Quick Update

This will be short...still not the greatest at typing with one hand. Surgery went very well yesterday. The doctor was able to get the bone back in place with no complications. There was no tendon damage or anything. I have a pin holding the bones together that sticks out of my hand a little bit. That will come out in about 4 weeks. No cast, just a splint that I can take on and off to clean my arm/hand and exercise my fingers. I'll be off training for a few days, but am hoping to be able to start running a bit next week. We will see. Oh and to answer the question about how it happened...I was doing pull ups at the gym when the pull up bar broke, sending me crashing to the concrete floor. The steel pull up bar then fell across my hand causing the break and a small laceration. A freak accident...the kind that tends to only happen to me!!!

Thanks everyone for the concern and support....it means a lot!!!

Hey All!

Just a quick message this morning as I'm wasting time before heading to the hospital for my surgery. Yes I said MY and SURGERY together. Long story, but the gist of it is that I had a little accident at the gym on Tuesday that resulted in a "transverse displaced fracture" in my second metacarpal bone on my right hand. In English that means the bone in my hand that runs from my knuckle of my index finger to my wrist is snapped in half, with neither edges of the bone still touching. No small hairline fracture for me, oh no, when I do it, I do it BIG. So today I'm heading to surgery to have two pins put in to hold the bones together while they heal. I'll have those taken out in four weeks then hopefully back to swimming, riding outside, and racing. Sounds like I can still run and ride my trainer, so I plan to do that as much as possible to maintain some fitness anyway.

I will drop in tomorrow with an update on the surgery. Cheers!!!

Goodbye, Four Eyes!

Tomorrow is the day. 9:30am. After that, no more contacts, no more glasses. I'm getting laser eye surgery, baby!!! Wahoo! Everyone keeps asking me if I'm nervous. I guess I probably should be...I mean it is surgery. On my eyes. There is a possibility something could go wrong and my vision could end up more screwed up than it is now. But really, I'm not nervous. I'm excited. For the first time in almost 20 years I will be able to get up in the morning and be able to see clearly without glasses or contacts. And that is very exciting to me!

For those of you who are more curious about the details, I am not having LASIK surgery, I'm having the "flapless" eye surgery called Advanced Surface Ablasion (ASA). There's really not a lot different in terms of the outcome of LASIK vs. ASA, there's just a difference in how the surgery is done and the risk of complications after surgery (although not a substantial difference in risk). I talked quite a bit with the surgeon about the two procedures and just decided given my active lifestyle, that it made sense for me to have ASA instead of LASIK. If you are interested in learning more about the differences, here's a link to a document that talks about ASA and the differences from LASIK: http://www.dmeyemd.com/pdf/ASAFinal.pdf

Ok, off to finish up some last minute work stuff so I can be off the rest of the week recuperating!! Wish me luck!

One Time...at Tri Camp...

Last weekend I went to a triathlon camp in Sarasota, Florida. Not just ANY triathlon camp, mind you. This was an all-chick triathlon camp AND it was hosted by 5x Ironman winner, Heather Gollnick. I signed up for the camp way back in like November, when Jen first posted about it on her blog. So I had plenty of time to get very nervous and very excited. I was nervous because I had been sick pretty much from Christmas through mid-January. Which meant no training whatsoever. I was worried I would go into camp way behind everyone else and not be able to keep up (which turned out to be semi-true). I was also very excited because this was great opportunity to learn about the sport from some very talented pro and elite triathletes. And I’d be lying if I didn’t admit I was also just plain excited to spend a few days in sunny Florida!

Overall, camp was an unforgettable experience. All of the campers and coaches were amazing in their own right. I really enjoyed getting to know everyone and I look forward to keeping in contact with them in the future. As for the camp itself, I learned so much not only about triathlon the sport, but also about myself and where I am in my triathlon journey. The biggest thing I have learned is that I have a lot of work to do to get ready for these half ironman races this summer. Not just physically, but also mentally. I need to push myself to train harder and more diligently. I need to find ways to continually go outside my comfort zone to get stronger. And I need to find ways to get over my “bad self” when I get frustrated or discouraged. All in all, realizing these things about myself and changing the way I think/feel/train will only make me a stronger person and triathlete.

Camp was also filled with many firsts for me, including:

• Biking over 45 miles in one day
• Taking apart, packing and re-assembling my bike – TWICE
• Flying with my bike (Southwest ROCKS!)
• Riding in a paceline (scary, but fun)
• Seeing an alligator outside of a zoo
• Seeing a live armadillo (YAY!! FINALLY!)

