Love the Life you Live, Live the Life you Love

Katie does not use crutches. Katie will never use crutches. Crutches are for the people who can't handle their own weight. I, however, can hold my own weight just fine. Someone should inform the physical therapist as soon as possible so he can realize the diabolical issue he has caused me and correct his mistake immediately. ...yet for some odd reason I find myself crutching down Comm Ave being passed by 90 year old women and squirrels. This isn't exactly what I had in mind when I said I loved a good metal frame - I was referring to a bike. Not crutches. So it could be a stress fracture. Will I keep racing? Absolutely. Will I train through it? Probably. Will it hurt? Definitely. I'll just get really, really good at swimming, and even more specifically, pulling. And I can work on my pull ups and crunches. Maybe biking won't hurt too bad either if I keep to the flats and don't crank in high gears. This will be just fine =)

Imagine the worst pain you have ever felt. The kind that sucks the breath from your lungs before you can catch it. Every step is excruciating. You can't even shed a tear because it would take energy and oxygen to do that, and right now, all of your strength is going towards simply putting one foot in front of the other as fast as possible. Your numb run turns to a limping jog. Screw the mile repeats and fartleks you did to train for this exact moment. Forget about the Wednesday night track practices and the nights meticulously writing down your lap times. The race is over. Right now, you run only because you know that will end your suffering faster. Now imagine doing this in 45 degree air, 54 degree water, and 30 mile an hour wind gusts. Imagine doing this at Triathlon nationals: the sub 3 hour time slot you spent the last 5 months preparing for. You picked up a part time job, iced, heated, foam rolled, stick'd, therapied, begged, pleaded, braced, wrapped, bio freezed, rock tap...

For the sake of not wanting exactly 69 posts on my feed, I'm blogging twice in one day - which actually isn't unheard of. Even blogging 3 times in one day isn't unheard of. Now four? That's getting a little desperate. I can't say I won't ever do it, because I feel we all have those days, but I'm going to avoid it at all costs. Especially when I have a laundry list of things to do today...which actually for once doesn't include laundry. Currently all my Tri stuff is scattered around my room, I pulled out everything that was on the list Colin sent us. One problem: to actually bring everything, I would need an Airbus 300. Or a small caravan. Maybe I could get away with a donkey and a saddle bag. But, regardless, not a carryon and a purse. My wet suit alone takes up half my carry-on. My mom told me always to wear the biggest thing you have. So through my powers of deduction I decided the most reasonable thing to do is wear the wet suit on the plane. My helme...

Last night while at work I was quite literally a train wreck. Okay maybe not a train wreck. But if trains were made of plastic and were about 1/10 size and merely fizzled instead of blew up when they collided or derailed, then I would have been a train wreck. So I guess a train wreck is a little bit of an over statement because I'm not made of 240 tons of crushing, steaming, steel - even though sometimes I like to think I am. But any belief that I was made of pure metal was obliterated when I got hit by those two cars a couple weeks ago. So if I'm not steel then I think I'm made of alloy - some sort of partial solid mix in a metallic matrix...thing. Not quite as tough as steel but not quite as soft as pure gold. So whatever sort of collision I was last night was due to a combination of lack of sleep, excitement for nationals, Diet Coke, and the butterflies I get out of working at City Sports. That sounded like sarcasm, but in all honestly it's not. I absolutely could no...

This kid I spend 90% of my time hanging out with and I were discussing what I spent 90% of my time thinking about - so Chris and I were talking about Triathlons, of course. It started with Chris' goal to swim a continuous 5,000m before the end of a year, a lofty goal considering he has no swimming background, and my goal to do another century ride before summer. Of course, Chris being Chris, talking about my experience riding for 6.5 hours straight made him want to do a century ride, too. And, me being me, swimming 5,000m seemed like an awesome way to spend an otherwise lazy Saturday morning. That and I can't let him do this by himself - some one has to pull him off the bottom of the pool. So then somehow, we both got really excited about both these ideas and decided to knock them out in one weekend: swim 5,000 one day then do a century ride the next day. Then it morphed into us doing both in the same day, because rest time in between is for the weak and faint of heart. ...On...

So I've been really down lately about my knee being so busted. I keep moping about how I could be so much faster if my body could just keep up with my heart. And every morning I wake up and say a quick plead that maybe this will be the morning I step out of bed and my knee won't buckle under my own weight and pain won't shoot up my patella - but it hasn't happened in over a week, and every day I get a little more anxious about nationals. I just don't understand how some people can go out and crush a ten mile run and I can't even handle a 3 mile jog around the river without suffering some detrimental shin issue that puts me out of training for days. So tonight I was taking refuge by talking to one of my teammates, mostly subconsciously looking for a little pity. But the thing is up until this point no matter what anyone says, it never makes me feel better. I realized it's because everyone has tried to say things to excuse my negative attitude. Comments such a...

I can't even believe this was just suggested to me! And mom I KNOW you're reading this - never again, okay? You were the one who told me to never give up on anything, even if it's hard and you don't think you can possibly go on, find the inner strength to just. keep. moving. And that's exactly what I plan to do. Okay so yes I wake up every morning limping, I nap with ice packs taped to my knee, and I look slightly deformed because I wear a knee brace under my jeans...But for some reason I can't break out of the mindset that it's all worth it when I cross the finish line or get a new PR. The sick muscles don't hurt, either. So now that it's settled that race officials will literally have to drag me kicking and screaming, let's never make the "Why Don't you just Quit" suggestion ever again, k? Oh speaking of sick muscles. My back hurts. Why? Because THIS ONE did TWO pull ups at the gym. TWO. Can I just say it's been my goal since ...