Sort of back at it.....

I was like a little kid last night....so excited to play with my friend today. Jen and I had a riding date. But first we swam at masters and then headed out for a recovery (well for me) and 4 hour ride for Jen. We rolled up to La Costa and never, never stopped chatting. We had so much to catch up on. Jen has been racing Mtn Bikes and hanging out on the podium! Go Jen!! Dropping lots of boys in the MB scene and of course I had to relive IMSG. Even though she read the detailed race report, we still had so many details to cover!

La Costa back to Carmel Valley we had all the other weeks of news to catch up....In the blink of an eye she peeled off to finish, or maybe really start her ride- at a respectable pace, and I was headed back to UCSD. We laughed that this is the best way to catch up...riding bikes and yammering away. Forget happy hour and the other normal social venues. Too bad I am still trashed from Ironman and had to cut it short.

So after 1.5 weeks of yoga or walking the dog being my workout for the day, I managed a masters swim and a 2 hour ride. Seemed like a lot, frankly. Although my HR never came up to even an Ironman effort so no fear of gaining fitness. Just felt good to be outside and having fun.

I am under a considerable amount of stress at work....one of my favorite clients was affected by the Nashville flood and we are scrambling to find another location- stressful for but 10 fold for her I am sure. That and another group who wants to cancel a meeting, which is just not ever fun and anther who wants to make major changes after the contract was signed. Add all this up and well.....my job which is the envy of most, is not so enviable right now. And I am a stress case...family has not seen this in a while. They are all very supportive and give me a wide space when I blast out of my office.

It is a good reality check of how great I have it most of the time....the good thing is I really like my clients- they are all good people and I work hard to get the best for them and they genuinely appreciate it! That is all I can ask for.

So looks like I am heading to the land of the mouse next week....Orlando! Again, travel is part of the job and sometimes I love it and sometimes not.

The other stress in my life is the results of my MRI.MRI says Superior labral anterior to posterior labral tear extending from the 10 to 2 o'clock positions (SLAP 2c) What does that mean? You can read all about it! Basically the tear is in the cartilage that goes around the rim to hold the ball in the socket joint. The problem is that the tendons get stuck in the tear and then pop out, which yes can be very painful, or just inconvenient.

I have figured out how to swim with little pain and can avoid the popping, as long as I don't do backstroke or fly. A really good excuse to only swim freestyle. But the pain manifests itself when I am riding. Aero is the worse, after about 30 minutes is starts aching and soon is shoot pains and I have to come up and alleviate the tension. Even on my road bike I have to take the pressure off or it gets very painful. So the swimming I can live with and the cycling I can too, I lived through IMSG but Ironman causes enough pain and adding more is just not fun.

I am going to deal with it through Kona and hopefully find a way to to manage it, but it not, will have to go the surgery route after Kona. Labral tears do not heal....they need help. So that is an added stress that weighs on me as well.

So with that.....I say goodnight and thank goodness tomorrow is Friday!!!!