- See my chiropractor. We had a LONG discussion about me and my feet and legs and hips and back and running shoes and what works and what doesn't work. I was pretty agitated. I am not an easy patient. What we concluded was that the orthotics made for me in May had too wide of a heel cup resulting in my heels sliding all over the place while running which led to muscles in my hips, glutes and low back getting fucked up. They aren't totally unfucked up yet, but they are getting there. We decided to refurbish and replicate orthotics I had made like 6 years ago. When doc was looking at the old ones, he kept saying over and over, "these have a lot of mileage in them." Yep, about 8,000 miles!
- Dropped off hazardous household waste (from my garage cleaning a few months ago) at a special drop-off center.
- Deposited some checks into bank
- Dropped off about 12 pairs of worn running shoes at a Nike outlet store for recycling, then since it's been years since I've been at an outlet mall, I spent a short time shopping and got a new pair of winter Merrell's and some Jockey underwear.
- Got a massage.
- Dropped off Skull Kingdom at The Bike Shop to get her new bars and Nokon cables put on. The new bars are SWEET! I'm also replacing an alloy cage on the downtube with carbon. These stylistic improvements had to be done--she wasn't worthy of my stable without this bling!
- Got waxed
- Went grocery shopping
- Cooked up farfalle with salmon
- Ate some of that pasta and drank an entire bottle of wine that I am paying for today
- Bundled up and cleaned up after a bunch of perennial stems that I cut down during last week and covered a few rose bushes for the winter
As I was sweeping my driveway this afternoon, I was thinking what I will be doing next year at this time. I will be tapering for Ultraman Hawaii or starting to, anyway. I think that I will not have time to fix up my yard for the winter next year and will need to allocate money to pay someone to do it. I really do enjoy doing it myself, but the timing will not be good for me. But I still will get to enjoy all the flowers as they begin arriving just 4 months from now!
Every year about this time as I've taken some well-needed rest from training (yeah I know a marathon last week but still...), I think about how I was able to do the things that I did the prior year, and I am still amazed. But now it's getting time for me to buckle down and resume building that huge winter base that enables me to bust out the door in spring pretty strong. Only this time I actually believe I know what I'm doing and that will be a huge stress relief! I was worried that I had lost all semblance of speed for awhile there, but I proved my biking is still strong, and now that I have figured out my running issues, hopefully I'll be back running tempo and speedwork pretty quickly. I was reminded today, though, that running with a hangover is not exactly fun ;) I can't remember the last time I had a hangover--it must be at least a year--but hey the wine tasted great.
Now I make the transition to training indoors 100% (or nearly so), which is always a bit traumatic. I do like Hal, but I still hate the treadmill in general. But I have to say having one at home now is great. If it's dark out but nice weather, I can start indoors and then head out like I did this morning. And I can transition to the bike right quickly. After some nice outdoor rides this week, I was on the trainer today, and it sucked, but it also made me feel that feeling of "when I'm on the trainer I must work extra hard." It is just a psychological thing. And I'm getting my Ergomo head unit repaired, so I should be back in the power business on LGL which is cool. Can't wait to see just how much I suck (or not)!
I feel like I'm picking up after the last 5 years of my life--that I finally have time to do what I need to do for myself. Even though it appears I've been doing that anyway, it's the non-triathlon things that I had seriously slacked on, but I'm nearly back on track. I have made my estate plan, done my medical appointments, had much work done on my house, and I feel really ready for the next big adventure. Which I think means I will enjoy the hell out of this next year of training and racing! What a great place to be!
Hope everyone had a great weekend!
