Why do my feet hate me?

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that something was wrong with my foot. I kept hoping that it would miraculously cure itself and in the meantime, didn't run. Well, to be honest, I couldn't run because walking hurt so much! I'm talking very intense pain with each step. But what the heck could I have done? This happened during an easy run!

Yesterday I was still in a lot of pain, but interestingly it didn't hurt while swimming or biking. Okay, time to see a doctor - but who should I go to? A lot of people I know go to a particular PT who is apparently the one you see when no one else can help you. She doesn't just give you exercises, she is passionate about getting to the root of the problem and setting you straight. I got her email address and hoped against all hope that I could possibly see her today.

Unfortunately, she's out of town, but she did email me immediately back with what she thought was wrong with me. Her words, since I would never get this right:

"It sounds like your cuboid bone on the lateral aspect of your foot could be subluxed. When the cuboid subluxes, it will create lateral foot pain and can also create pain up into the lateral lower leg because the peroneal tendon crosses under the cuboid. If cuboid is misplaced, the peroneal muscles cannot function normally. The peroneal nerve runs on the lateral lower leg and if the peroneal muscles are affected and restricting mobility of your fibula, this can cause lateral lower leg pain. "

She said if I can get to a chiropractor they can do a 'snake whip' and I would have immediate relief. Wow, that sounds too good to be true! I got in to see someone this morning and after he did his little thing I DID feel immediate relief. No longer was I walking with stabbing pain. Unfortunately, the area around it still hurts quite a bit. I'm not sure if this is because of the manipulation (it was much more than just a simple little pull on my foot), or something else.

Regardless, uhhhh, I'm supposed to do a race this weekend. Not one that I'm all that concerned about so if my foot still hurts I probably won't do it. If it feels better (I'm icing religiously now as he prescribed) than I'll race. No biggie.

And the PT? She is going to meet with me on Sunday evening to go over everything to try and pinpoint my biomechanical issues that could have caused this. Yes - Sunday evening!! How nice is that?!

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Coming Home

Here's Tassie, after a happy reunion with Marty in Jacksonville. My sister and brother-in-law were nice and let Tassie stay at their house, so Marty just dropped her off on his drive down and just picked her up a few hours ago. They should be home late this afternoon - yay! The pink part of the mohawk seems to have faded.


Yesterday I did an easy run and my foot decided not to cooperate. The outside of it was killing me to the point that I had to walk a lot of the return trip and today it is still really, really hurting. WTF?

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St. Anthony's Race Report

The weekend was tons of fun - we saw SO many people that we knew from our Florida days, and Alysia is an A+ buddy to have for all of our pre-race, race-day, and post-race antics. I'll just move right into my race report.

It was a humid and windy day. We had our rockstar parking courtesy of my dad and the 3 of us got set up in transition and then made the 1 mile walk to the swim start with our friend Kathy. Got suited up in the wetsuit and headed out for a warmup swim. The bay was choppy and the kayaker gave me an enthusiastic "Oh Yeah!" when I asked if it was rougher out passed the pier. The pro's went off, then the elite amateur men and then my wave (elite amateur women). I have to say - I am AWESOME at beach starts. I totally won the first 10 yards. I can high step and dolphin dive really well for some reason, then I start swimming and all the real swimmer zoom by me :) Unfortunately, NC hardly has any beach starts, so this is usually my one go at it. I saw Alysia swim on by and I tried to stay on her feet but it was rocking and rolling and it was tough enough to just try and sight the buoys. Our first left turn had the waves pushing us and then the final left turn in was really, really tough. Big waves and the current was pushing you the wrong way - but I managed to swim right next to Alysia and we came out of the water right together! I tapped her on the shoulder and said good job and then got through T1 relatively quickly.

The bike was tough - very windy and the way the course is designed it ended up being a crosswind or headwind except for the final 5 miles which was finally a tailwind. I caught several girls and some went flying by me. I felt pretty good but knew that it was not going to be a fast day - and that the wind was going to be quite a drain. But all in all I felt pretty good about my ride.

Off onto the run and I'm not feeling all that great. My run isn't feeling that strong right now, although it is definitely coming around. I just missed quite a lot with the pseudo hip injury and early year sickness. I was telling someone that I feel like I'm in about March shape, not late April shape, but the good thing is there are lots of races to go! The run was just plain hard for me; I really think I am not quite fit enough to handle that rough swim and all that wind on the bike and be able to get off and run fast right now. I had some major low points out there and really wanted to just stop and walk too many times to count. A few girls passed me and there was nothing I could do. So I just kept trudging forward. I finally (finally!) was near the finish line and thought I was in tenth when I saw my mom and sister and very pathetically asked them, "is anyone close?" they said no and I breathed a sigh of relief as getting into the top ten is always my goal here. I barely made it this year, but still, I'll take it!

Funny thing, Marty also imploded on the run . When I saw him after the race I said, "Marty! My run was HORRIBLE!" he said, "Oh yeah? I ran 48 minutes." I responded with a very gracious, "I didn't run THAT bad!" Sorry, honey, where is my filter?!

So yeah, I had a great weekend and have lots of room for improvement on the triathlon front. Now it's back to real life for a bit and then the White Lake sprint this weekend. Here are some pictures (thanks, mom!)

Very beginning of the run:



Marty starting the run.



Post race with Scott and Alysia.



Getting my award.

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Florida - here I come!

