Adrift

I hate to compare a little bike crash to a major life loss, but since late last week I've been running through the stages of grief.

Thursday I was in denial, telling people I'd be back at it the next day. That was a pipe dream.

Once I realized I wasn't going to be back to normal right away, I was mad. Mad at myself for making such a stupid, preventable mistake right during the most crucial time when I can't afford to do something like that.

I skipped the bargaining stage in favor of drinking at a wedding. Wow, my knee felt great! :-)

Yesterday I was sad. Just plain sad. I was feeling adrift without being able to follow my training plan. My wounds seemed too raw to swim. I rode for an hour Saturday to test things out and felt OK trying for 120 miles on Sunday. But I bailed out at mile 40. My knee was swelling up and my arm was too uncomfortable on the aero bars. I had bandages on and a sock over it, but after a couple hours I realized I was actually not weighting that arm evenly, and it was causing me issues on my right side, too. Mostly it was knee pain, though. I was blessed that four out of five people I was expecting for the bike ride backed out at the last minute. The ride was leaving from my house on my route with me leading, and it would have been harder to end it early with five people counting on me. Instead I just disappointed one person. Well, two if you include me. I've never come back from a ride needing to put away uneaten Clif bars; needing to pour out full water bottles. It was highly unsatisfying.

Today, after hearing from a couple people that I really didn't need to worry too much about my arm getting infected from swimming, I headed to the quarry. There were just three of us, and the swim felt good. I finally felt like I could still make some forward progress, at least in one of the three disciplines.

I'm not going to run until I can walk pain-free. It might be a few more days. I'm going to keep the cycling to 1.5 hours or less. I might do it more frequently to make up for missed running and long rides.

Hopefully I'll be back to 100 percent by the Cedar Point training day this Saturday.

If my knee isn't feeling better by tomorrow, I might cut back on the short cycling, too, and just try total rest for my legs. Saturday will be a key workout that I don't want to miss.

In other news, our best friends were married Saturday! Jeremy and Judith tied the knot under a big white tent in a rainstorm. After they said, "I do," this gorgeous rainbow appeared in the sky behind them. It was magical. I'm not much of a wedding crier. In fact, I'm not much of a crier at all. But I was pretty much a blubbering mess. I'm so happy for them!