Conspiracy

Being an endurance athlete in Minnesota requires spunk, flexibility, and a bit of stubbornness. The winter weather is always a challenge, but it’s pretty rare that I let Mother Nature get in the way of doing what I want to do. I’ll run outside as long as temperatures are above zero, and that’s pretty typical for other athletes here. Up until last week, I would grade this winter’s activities as an “A”. Having a break through with cross country skiing and running with Scout have been highlights. If I had to quit doing my thing for the rest of winter, I would still give it high marks.

But I don’t want to quit for the rest of the season. I’m not quitting, but taking a forced break. Nothing to worry about, just the second surgery that’s the normal part of reconstruction. I’ve known it’s been coming and have been trying to cram in as many of my favorite activities as possible before.

This week was a bit of a disappointment in that regard. I pulled all of the muscles in my shoulder and upper back a couple of months ago, a complication from the reconstruction process, and I had been tolerating it. I couldn’t swim or ride the bike on the trainer (or sleep well), but there were still plenty of fun things to do without a shoulder. A few days before we left for Disney, the shoulder got bad enough that I knew I had to do something about it. I started therapy for it as soon as we got back, which is good, but I can’t ski while it heals. No problem, I can amuse myself running with my friends and the dog.

Minnesota friends are good to run in anything above zero,but the dog has expressed that he would prefer it to be above 10 degrees. It was minus 30 degrees this morning. It’s been barely above zero all week and the dog can barely tolerate going outside to do his thing. Running with the dog has been out since my last post. While I was hoping that this week would be filled with all of my favorite activities, my shoulder and Mother Nature conspired against me. I ran this week, lifted weights and did lots of PT exercises and stretching, and even felt like my shoulder was improving enough to ride the bike on the trainer once for an hour. All good stuff but still a little disappointing since I had had my heart set doing all of my favorite things.  I probably had my expectations too high. I have three days left to run and lift and I plan to make the best of it.

Once I have surgery this week, I can’t exercise at all for a week and then only walking for another two weeks. It will be three weeks of taking it easy before I can run again. From what I understand, it should be an easy recovery. It’s a quick and uncomplicated surgery. No worries. I’m looking forward to this last big step so I can be done with this part of my treatment. After, I’ll assess where I am and start training for the season. With near record snow fall there should still be time left to ski. Training for my half ironman starts just a couple weeks after I’m back, and I have three half marathons on my schedule this spring.

Having sat out for five weeks and then coming back and running a great race at Disney makes me a lot less anxious about missing three weeks this time. It is what it is and I’m thankful that it’s not more than that. I’m officially putting my request into the weather man for good weather for mid-February. Until then, get out there so I can run vicariously through everyone else!