So my knee is finally getting better.

Better-ish.

That's the good news. The bad news is that I have missed out on 10 full days of training. Ugh.

Here are a couple of things my knee injury has taught me:

I LOVE running. I am a runner. Every single day that has passed without a run has hurt me, has made me feel anger and impatience and irritation and even sorrow. Weird, right? I didn't know this about myself until now, but I am in fact a runner. Every time I see a runner go past the house it makes my skin crawl a little bit....

I need to start stretching properly.

Icing an injury actually does help.

When I stop exercising I actually eat WORSE. You'd think it would be the other way around, but it's not and I am embarrassed to even list off half the junk I've been inhaling during this down time.

At some point I began thinking of the triathlon as a race. Now that I've been on the "bench" for the past 10 days I doubt that I will be as competetive come "race" day. I'm still going though.

I hope.

Summer

School is out for the summer and we spent much of this week trying to adjust to our summer time schedule. Having 8 kids home with me during the day means this:

*Blueberry and chocolate chip pancakes every single day.

*Long day trips to the swimming pool accompanied by bottles and bottles and bottles of sunscreen.

*Sunburn (regardless of above mentioned sunscreen).

*Fireflies and popsicles.

*Late nights and the sound of screen doors slamming shut over and over and over again.

*Piles of flip flops.

*A drier filled with beach towels.

*18 slices of bread for ONE lunch.

*Reminders, lots of them, that start off slow and gentle and quickly turn into something else by the 23rd time.

*Sprinklers and wading pools and big bright beach umbrellas.

*Hugs and hugs and cuddles and hugs and even more hugs.

It's going to be a great summer.

Did you know that we only have about 4 weeks left until the Sprint?

Knees

There is a knee injury here.

I don't know what it is.

I'm not sure when it happened.

All I know is that my knee hurts.

BAD.

I'm trying not to freak out.

Impossible

Last week I did 30 miles biking and 28 miles running.

I keep a little tally in my training calendar, and could hardly believe my totals yesterday. This is sooooo much more than I ever set out to do. I can't believe the barriers that I am breaking down on a seemingly daily basis or how empowering it feels to realize that the 'impossible' is actually very VERY possible and that I can do it. I CAN DO IT.

Just 4 months ago I couldn't run more than 2 minutes at a time, I weighed 230 pounds and was a size 20. Now, I can run for over an hour (just barely!), am down in the 170's and am trying on size 10's in any dressing room I can get into (shopping IS fun again!).

I'm sorry, but I am amazed by how good I feel and I keep wondering why it took me so long to finally do it? I spent years, YEARS, being overweight and feeling miserable and it only took me four short months to completely turn things around?!?

Now I just have to figure out a way to stay here, to stay in this happy place, to keep breaking down barriers and accomplishing the 'impossible'.

The Crawl

Tosa East runs an open swim Monday through Thursday all summer long.

So for $1.50 you can swim and dive to your hearts content from 7-9 pm nearly all week long.

So can everybody else.

And oh how they do!

I suppose a benefit of the large crowd is that it creates a frenzied and chaotic atmosphere, nothing like that of game day, but a glimpse perhaps? No one swam over me, and I didn't get kicked in the face, but I did get a rude awakening as to how much work I have ahead of me regarding the swim portion of the race. Hahahaha, like how I called it a race just now?

I haven't been in a pool since April, and even back then it was nothing fancy, although I was doing a half mile at each swim. I'd breast stroke for one length and then crawl back. Tonight, despite not being in a pool for some time, I was able to crawl the entire time. I really like calling it the "crawl" right now, since that is exactly what I felt like I was doing! Anyways, super math whiz that I am, I crawled along counting me way up to 18 lengths in what felt like a very short time. Wow, I thought, this is a breeze, I OWN THIS.

Forgot about the whole 18 LAPS thing. Which of course knocked the wind right out of my sails, but I didn't let it get me down for too long, oh no, I readjusted the goggles and did the second half of my swim.

I crawled my way to the finish line.

The Itch

All day long I had the itch for a long run, and all day long other obligations and joys and creatures and festivities occupied my time. And don't get me wrong, they all made me smile and made my heart sing and brought me comfort and shared their laughter, but did nothing to cure the itch.

Finally at 8pm, when I had just about given up hope everything finally fell into place and I got to scratch like crazy all the way up to North Ave. for a 10K out and back route that is my new favorite!

Although I've only done it twice now....

I'm just glad that I'm no longer itchy.

Weigh In

Time to start weighing in again.

I took a few weeks off, but the accountability does wonders for my motivation.

May 1~187

May 8~185

May 15~183

May 22~179.7

May 29~TBA

June 12~174.4

June 19~

June 26~

So, there it is, the rest of my month laid out right before me and while there are no birthday cakes this month, there are a lot of summer barbeques and you know what those mean......FOOD. Maybe someday food and I will have a fantastically balanced relationship, but for now it is still a learning process.

Yeah Right.

I couldn't do it, I just couldn't bring myself to get in a morning work out today.

Grrrrrr, what is the matter with me?

I was even summoned out of bed at 5:27am by the little one. I nursed her back to sleep by 5:42am and knowing full well that my window of opportunity would soon be closed I crawled back into bed anyways.

"I'll just go back to sleep for a few minutes. I'll leave at 6:15......"

Yeah right.

And of course here I am 7 hours later looking out the window rather longingly, the house filled with the quiet slumber of children, hoping that the coming rains can hold out until after the Mr. gets home from work. And if it can't, maybe I should just run in the rain today?

10 K

I nearly did a 10K tonight!

6 Miles.

9.78 Km.

I tagged along to a Highland Honeys work out and was motivated by my neighbor to run all the way out to Burleigh and back. Mapped out here.

It's hard for me to go outside of my comfort zone. I like having familiar routes, with familiar visual cues, but it was great to challenge myself with a new route, a new distance and a new time. Thanks Joyce!

I biked out to Cool Waters today with the 3 nibbles, for a total of 15 miles on the bike. Burning 1400 calories during training meant that I got to ENJOY my tacos tonight. Mmmmmm.

I will get up early tomorrow. I will get up early tomorrow. I will get up early tomorrow......

Above and Beyond

Well, I was on the road by 5:52am, just 22 minutes late.

And I did 6 miles on the bike instead of 12, but who's counting anyways?

The run was cut short at 60th instead of 66th, but I wanted to turn back at 55th so making it to 60th was sort of like going above and beyond, right?