I see a tiny little light. It's getting bigger and going choo-choo...

Well, here we are. Lavaman is a week away. I'm on a plane for Hawaii Thursday morning.

My foot is okay, most days, though I expect to be limping for a while when I get back. Fundraising is done, we made it through final prep and we've been assured that our bikes are being fed and cared for properly on their journey to Kona.

Obviously, I'll be writing up a full race report after the trip, but I thought I should catch up a little first.

So the training wrap-up:

I ran the practice tri and pulled a decent time, 1:17:04. I finished 4th on the team, even with it being my first run in 6 weeks or so. Sure, I could barely walk for the week afterward, but that's okay. Final prep was last Saturday. We did the traditional 2 miler, from the Shores to the Cove and back. It took about an hour, so we could maybe have pushed a little harder, but it wasn't a race. The water was cold and the kelp was up. All in all, very Pac Grovey. At one point, as I was trying to untangle myself from the weeds, I looked over and realized that a sea lion was watching me from about 8 feet away. We saw dolphins the week before. The sea lion followed me briefly and I had a little silly moment where I had to wonder if I could still race through plantar fasciitis and a sea lion bite.

So there it is, I'm not going to run at all until race day and I'm taking my time handling everything else.

Race weekend impressions (forecasting):

I'm really looking forward to this weekend, and not just for the race. It'll be my first time in Hawaii as well, so everything will be in some way new. How often does that happen? On top of that, I get to see race weekend from the experienced perspective instead of the wide-eyed newbie and that means not only having some idea what to expect from race morning, but how to handle the TNT functions like the course previews and the pasta party and all that. Maybe I'll even make it to the victory party this time. Old friends and Jack Daniel's kept me away from it at Pac Grove. I'll even get to see my bike again. God, I'm such a geek.

Last thing to say at this point is that I will try not to hold the Aloha Airlines goat rodeo against the state of Hawaii, though that will be far easier if Capital One decides to refund my ticket price. Turns out that it's hard to get to Hawaii on four days' notice. Who would'a thunk it?

That's it for now. I'll tell you all about it when I get back.

So I'm sitting here, in between sessions with my rehab tennis ball, watching TV and doing the inactive equivalent of pacing the cage. It's a weird day. I've been kind of out of sorts. nothing is sticking. I was going to write a long and witty week in review post over the weekend but I never got around to it. Maybe this week. We've got our practice tri coming up on Saturday and we're 3 weeks from race day. I'm ready for it to get here already, but I also want to put it off. I want my foot to heal so I'll be able to predict my run split. I don't know. I'm rambling. I've got to stretch my legs again and put in a few more minutes with the tissue mobility drills.

I only managed about 2500 yards today in the pool, which is a lot and I did it in a little under an hour, but I'm capable of more. I've done better and there's no reason for pulling the punch tonight. I just didn't feel it. Eh, whatever. There's always tomorrow.

It's Official

I've got plantar fasciitis. The doctor said so. Apparently my calf muscles don't get loose enough to release the strain on my foot, so I've got problems. Since Lavaman is only a month away, the good doctor said that the best thing I could do is get a cortisone injection and stretch the bejesus out of it for the next couple of weeks.

I'll spare you the gory details of how far into my foot he shoved the needle, but it was not fun to watch. It hurts like the devil now too. I've barely been able to walk all day.

Apparently, I can try for a short run this weekend and if it doesn't feel right, I'm supposed to start physical therapy ASAP. Nifty, huh? All this so I can run six miles. Where are my priorities? Eh, if I hit my time goal it'll all be worth it, right?

And by the way, don't spin two days in a row. It kinda strains the legs.

Another Week Down

I finally did Iron Mountain. Well, most of it. I still can't run, so my plan was to go bike only. Ride with the team and sit out the run. The weather scotched that. Thanks to cloud cover and a persistent need for people to be able to see while riding really fast downhill, we did the run first. I got nominated to help with SAG at the run turnaround, about 1.5 miles up the mountain.

I carried the water (several gallons) up and went back down to a break in the trail to make sure everyone went the right way. Walked the last person up to the turnaround and then walked out carrying the remaining water.

Thankfully, I was allowed to ride off on my own when we got back, since we'd missed the last rider to leave by at least 20 minutes. I did the whole route, and pretty fast, if I do say so myself. I won't set any records, but it was a solid performance for a 30 miler. Did I mention that the last 8-10 miles (Coach wasn't sure.) are uphill?

Strangely enough, the only part of me that was sore today was my shoulders from lugging the water, though in the interest of full disclosure, I did spend about a half hour with my foot firmly planted on a bag of frozen corn when I got home.

I did the ocean swim, but only the beginner part, since a couple of participants asked me for help with their swim. It was really choppy today, hard to navigate and the currents were up, so a lot of the beginners had some trouble. After we got them back to shore, a few of us mentors went back and did a second short lap. It felt really good to let loose a bit and charge.

On the rehab front, I'm seeing a doctor on Wednesday about my foot. Hopefully, he'll set me right. He did last time. Oh, and since I can't run, I broke down and bought a bike trainer. I did my own little spin class in my living room tonight. I'm such a geek. Bedtime now. Until the next post.