Should I or Shouldn't I???

I should smile more....is that a gut or does the shirt make me look fat?

St George is coming up. SOOOOOON! I will try not to whine but I am in a delemma. I can't decide whether to enter the St George race or not. I am definitely not ready physically. My left leg is still weal- but at least not cramping. I haven't ridden outside forever( I can't admit here exactly how long.) And I am growing soft here in the sun on the beach- sucks to be me :)





I really want to race but know I will get crushed. I can't spsychologically drop down a level and either way, I'd get crushed in Sport too. On the other hand, racing would get me out AND give me a very good idea where I am at relative to my competition (there will be none) and more importantly where I was in the past couple of years. And a bonus is I will finally be with the Mad Dog team who I actually think I am missing. So unless something ELSE happens I will show up and see how things shake out. I guess formulating this post helped me decide. I think.

Boys in Heaven

NO WHINE ZONE

A smart little birdy commented to me the other day that this blog has been kind of whiny this year. And so it seems it has. OK, so I pledge for the rest of the year to TRY not to whine. If I do. I hope the 1 or 2 of you that do follow this blog will be honest and let me know.

And it just so happens there has been some good news on the health front for both of us that whining wont be needed (I hope)!

Dot had her two week check up and the docs said she is the best healer they've ever seen (I bet they say that to all the girls). Anyway, she's returned back to work and is walking a bunch! She's measuring her progress by how fast she can walk on the treadmill. She's at 3.2 mph now and seems pretty happy about it.

I had my MRI and seen the sports medicine doc this week. The bad news is I have small to moderate disc herniations at three levels! But the good news is none are surgical and the nerve distribution that I am having weakness on is actually the best looking one. Go figure. To help explain I have attached a lumbar MRI below.

The soft spongy discs can push out (herniate) and push on a nerve. Luckily most will actually get better with rest and anti-inflammatories which seems to be the my case. My back pain has been completely gone for several weeks but I've been dealing with the thigh weakness. That too is getting better. I can spin and get my HR up to the 160's without cramping and spin for 1.5 hours. I don't think that will get me to race condition but it is improving fairly fast. Yay! (see: no whining).

So even better news is that we are leaving for the Riviera Maya Saturday! Hopefully the next blog will be more Sunny!

ARANTIX II miles for 2010: 5 (ouch!)

THE REST OF THE STORY:

So this is what my left quad looks like 3 weeks after I "twisted" my back. Any ideas?

FEBRUARY 5TH:

Here is the rest of the info to go along with the above picture:
After the back injury I started to have more pain and cramping on the inside of my left leg along with weakness. It was mostly when going up stairs or standing up. The skin is numb over the quadriceps. It continued 3 more weeks until the back pain was completely gone but I felt that the quadriceps muscle was atrophying. Also, I would spin to about a HR of 120 and get SEVERE spasms in that area. So as Dot got better I got an MRI of my back to make sure there wasn't anything continuing to push on that nerve. Interestingly, the MRI showed some disc protrusion and disease, but NOT in the nerve distribution that corresponded with my weakness. Anyway, its good that I don't think I'll need surgery but unknown as to why this happened and when it will resolve. I am going to see a sports medicine doc Monday to get his opinion.

So is it Old age? I'd like to think that it is more likely a probability thing. The longer you do crazy things and the more crazy things that you do the more likely you will have an injury and pay the consequences.

What else is there, though. To lay down, rot and die?

We Will Be Ruturning To Regular Programing...

Dot continues to do well. Here she is back at the boys bed-time ritual of reading to them. The family routines that we depend on her for are back on track. I must say, however, that it is nice to have her home during the day and not at work. We could probably get used to that, but alas, she's already logged onto the work computer and started to do some work and conferencing.

So after this post I will take back my Arantix blog and return to boring the one or two readers (and myself) about biking and my challenges. Dot welcomes your calls and emails if you'd like to see how she continues to recover. Thank you all for your interest, wishes and prayers.