Hitting the Pavement

What a week! Finally Friday and I feel like I have been hit with a ton of bricks....should make tomorrow's brick workout interesting ;) But in all seriousness, it is only beginning to hit me now how much is about to happen in the span of a few weeks. Next weekend I am heading up to Madison with the coach lady to ride out the IMOO trail for the first time. Next thing you know and it's June! Which means I need to be studying more for my test, while packing up my life to move the day after that, while also getting ready for my first race, while trying to balance out work and training and the fact that my sister is about to have a baby any day now.......Did that make anyone else feel like they wanted to bang their head off the wall? Ok good, then it's not just me. I like to think that I am a fairly organized person, who is constantly in motion, but all of this is just so overwhelming!

I've never been good at sitting still, or being in the same spot for long periods of time. It's just a skill I haven't quite gotten down. It makes the fast pace life that I lead workout. But if you look at my planner there are some days that I have a break down of an hour-to-hour schedule of where I need to be and what I need to accomplish in that time. I know I have a problem, first step is admitting it. But I really hate climbing stairs so I'm comfortable at this first step :P Well I've come to find that life has it's own funny way of knocking me on my ass, literally, and telling me to slow down.

Last weekend I went out for my long ride. I was damned determined to get the full 3 hours in because the weekend before that I only got in 2 after being put in a situation that involved blowing two tubes & taking a half mile walk of shame in my socks to the metra station. But we won't get into that. So I started at 6:45am on the lake path. I always say how much I hate the lake path and how much it sucks, but there I was riding loops again. About an hour plus into the ride I was all the way up north when I was totally side-swiped by a group of runners. I took one to the knee, but did they stop to see if I was ok? No! So I picked myself, my pride, and my bloody knee up off the ground and told myself I had another 2 hours to go, shake it off.

I wished I would have had my first aid kit because after wiping off my knee and fixing my dropped chain my hands looked like I murdered someone with a car engine. hahaha. Another hour or so later and I found myself in my second loop down on the south side. I had to cross a street but it wasn't a busy one and I didn't expect anyone to turn down it. WRONG! Out of my peripheral I noticed a bus with it's blinker on and it wasn't slowing down. I had about 2.5 seconds to decide: pound the pavement or get plowed by a bus. No brainer, but damn now my other knee was wrecked and I had just about enough of this day! One more hour I told myself. Just enough time to ride to museum campus and back and it would all be over with. Hold it together for one more hour.

Honestly I'm a believer in karma and bad juju. And there are times that things happen and I think, "Yup, I deserved that." But really, REALLY, I had no idea what I did to deserve two busted up knees AND A FLAT TIRE a mile away from home! I contemplated just riding it home but something in the back of my mind said, "No Sam, with the luck you're having today you'll bend your rim and that will cost you a pretty penny". Alright logic, you win this time. Off the bike I went and in the midst of changing the flat this lady stopped to talk to me. She was impressed that I knew what I was doing and I really appreciated the compliment but really I had had a hell of a morning and was not in the mood for small talk. I moved as fast as I could to change the tube and got on my way. By the time I got home I was ready to throw my bike back on the trainer and not look at it again until the next day!

I went out to brunch with one of my best friends and fellow runner/triathlete friends and we gabbed about the difficulty of our rides over orange flavored coffee and frushi (like sushi, only with fruit....no fish for this veg head ;)) I was comforted by her ability to relate to the rude runners on the lake path, hey, misery does love company, right?

Well misery really seemed to enjoy my company this past week because I couldn't seem to shake her! I missed my Sunday ride, my knees were still pretty beaten up, and my motivation levels just plummeted this week. Despite the really nice weather I just felt like my run times were slow, I couldn't finish my track workouts and I didn't get to lift once this week! It was like hitting the pavement over and over again every day this week! At which point, as I'm sitting here writing this I am picturing myself just laying out on the ground, not wanting to get back up. Because that's what it feels like. But in my mind I know I am stronger than that. I know I have overcome more difficult hardships than just this week and I can't let the pavement get me down (no pun intended). Sometimes life throws you down and gives you bloody knees. But most times, you're the one pounding the hell out of it putting in those miles.


 <------This make me laugh HYSTERICALLY every time I look at it because this is pretty much what I look like when I'm hungry! hahahaha!