Oh, the places you'll go!

Well, hello there! We're now working on 4 days post Half Ironman, and dare I say..I'm starting to feel a bit normal?  (relatively).  I stewed a bit for Monday and Tuesday, feeling pretty darn wrung out and hurting all over.  I may have even thrown a mini tantrum on facebook when my friend Solveig reminded me...Dude.  You just did a freakin' HALF IRONMAN.  NORMAL. 
Oh, right.  I suppose when you've spent the last 2 years focusing on 140.6, you forget that the beast that is 70.3 has it's own challenges and recovery.  I guess I'm an impatient guy :-P
But, hands down, the #1 question I've heard this week is..."Hows the foot"?
This means 1 of 2 things:
1.  You're an idiot for running 13.1....can you still walk?
2. You're crazy but I love you.  How is your foot doing?  (Or some other term of endearment.  Stubborn mule was my favorite).
Sooo....let's start from the beginning.

Initially after the race, I felt like hell, but my feet were fine.  Blistered and sore, but fine.  I babied the heck out of them on Sunday night and Monday...elevating, icing, resting.  I did a few light swims, no impact at all.  Wednesday I hopped on the elliptical to test it out-the left foot (injured foot) is most definitely weaker than the right foot, but it doesn't hurt.  Today I did some water running and a short recovery bike after work.

To put it in perspective...my foot is not 100%, but my legs hurt a heckofa lot more :-P  I'll take it.

This weekend I am part of a tri relay for a local sprint race-the hubs will be doing the swim, my father in law the bike, and I'll tackle the 4 mile run.  We planned this out and I have full doctor approval to do it.  (No, for those of you who asked, I didn't have his blessing to do the run on Sunday.  But I was told if I threw caution to the wind to take it slow.  And I did.)  But I do have his approval for this race-he told me not to expect to be 100%, which I am fully aware that I'm not.  I'm also not running at all again this week in order to be as good to go as I can be.

I expect that will be my theme in the next month-alot of elliptical and water runs, supplemented with a slow increase in mileage.

Should I be racing?  Ehh, probably not.  But I am firmly in the camp that I would rather "complete" a race instead of "competing" and be able to do it, while scaling back on my weekly mileage.  I love the hell out of this sport and don't want to jeopardize any future races.  But I can tone down my competitive nature in order to be able to actually *DO* the race.

Do I recommend what I did this past weekend?  Nah.  I'm a crazy person, and I walked a fine line. I know that.  I had long talks with both my doc and other half, and the full support of the latter, which, in my opinion, was the most important thing.  Knowing you're doing something that's just a little bit nuts is easier when, if you eff up, there won't be someone behind you yelling "I told you so" as you're doubled over in pain.  But then again, there's reason #476 that I married him.  Yes, there are 475 before that.  But you have a life.  You don't need me to list them :-P

And on that note, I would say that....I followed my ortho doc's advice 90% of the time.  The rest...I followed another good doc:

You have brains in your head.
You have feet in your shoes
You can steer yourself
any direction you choose.
You're on your own. And you know what you know.

And YOU are the guy who'll decide where to go.

Yeah :-)