The Long & Winding Road

At certain points when training you kinda think why am I doing all of this? I thought that this morning briefly. It was about a five minute conversation in my head while I was on the back half of a seven mile run. I snapped out of it primarily due to the normal chorus of "hellos" I pass out and receive running through our town.

As the day proceeded and I went through the rest of my workout program (free weights, yoga, cycling) the thought crept back in. Then I stumbled upon a little video about Dean Karnazes and how he changed his diet to become a better runner. This led to a reflective few moments which took me to the website for the race. Bingo. That's all I needed to see. Its nice to challenge yourself. Many people of course choose different means to test themselves and their mettle but its the challenge that matters. Success or failure if you never test yourself you have no chance of ever achieving anything.

So tomorrow I once again will head out on the long and riding road.

Oh My Aching Back...I Mean Neck

Well, the road bike has finally made a new appearance. I ride a Specialized Allez. Blue. Its quite nice and has served me well through good rides and bad wrecks. Of course none of my wrecks have been close to what my friend Joe has gone through but of course I never want to compete on the pain and agony scale. Anyway I took the road bike out for the first time since last year before the ankle/knee...before the wall, before the bacterial infection. It was quite eye opening.

Its not like I haven't been riding. We have a trainer in the basement. The problem with that is Michelle does not like the clip pedals so we go old school inside. That being the case we attach her bike which is a hybrid. Nice ride but totally different than a road bike. So for the past few months since I got off the I.V. I have been riding down in the basement. It was good to get my legs back up to speed before beginning running. I thought my legs were in pretty good shape for riding. Indeed they were. The problem was/is my neck muscles are very, very, very weak. Leaning out and over the bars on the road bike means you have to hold up your head. I guess I have a lot of rocks in my head because it felt like it weighed about 10 pounds more than it used to.

Oh well, one more tiny hurdle to overcome. The bike helps the run...without a doubt.

This is the newest version of my bike (in the wrong color of course).

Yeah Bono Couldn't Have Said It Better

The rain has subsided. I m ahead on my work for clients. I have gotten into a steady grove to finish off the company website. Best of all between the work out in the yard and the steady increases in my workouts. I am getting into pretty good shape.

My endurance is increasing and soon I will put the road bike back out on the road. I had planned to do it sooner, perhaps a week or two ago, but of course its been raining like the great flood. So by my best guesstimate Thursday will be B-Day (bike day). Its been way too long.

Last September or October was the last time I had the bike out. The ankle and the knee injury last September halted the riding. That of course was followed by the building of the wall and the cake was iced with the 4 months of illness. 

As I have gotten stronger I have also noticed that my core temperature is slowly climbing. My wife is generally cold and I am like a furnace, but during and after the 12 weeks of IV that was getting pumped into my arm and then into my chest cavity my core temperature dropped and stayed low. I was cold almost all the time and even when the weather started to get warm it was still too cold for me. But now things are very different. I'm warm, getting stronger and its a beautiful day...everyday.