Last week I came up with a list of things that I needed to do in order to try and repair my body and make it able to run pain free again.  Here is how I did:

1. Skip track work out and swim instead: A+, went for early morning swim last week and swam early morning this week and didn’t run track.
2. Do more ART/massage: F, no massage and had to cancel my ART appointment for allergist appointment (another exercise induced ailment) I thought this was supposed to be healthy!
3. Cold/heat treatment/wet heat application: C, Did the hot cold once and applied cold pack regularly.  Didn’t try the wet heat application.
4. Continue to coach my group on Saturdays and Mondays: A, Saturdays run was painful, developed new pain in knee.  Mondays run however was great!
5. Self treat and track on calendar : B, I have been rolling, stretching using the lacross ball on my foot – a lot! Wrote down the first day and dropped the tracking.  I’m not good at record keeping despite being an accountant J

Since mending different types of injuries doesn’t happen overnight my plan is to continue the same treatment this week. I won’t be getting my usual workouts in since I’ll be out of town.  I am flying to Toronto this week for a funeral.  My 92 year old Uncle Archie decided he’d had enough of this life and moved on to the next.  All I can say is look out women in heaven, he is a rascal!  This will give me an opportunity to rest and stretch although  of course I packed more workout clothes than regular clothes and I also packed  my mountain biking shoes with a hope of mountain biking on Saturday as a change of pace.  After next week I will decide if I’m going to still run the RNR half marathon on July 22nd.

When Hootie suggested a 2 mile lake swim on Tuesday morning I was game, knowing that I’d have to work late that night, to make up for lost travel time.  I arrived at ladder 1 or more affectionately called L1.  This is an alternative starting location from ohio street beach (OSB) where most of the triathletes go to swim.  If you swim from L1 to OSB and back it is about 3 miles.  The nice thing about L1 is that you jump in and you immediately need to tread water and start your swim so it can simulate some of the race starts.  Before I jumped in I tested my BG was 85.  Hmmm low for swimming.  I had already eaten a banana and almond butter about 15 minutes prior to the swim with no bolus but I’d forgotten to decrease my basil so I would have been going in with an 85 and full basil insulin on board (IOB).  So what did I do?  I ate a gel that I obtained from one of the other swimmers and reduced my basil to 0.  It’s weird how a low BG combined with swimming can make you do such irrational things!!!!!  I mean I probably didn’t need to eat the gel AND reduce my basil to zero, especially with swimming where the adrenaline is usually a little higher. 

The lake was beautiful – very flat and a little chilly.  Three of us (hootie, nic and myself)  swam just over a mile following the wall and we stopped and chatted for a while, treading water.  Then we swam back, about an hour and 5 minutes in total, probably just less than 2 miles.  I got out walked over to the North Avenue beach house and rinsed off in the showers.  Walked back to the car dried off and put my work clothes on in the parking lot. Triathletes develop a certain knack for changing anywhere.  I tested my sugar and of course it was 250!  Oh well, better too high than too low in the water is my motto! Luckily there was no bike and run after !

I got to work by 8:30 knowing I had about 12 hours in front of me.  What amazed me and my whole point of this post is that I was so giddy all day!  If you all know how I feel about work you know that is not how I usually am, I’m usually darn right depressed!  It was like I was on some sort of happy drug from the swim. If I could bottle it up and sell it I’d be a millionaire! Now I just need to remember that feeling for next time and keep this workout on my schedule.  It’s never easy, at least for me anyway, to get up early to go swimming…..but thats why we have fellow triathlete friends to get each other out of bed!