5280 Swim

The recovery process continues. Not running has been torturous and I'm anxious to get back into it. I have a second follow up this Friday and I am hoping the prognosis is as good as the last one. That should mean progressing to just a hard-soled shoe vs. the whole boot. I'm curious as to what the timeline to running after that would be.

In the mean time, my cycling has increased significantly. My cycling time has almost doubled. For someone who does NOT like to cycle, this has presented mixed emotions. My dislike is predominant, and as usual, after about an hour and a half to two hours, I'm mentally dead. My only thoughts are for the ride to end. Some of it comes from getting "lost." It's not that I don't know where I am. I just don't know where I am relative to where I want to be going. For this reason, instead of taking 54-W to Chapel Hill and wiggling back via back roads, I ended way up 70 in Durham and traveling 98 across Falls Lake all the way to Wake Forest.

On the other hand, by needing cycling in order to fulfill my workout addiction, I'm certain my tolerance is growing. And on my long ride this weekend, I had a bit of a personal revelation. My plan was for either 60 miles or 3 hours, and I did not want to overshoot both. Having gotten off track however, I knew I would. When I knew I was past both those marks, and still 10 miles out I considered just stopping and calling for a ride. But at that point I realized how much I would regret it later: It wouldn't really be a big deal, especially to me as a non-cyclist. But I knew how much more of an achievement it would be to keep going and just finish. It felt like a very cliche epiphany, but it helped.

Sunday was a good morning where I competed in an one mile, open water swim. The 5280 (yes, that's the name. I don't know why) was held at Beaver Dam on Falls Lake. Out of about 100 swimmers, I finished 13th overall, 1st in my age group (out of two). I got a [beer] glass. A somewhat low key event, I decided to do these swims, hoping that eventually longer and longer events will get added. This is part of the Triangle Open Water Series, with three more one mile swims and one two miler. Next up is the Jordan Lake One miler June 12.

I did get back to the Farmers Market! I love the fresh produce and picked up some peaches and a variety of summer squash (zucchini, yellow, pattypan). Yum!