Ring in the New Year with...a bike crash

Yes, today I had my first real road crash. And here I am trying to type with a huge splint on my wrist...sigh. Good times.

I was out on the weekly Zoka ride this morning which was a nice mix of rain, clouds, more rain, and then finally a nice rain break. Towards the end of the ride one of the guys ahead of me went down going around a corner. I don't know if I slid or crashed trying to avoid him but in about half a second I was on the ground mashed into the concrete retaining wall. I stupidly threw out my arm to break my fall, which one of these days I will learn is the worst idea in the world.

Initially I thought I was fine but then started having major swelling and pain in my wrist. I visited the ER to make sure it wasn't broken and it's uncertain right now if it is. The X-rays were fine but wrist fractures have a funny way of not showing up for a few weeks, so they splinted my wrist and told me to rest it until I can get another set of X-rays in a few weeks. The swelling could also be hiding any possible breaks. And here I took up cycling to rest the running injury...

I'll have some nice bruises tomorrow I think. At least I'm still the reigning accident queen :)

Next up...cycling!

Since I'm temporarily suspended from running because of the IT band injury, I've decided to focus my efforts on biking. So far biking hasn't bothered me at all and PT cleared me to bike all I want. I was thinking for some time about trying road racing next year, so I started checking into it and found a team that still has an open roster and seems very friendly and welcoming. Team Zoka is a smaller team and up until this year have had only one female racer. They have invited me to a training ride this Saturday to meet them and hopefully join up with them for next year. It sounds like there will be an additional two female riders also joining for next year.

I'm very excited to start riding with a team -- it should be a lot of fun. So, if things go well on Saturday it looks like I'll officially be riding for Team Zoka next year. Woohoo! I have no idea what I'm thinking since I haven't ridden in ages...

IT band blues

Physical Therapy today made it official that it's pretty much impossible for me to run the Half Marathon this year. Ugh. My knee has been horribly sore since running on Saturday and I didn't even make it over two miles. My therapist said I'll be lucky to get back to running in 3-4 months. I was also told not to bike for at least two weeks (which sucks since it's nice and sunny out).

I guess I'm done for the year and I'll start looking ahead to the Whidbey Island Half Marathon in April. Depending on how therapy goes I *might* be ready then. Whoever thought a stupid piece of connective tissue could cause so many problems...geez. I guess this will be a nice time to work on swimming for a while.

The great big hole in the floor

We've been working pretty hard lately on getting the basement finished up. We managed to rip out the stairs and create a huge hole in the floor that would be a serious danger to anyone who sleepwalks. Thank goodness neither of us do. I don't think the cat does either.

We were only stuck with the huge hole for a few days and Marcus has since built most of the stairs now. It's looking really nice. We hung some more drywall and it's finally starting to come together. I just need to get my butt in gear and finish the shower tile.

I'll put up some pictures of the progress soon.

My first triathlon complete!

Today I finished the Escape from the Rock Triathlon on Mercer Island. It was a total blast and now I'm convinced I have to work on my swimming abilities so I can start doing a bunch of these next year. Based on my Friday practice I set a goal to finish in 1:35:00 and actually ended up somewhere around 1:36:00. The final results should be up tomorrow. I didn't miss by much so I'm extremely happy.

When I first got there I was overwhelmed by all of the people preparing their transition areas and getting things set up - it was quite fascinating. When it came time to head to the water for the swim I started getting very anxious. I decided to start in a later wave but then started worrying that since I'm slow I'd be the last person to finish. Without thinking I somehow just walked myself out into the 3rd starting wave and before I knew it the horn blew and there was a mass of people flying everywhere.

I was so nervous I was practically hyperventilating so I decided to start slow and just sidestroke for a while to calm down. Water and near-hyperventilation just don't go together very well. I never calmed down enough to freestyle. The first buoy took FOREVER to reach. Once I got there I looked at my watch and realized I was going *really* slow. I flipped on my back and started backstroking, which was at least keeping me going a similar pace with other people. When I finally rounded the last buoy and saw the finish line I was ecstatic.