While all the other bloggers from camp have posted many, many great photos from the camp, I decided I’d be a little different and hand out some fun “Camper Awards”. The recipients of the following awards were selected purely on the basis of my own personal experience at tri-camp. Some of you may have handed these awards out in different ways, or given different awards, based on your experiences with everyone. But here’s my version of Camper Awards:

• Miss Congeniality – Melissa Schwartz – Pure goofiness that had us cracking up all weekend long. Raise the roof!
• Miss Photogenic – Molly McNamara - Perfect smile in every picture. Even underwater! And there are lots of pictures of her. This girl even ran with her camera.
• Best Swimsuit – Courtney Dewees – Love love love the “I will swim every day” Splish.
• Most Determined – Sondra Houhoulis – This girl is serious about getting better in this sport. And she absolutely LOVES every minute she spends training. The harder the better.
• Best Attitude – Sherry Lynn LaBree – Fought through some serious calf pain on Saturday and Sunday, but she buckled down and got through her workouts. And all with that huge smile of hers.
• Best Dressed – Aimee McCaa– From her Louisville IM cycling jersey, to her jammies at pancakes and PJs, this girl rocks her style.
• Hottest Bike – Heather Gollnick – I have to say, that pink camo QR is suh-weet! And TINY!
• Best Draft – Monica Murphy - She was so kind to let Rachelle and I ride her wheel for 30 miles. Without Monica, I think I’d still be out on that second loop somewhere.
• Best Taste in Music – Jennifer Cunnane – Vanilla Ice, Tone Loc, Ice T, Public Enemy. Word to your Mother.
• Best Fish Impersonation – Cheryl Stine. This chick can swim. FAST. If I could only swim half as fast as she does.
• Best Moon – Elizabeth Waterstraat – Those shorty shorts make for easy elf-mooning.
• Best Travel Buddy EVER – Rachelle. This goes without saying, she put up with me for four days. Although I did contemplate giving her a Stinkiest Feet award….
• Most Intense Camper – Jen Harrison. And I’m not just saying this because she’s my coach. I honestly think Intensity might be her middle name. Could have also won Most Likely to Fart While Laughing award.
• Best Conversationalist – Holly Ball. Holly can and will talk to anyone about anything. So personable and genuine. She made the run on Sunday so much more enjoyable. Thanks, Holly!!
• Best Swim Lane Partner – Kate Oliver – This girl doesn’t make a splash. At all. NO waves when she swims. Poor thing was probably getting sea-sick from all the chop I was sending her way.
• Fastest Blogger – Todd Gollnick – He had the trike race pictures up before we even got back to our hotel rooms! Molly was a close second for this award...
• Slowest Blogger – Me. The proof is in the pudding.

And so I will close my camp recap with some photos from the last afternoon in Florida…it was colder than it looks!

Introducing Miss Olive

I know everyone says it about their own child, real or the fur-kind, but don't you think this is one of the most adorable little faces you've ever seen???



That is Miss Olive. She's a puggle mix (that's a beagle/pug crossbreed, if you didn't know) and she's 11 weeks old. We've had her for a couple of weeks now...or should I say we adopted her a couple of weeks ago, the day before Thanksgiving to be exact. She was with us for five days when I got a call from the Animal Rescue League where we adopted her, indicating that one of her littermates came down with a case of Parvovirus. At the time of the call, she was doing just fine. No symptoms whatsoever. Then, two days later, there they were. The diarrhea, the throwing up, no interest in food or water, and complete and total lethargy. It was so sad to see her that way. At least the rescue league took her back into their care and was able to nurse her back to health within a week. It was torture to not be able to see her or really know how she was doing. of course we could call and they would say, "oh she's doing ok, she's eating some and wagging her tail", but you never really know. So I was on pins and needles for five days while she was at the rescue league, but thankfully we were able to go get her last week and bring her home. She's fully recovered and back to being her ornery ornery self. :D We wouldn't have her any other way.

Where's Waldo?

You found me!! I've been MIA in the blogging world for various reasons, but not because Coach extended our break or anything. Oh now, that didn't happen. The honeymoon was over after three short weeks, my friend. We've been back to the grindstone for a few weeks now, slowly ramping back into full swing. I have been warned, however, that everything will change on January 1. Oh boy! Bring. It. On.

So, what have I been up to?? Let's see, in somewhat of an order:

1. Took time to let my IT band heal
2. Got a tattoo (I'll devote a post to that, so stay tuned)
3. Started master's swim (at 5:30am in the morning. UGH!)
4. Started a kick-ass strength regimen (CrossFit!!)
5. Started Yoga (uh, A LOT harder than it looks!)
6. Work, work, work, work
7. Purchased a set of Zipp 404s (Suh-weet!)
8. Enjoyed Turkey Day...twice
9. Spent quality time with Gabriel (and other family, of course!)
10. Got a puppy (her name is Olive...she will get her own post)
11. Worried about sick puppy (see above)
12. Got healthy puppy back
13. Work, work, work, work
14. Started Christmas shopping...but nowhere near done yet!

...and I think that is about it. Tomorrow night I'm taking Greyt out for some sushi and some bar hopping for her big 3-0! Should be a blast!

I'll be back again soon, I promise! I know you are on the edge of your seat waiting to meet Olive!

We Are Officially On A Break

My coach and I are on a break. No talking triathlon, no training for triathlon, no thinking about triathlon. I wasn't supposed to cheat, but I did. I signed up for the Spirit of Racine HIM today. That's it, coach, I promise! No more cheating!!!

My 2008 racing season is now officially over. It ended yesterday with the Des Moines Half Marathon. I will spare everyone the details and just say it - I DNF'd. I got to a point I couldn't fight through the IT band pain and walked off the course at mile 8. It sucked. I hated having to do it, but there was just no way I could even walk myself in. I don't know why it happened or how it happened. It just did. And I'm not going to waste my time trying to figure it out. It's done, it's over, moving on.

Time to rest now. We'll be back at it soon enough, but for now I'm becoming a couch potato. For a week at least. ;)