The good, the bad and the ugly

Monday evening, I finally got to see Allen in over 20 some days. We've both been racing like crazy but unfortunately on completely opposite schedules :( After kicking butt and taking names at the Tour of America's Dairlyland stage race, him and his teammates drove the entire way back from Wisconsin and arrived late Monday night!

Staying on the good side of things...My brother and dad also drove a full day on Tuesday from Michigan to Boulder. They're heading out to the Edward's Airforce Base where my brother will be interning this summer and employed full time in February of 2010! Jerry is growing up so fast and it's really scary :) Even though they got in late Tuesday night and I only got to have a quick 45min breakfast with them in the AM, it was so nice to see both of them and they got to check out my new pad.

As much as I hate complaining and posting negative things on here, sometimes I just need to vent...Yes, I attempted my long run on Sunday. It was great until about 40min then it just got progressively worse and worse and worse until I blew up and walked back to the car :( No worries, I'll get over it. After purchasing a $165 saddle for my MTB so I don't have any more 'saddle issues', I went to put it on my bike only to realize that my carbon seatpost is almost 2 inches above the max insert line on a carbon frame...that is a big no no. I called around everywhere but bc the post is so specific to the bike, no one had it in stock. I got on it anyway and strolled over to Shep's to make sure an easy spin wouldn't break it but he said it's possible but should be okay for just a road spin. Apparently the ride just wasn't meant to be as my knee started to absolutely kill on the ride. What?!? This never happens. I eventually got home and just lost it. Seriously. I have done everything with the damn knee and it doesn't seem to want to heal whatsoever. I ended up getting a doc appt for Tuesday morning.

This is when it gets even worse. I went to the track early Tuesday morning to meet up with Neal and his 'Tri' group for a little trainer/track session. This is normally one of my favorite workouts but I haven't been on track since, oh, about October of last year, and with the state of my knee, who knew what would happen. The workout was 4min hard on the bike followed by a fast 600m run. The bike went great and the run was absolutely awful. I haven't run that fast in forever and despite no knee pain, I couldn't run to save my life and was getting just stomped on by the others. Talk about feeling like crap. Eventually the knee pain came as I was cooling down and my appt was right after the session so I marked it all up to show Dr. Paul. After much discussion, we decided to do another round of cortisone shots in a different area and see how that goes. Another surgery may be possible if it's 100% related to the IT band, but we're going to see how I react to this shot first. UGH.

The absolute worst is the fact that I took my powertap unit off my bike as I was putting on my car after the track session and completely forgot to pick it back up since I was rushing to get to the doc. Guess what? It's not there anymore...and one, it's not a cheap piece of equipment, two, it's something I use on a daily basis to train with so waiting to see if it was turned in somewhere is gonna be a big pain in the butt. Ahhh, when it rains, it pours, right?!? It's a good thing Allen and I are heading to Crested Butte today to get away and play in the mountains together for a few days. More on that next week.

Happy 4th of July everyone. Be safe with those fireworks!!!