Once out of the water I had to run 250 yards to the transition area. Let me just say that for some reason when you immediately exit the water your body just has no balance. It's like roller skating for hours and then walking afterwards. I'm sure you get the idea. My transition went surprisingly well and I took off on the bike and had a great ride. There were a lot of parts of the ride where I was going well over 20 AND passing tons of people up the hills. Yes, I'm like Marcus and I love passing people (especially on hills). I feel that I made up a lot of time on the bike and got back to the transition area in around 42+ minutes.

My run transition was super fast and I was off for the final 2.5-mi leg. The run was uphill for the first mile before it leveled out. I think it actually helped to stretch out my legs though, as I didn't seem nearly as incapacitated as in my Friday practice. Before I knew it there was only a quarter-mile left and I threw it into high gear. I finished the run in I believe somewhere around 18-19 minutes. When I crossed the finish line my watch said 1:36-something.

I had a blast and felt proud to have finished the race today. My less than stellar swim just gives me motivation to work harder to become a better swimmer. If I could get a more competitive swim time (like 15-20 minutes) I could finish with a really great time. I just need to get much more comfortable with swimming. But overall I'm happy considering I only trained for 2-3 weeks :)

What the hell!?

Ok, so I just signed up for the Escape from the Rock triathlon on Sept 11 before really finding out if I can honestly swim a half mile. Hey, I'm in good shape right? I used to swim a long time ago and it should be like riding a bike I think. There was a possibly of the event being full very soon so I decided to take a chance and sign up. I have three weeks to re-learn how to swim...that's plenty of time I'm sure...

Down goes the chimney

Marcus and I woke up this morning and on a whim decided it seemed like a nice day to take down the chimney. We have a little problem with project dependencies right now. We can't redo the stairs going to the basement because the chimney is in the way. So there's lots of work in the basement that is getting held up because of it.

The hardest part of the whole ordeal was figuring out who got to climb the ladder and get on the roof. I hate ladders and Marcus hates heights so it didn't go so well. One of us would get halfway up and then come back down. Finally Marcus sucked it up and got up there. Hey, he's the guy right?

Surprisingly enough, the chimney came down pretty easily and we were able to get the roof patched. I think we'll be cleaning up dust for the next 10 years but what else is new. I can honestly say that today I've never been dirtier in my life. We were literally caked in a black mass of dust and dirt and chimney debris. It was pretty gross. Now that the chimney is gone we can get back to finishing up work on the basement so I can hopefully have some Monday Night Football parties and have an excuse to buy that nice 42" Phillips AmbientLight tv. Ahhhhhhh....

Kayak bumper cars

I attended a beginning kayaking course at Enatai Beach in Bellevue this evening with a friend from work. It was a total blast! We got outfitted with kayaks, lifejackets, spray skirts, and paddles and then one by one we each got into a kayak and went out onto the lake to wait for everyone else. The getting in part wasn't so hard, but it's been over a year since I was last in a kayak, so the waiting on the lake part turned out to be a feat. Because of boats and jet skiis going by there were decent-sized waves that were quickly moving towards the elevated fishing pier. In about 10 minutes there were three of us stranded all smashed together on the swim area buoy lines desperately trying not to get sucked under the fishing pier. One poor lady was paddling furiously and going absolutely nowhere. Our instructor saw what was happening and then laughingly told us to go out further on the lake and get away from the swim lines.

Once away from that disaster we finally got going and learned how to paddle, spin the boat around in circles, go backwards, and stop. Our instructor even gave us a few demonstrations on rolling, which of course no one else would try. When the lesson first started it was literally like kayak bumper cars. No one could stop and everyone was just sort of crashing into each other. By the end of the lesson we could actually control the kayak.

We started from Enatai Beach and then kayaked through the Mercer Slough and back out. It turned out that getting out of the kayak was a much harder task for most people and there were about three people who went swimming in the process. It was pretty funny.