Arduous April

Well, it was supposed to be arduous, but after my bike crash, it turned out a little less so. I had hoped to finish the equivalent of a quadruple ironman in April, but that little flat tire I had put a bit of a damper on things. I didn't even meet the goals for a triple (though I came close). Ending numbers look a little like this:

	Goals for April	Total to date	Total Hours
Swim	16800 y	12100 y	5:40
Bike	448 m	362.3 m	25:17
Run	104.8 m	68.4 m	13:08

Basically, after I went down, I was down for the count for the rest of the week. I did manage to get on my bike for a whopping 3 mile ride two days later, but that was just to "get back in the saddle" as it were and to make sure the bike was okay.

Funny story goes with that, though. Pat and I have the same brand and model of bike (Kestrel Talon). Because I didn't have any spare tires around (I didn't just blow a tube, the whole tire blew out!), and since he isn't riding his bike, I, um, "borrowed" the front tire off his bike. Well, of course, his tires were flat, so I had to pump it up. After getting the inflator valve on the tire and pumping it up, I went to take it off and the damn thing sprang back and bit me on the hand giving me a blood blister. Damn! That was just adding insult to injury. So BOTH hands had owies on them. But I rode the bike anyway.

A couple days later, I managed to ride the 4.5 miles in to work, then rode to town and back during lunch for another 6 miles (round trip), then rode 4.5 miles home. I got a total of 15 miles in that day and it felt good to do that, but the hip objected slightly.

Speaking of hip, this is what it looked like a week after it slammed into the pavement (taken as a reflection in my bathroom mirror).

That is a full 6 inches in diameter. Honestly, though, it doesn't hurt nearly as much as what it looks like it should. There is still a lump, even as of this writing, that hasn't gone away. I've seen a doctor, though, and he says I'm doing okay, considering.

However, for the last week in April, I admit to babying myself. Short jogs at work between the copy room and the phone would hurt, so running was out of the question. The abrasions on my hand and knee kept me out of the pool. Cycling was possible, but I was working some long hours (we are doing a software conversion at work), and between sitting on my bum (and on the bruise), for hours at a time, by the time
I would get home, I would be just too exhausted to think about doing anything else.

Had I been able to get in the pool, I would easily have made my quad goal for the swim. Had I been able to finish my ride on Sunday, I would easily have made my quad goal for the bike (especially considering I had another 7 hour ride planned for the following weekend). The run would have been harder to predict, but I had a 3 hour run scheduled for the following weekend (the day after the 7 hour ride), not to mention my regular weekly runs, and believe I would have come in close to a quad on the run.

But, given that I took a full week off in April for my injuries, I don't think I did all that badly. May won't have the same volume as April, simply because the way my schedule works out, I'll have two rest weeks in May and fewer weekends, but it will be no less intense as I'm preparing to peak for the New Balance Half Ironman in Victoria, B.C., in mid-June.