three things thursday

1. All right, so even running a half marathon as a training run is a pretty rude thing to do to your body.  Mine has been pretty cranky this week.  During my swim on Monday, my back tightened up quite a bit on one side and later in the day kind of went bizonkers.  I saw my PT on Tuesday and he made it feel about 100% better, but then I had a swim on my schedule for Wednesday, which I had to shut down about 1/3 of the way through because everything locked up and got tight again.  I spent most of yesterday rotating on and off the heating pad and it's better again today, but my Friday swim might get the hand tomorrow.


The other very scary repercussion of the half is my bruised foot.  When I saw my PT, he did the "does it hurt when I do this?  push here?  here?" test and said that he was pretty sure it wasn't a stress fracture, just a bone bruise, but of course logic took a major hit yesterday and I spent the day convincing myself that my foot bones had all collapsed and I wouldn't be able to do anything for 8 weeks and so on.  However, I'm pretty sure it doesn't hurt in the stress fracture place.  It hurts here:

And that's behind where all the metatarsals tend to break.  I had a Chinese-whisper conversation through this girl last night and I think we all agree that my cuboid bone is just a bit stiff and bruised.  Something was mentioned about whipping and throwing it but I had a hard time following it, so I'm just going to stay off of it as much as I can, except to run 3+ miles off the bike this morning, which felt fine.  A little sore when I was done, but nothing that could be described as "popping," "stabbing," "sharp," or "crunching."  


2. I'm getting very close to a bike decision, mostly due to the incredible kindness of lots of complete strangers who are helping me out in a variety of ways.  I'm going out to Bonzai for one last test ride tonight, but I'm pretty confident that I've already decided what I'll be bringing home with me.  Well, ordering to bring home with me in a few weeks.  


3. I got a ton of responses to my post last week about Poconos, and I really appreciated it.  It solidified what I already thought in my mind - that I shouldn't be doing that race.  It looks like I'm not going to get my race registration refunded, which basically sucks.  I think it's pretty important for me mentally to have a really well-executed 70.3 race this fall, and I feel as though Poconos is not going to be set up very well for that to occur.  I am pretty disappointed in the way things have turned out, especially in the single response I received, but I've decided that it's more important to move forward and find a place where I can have a great race.  After lots of research and discussion, it looks like I'll be racing a 70.3 which coincidentally falls on my birthday: Waterman's Half at General Smallwood State Park in Maryland.  It doesn't have nearly the same amount of climbing on the bike course as what I've been preparing for, but all other factors should be about equal.  I'll be heading down there this weekend to ride and run some of the course.  


Lots of big decisions going on over here.  Happy Thursday, all!  Where are you running, riding, or racing this weekend?