before pushing it just a little harder.

I finished with a few minutes to spare ahead of the other women, but boy was I ready to be done.

Done For the Season

I didn't do my last two races :(

Got out to Burlington, Vermont and did my best to race, but my leg - that's right, leg - would have none of it. Maybe driving 20 hours one way ( 3 hours to Chicago, then 17 to Burlington with a trailer full of bikes ) wasn't such a good idea, after all. Of course, neither was the $550 plane ticket and $175 one way bike fee. Driving at least made the trip affordable for those on the bike shop budget. I was feeling overall fine until the run. Somehow even when I'm telling myself "I'm ok, I'm ok, I'm ok," my legs just refuse to agree. They were actually starting to feel good there for a bit, then the old IT band injury freaked out on me

and I found myself walking. A lot. I didn't even bother to look at my run time after the fact.

So I decided that when I got back I would do my massage and chiro and see if the next two races were even possible. No dice. So I'm done for the season. Just like that.

It's really disappointing. I'd been so looking forward to the races thinking I was in good shape and rested from having had down time from the broken elbow and all. So much for that. To be honest now I'm completely burnt out. I'm so tired of having to come back from injuries. It's been my whole year so far. The IT band was bugging me since February, then I was *thinking* I'd at least get it worked out soon when I broke my elbow. Soooooooo yeah. I'm mentally exhausted from trying to work around bad pain. Not the good pain of training, the bad pain of trying to ignore an injury. Dumb I know. So at this point I'm not running at all.

But I can bike.

So I finally finished my cyclocross bike that I've been building slowly. And I'm doing a race on Sunday. EEeeeeekk!! I'm going to be scrambling all over the place I'm sure! It's going to be a

blast. I'm still needing to practice the whole jump off/pick up/run with/jump back on bike as fast as possible thing. Good thing I'm racing Cat 4. Then maybe it's expected when I trip and fall flat on my face!

So here's my new baby:

Studying FAIL

I'm doing bad at studying for the GRE today. I'll do a few problems, then get distracted looking at something much more interesting online. Or by training/cleaning/prepping for my favorite person to come home. Or by making jewelry stuff. All of which are much more fun.

Went to the doctor on Wednesday to have the follow up xray done on my broken elbow. This xray confirmed that yes, it's 100% certain that it's broken. Because apparently as it heals you can see the extra bone stuff that grows over it as extra white marks in an xray and if they're there, it means that what you couldn't be 100% sure of before, you can now. In a way I'm glad because that is probably the most pain I've been in. What I've been told is that elbows are one of the worse things you can break because of the bundle of nerves going through the elbow. You know the funny bone, right? Yep, that's the bundle of nerves that react when you do something to your elbow. Like break it.

The elbow being broken totally explains why I wasn't able for awhile to do anything of significant strength with my right arm. If it's broke, it won't let you! So I'm still stuck on the bike trainer for a bit longer, but I've been getting back into doing real swim sets again, and I'm basically back to normal on the running front. And I'm still going to be able to race USAT Age Group Nationals. Which is good because that's kind of an important one. It's going to be interesting to see how the last few races go this year since I had a full week off of training, then a slow reintroduction to training. I got a lot of recovery!

I'm so looking forward to getting back on my bike. I really really miss riding a real bike, and ironically, I really miss riding my mountain bike. Though I have the feeling that I'm going to be quite nervous the first time I head back out on it. Mostly because I'm going to be worried that the bumps are going to hurt the elbow. If I ever get the parts to finish my cyclocross bike with, I'll be on that bike ASAP too!

My grand plan for the off season is cyclocross. I'm excited! Expect more falls. But not of the breaking bones variety.

Done With Slings!

I'm finally (well, for a few days now) am able to let my arm hang down without it hurting, so I'm finished with the stupid slings. It's good and bad because they're super inconvenient but at the same time it did let people know that I can't use my right arm. So now I have an ACE bandage that I wrap my arm in to help support it and to let people know that I am actually still broken. That way they don't think I'm completely lazy when I won't lift heavy things or get bikes down. It's that I can't yet. I'm at least getting back my functionality at work.

I can ride on the trainer still, but today I actually was able to support myself on my bullhorns (on my TT bike) today for a little bit. It's getting stronger, but my arm was mighty sore after that. I seem to be having strong bike legs though, which is fantastic. I had it with boring trainer long rides in the winter, so I'm not mentally able to do anything super long anymore. I need the quality workouts anyways. So that's what I'm doing. I'm working on my running too. Especially since it hasn't been great thus far this year.

I'm doing my best to study for the GRE today, but since I've been up since 4am, I'm having quite the time focusing! There's not enough caffeine in the world to fix that little sleep. At least for me. I'm pretty sure it's my own dumb fault for having some Gluten Free beer (and maybe a little too much because I was super excited to finally have beer again...). And it always happens that when I have enough, I wake up ridiculously early, starving, and unable to fall back asleep. But I have gotten a good amount of cleaning done today, got my workout in, and have made progress on the studying front. So it's still a successful day. Cleo just sleeps all day no matter what. So I don't think she was affected too much by the early wake up call this morning.

The last thing that I have to do today is make a grocery run. Not because I really need all that much, but because I'm out of coffee. Such a shame.

Arm Update

So I'm kind of annoyed. I had three races planned for this month, one for next weekend, then each weekend after that. The first Xterra I would've done would have been in that race lineup. Not anymore. I still don't have the grip strength to hold a real bike, let alone a mountain bike. Yes, I know my arm is broken. Ok, not really my arm, my elbow. So I can still use my arm and I can at least function now (which is good...). I didn't want to put doing an Xterra off for another year but it looks like I have no choice. Hopefully I'll get the CX bike set up in time to actually race it this fall. I guess at some point I can just tear down my road bike and build my cross bike and figure it out from there if the parts I've ordered never end up coming.

My arm is doing better than it was yesterday, and better than the day before yesterday. Each day there's a measurable improvement in range of motion and/or strength. Still don't have nearly close to all the range in motion now, but I do have a lot more than before. And I can type with both hands, which is actually a huge improvement. Don't have any strength as far as anything that's useful. Can't swim with it unless I make a fist so that I don't put any force through my arm. So it's a lopsided swim. Still just as fast as all the other people in the outdoor pool. That's sad. I can swim faster than yous people with one arm tied behind my back!......literally. Geeze. Now you understand my swimming dilemma. Maybe I should just get a parachute for when my arm is better. That would be funny to watch someone figure out how to pass me with that thing in their way haha. I'm still hoping that I can start getting some strength back before the end of the week and get back on the bike. We'll see. As for now, running is ok, biking on the trainer is fine, but only in the aerobars, ironically. As soon as I get the grip strength back to truly squeeze I'll be back on the road. Until then, it's just whatever I can manage...