Bonehead

For the past few days, I have been feeling a little puny, and then felt a noticeable change for the worse yesterday. I think I have a mild case of the H1N1 flu and will just ride out the illness unless I start feeling feverish...too late for tamiflu. From what I've read and believe, I'll recover quickly. Last night my throat felt a little more sore, so I got up around 4 a.m. to take some Tylenol and Robitussin DM. I'm comfortable but stayed out of work to try to recover faster and avoid spreading the wealth around the office.

Since we are scheduled for a race on November 14, I hate losing training time while I was building my base mileage. I ran 2 yesterday morning on the treadmill but wanted to do 3, however my socket is giving me fit problems, mainly around the fibula head. I spent a good chunk of time monkeying with socks and never could get a comfortable fit. My residual leg shape has had significant changes and this part of the bone protrudes more as the muscles have lost volume. I thought I might run in the evening but my declining good cheer convinced me to nest on the couch.

I have an appointment on Friday for my new socket that should solve this current fit problem. It is my hope that the next socket after this new one will be my definitive where I can get a lightweight carbon fiber design. I'm not sure where all this fits in if I get my running foot anytime soon; will I change the foot out or will I have two sockets? I think the current one is probably not useful anymore except for an emergency. It won't be useful as my everyday walkabout socket.

My weekly mileage, which was 21 again last week, will take a hit this week because I will miss some time while I get better. I don't want to extend my recovery by overdoing it now and it always seems to take longer than we'd like. If all goes well I think I will be running Sunday again at the latest. This will be just easy jogging, nothing to stress my system before our race the following weekend. I do hope Jennifer can avoid catching whatever I have, although that may prove difficult since she works in a medical teaching university and is no doubt exposed there to the bug-of-the-month.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFJ3OVgVQvI

I saw this link on Twitter this morning from Mike Lenhart of the Getting2Tri Foundation. My sister had sent me Nick Vujicic's webpage around the time of my amputation so I was familiar with this amazing individual. I have to work on my impatience at times but I have little sympathy for whining. How can you whine and be inspired to do great things?


"It's not the end."

"It matters how you're going to finish."

"Are you going to finish strong?"

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In my mind, I clearly see my first finish line as an amputee. I feel myself pick up the pace, transforming the jog gait into the steadfast stride of a runner, pushing up the mountain, and finding the high road, fly.

A phoenix.

Home on the wind.