I'm flying to Florida this evening with one of my besties, Alysia, to race in St. Anthony's triathlon. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not feeling super great right now with my training but no matter what, the race will go MUCH better than last year when I was very, very sick. I'm going to go out there and go as hard as I can for as long I can - how's that for a strategy?! The weekend will also be a lot of fun, as it always is down there.

Here's a picture from the start of the women's elite amateur wave in 2008 - just a portion of the wave as it was pretty big. I'm in the lower left corner.


And in keeping with the St. Anthony's theme today, here's a nice article about my dad that was in the St. Pete Times.

Q&A with president of USA Triathlon board.

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Article in St. Pete Times

Here's a good article that captured Wendy's personality.

Wendy Johnson, longtime triathlete, race promoter and take-charge good Samaritan, dies at 50.

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On to greener pastures

10 years ago I was having a really rough time in my athletic life – some influencing people were basically killing anything I enjoyed about running. I was finishing up my junior year, on a full scholarship, and pretty much wanted to quit and walk away from it. That’s how I ended up getting back into triathlons after having doing a bunch as a youth. My dad suggested participating in some of the central Florida sprints as a way to have fun again while competing.

I did have fun; a lot of fun. I met some new people, including a husband and wife that my dad had recently met. I was finishing up the run of the first sprint triathlon in Clermont when Wendy gave me a shout as she was starting her run. A local elite stud was cooling down chatting with her as they had gotten to know each other through some triathlon forums over the past year. She turned to him and asked if he was single – he was, and she told him that she knew a girl he should meet.

So yes, that was Marty, and we have Wendy to thank for setting us up. Her and her husband, Al, were so in love and such nice people – good people, genuine people.

I remember when I first met Wendy she said something that stuck with me. As I said before, I was going through a low point – as I was talking to her about what was going on she said, “don’t let someone so unworthy take up space in your head” I could really relate to that and tried my best to stop worrying about someone who was causing me so much anxiety.

Wendy lost her battle with melanoma last night. She was 50. She will be missed greatly by many, many people, including Marty and I.

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Racing Weekend for All the Gaal's

Two years ago Marty and Tassie did the Umstead Coalition run. It's one of the few runs that allows dogs and she won for doggies. We couldn't do it last year because it was the same day as the 5280 open water swim, but this year they were on separate weekends. Since Marty was doing the Triangle Orthopedic Sprint triathlon on Sunday, it was me and Tassie for the run.

We got her shaved and mohawked-up and then dyed it pink for the run.


The run didn't start until 9:45 and I was a little worried because it was starting to get pretty warm. And Tassie was SUPER excited just being at the venue with all the other dogs and people. She didn't heed my advice of being a zen-doggie pre-race.

The start was a little dicey because there were a lot more people than two years ago, and you have to make a sharp right turn after 30 yards. Tassie was all over the place not exactly understanding what was going on. It took us awhile to get into a groove, and then we saw Marty which activates her ADD as evidenced by this video. This is what I imagine is going through her head: Run Happy! Happy Run! Love Running! Oh HI DADDY!




(I apologize for the poor quality of the video and pictures, they are off the blackberry as we seem to have misplaced our real camera once again)

We came through the 1 mile in 7:09 (it was a slight downhill). The 2nd mile had a big uphill and a dog passed us! I was all ready to pick it up but held back upon realizing that maybe Tassie was a bit tired and hot. See what a good mom I am? I can totally have kids. Anyways, we hit the 2 mile turn around and I missed our split because I was trying to get her to drink some water (they had dog bowls out) but she didn't want to waste anytime on that so we took off and she cruised on back down the hill and we put a bunch of distance on the other dog. He had obviously started off a little too quick ;)

We hit the 3 mile mark in 21:47 and then Tassie was on a mission to pick off as many people as possible. We passed so many people in the last mile (now with a slight uphill) and she totally gave these two guys we passed the "Lance Armstrong Look."



I am SO not joking about that! She seriously got some sort of second wind and was mowing everyone down. Marty was trying to run ahead of us here to get a good shot but Tassie wouldn't let him so that's why this is from behind.



There was one girl who was ahead of us (but she didn't have a dog) so Tassie and I were 2nd and 3rd women overall in a time of 28:45. Yup, we totally went sub-7 for the last mile! She beat me by a nose :)

So yes, she is doggie champion once again. And she got lots and lots of attention from everyone because she is so nice and had the punk rock mohawk.

Then this morning she got even MORE attention out at the triathlon. She's a regular celebrity in these parts.

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I Got Something New, Too!

I know several people that either just got a new bike, will be getting a new bike, or are getting a new bike built.

Oh yeah, well, I got NEW BIKE SHOES.



So put that in your pipe and smoke it!

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My blog moved

As Marty mentioned in the previous post, my blog moved. I don't really get all the stuff he explained to me. I started out trying to understand and then he turned into the teacher in 'Peanuts' WAH WAH WAH. My current blog address is http://www.martygaal.com/briblog/ or http://brigaal.com/ but now its something else. Or it's not. Which I guess if you're here than you found it. Or maybe you're tired of reading my crap-ola, which is also fine. But I'll still be here regardless.

So here is a screenshot of the old website - still out there, but I have no idea if anyone actually goes here to get to our blogs anymore.

There's A LOT of old stuff on here. All of our travel pics from "Trippin' 06" and the archive to our updates back then. We were keeping triathlon-related updates as well as trip-related updates during that time. Anyways, this website is all ftp based which is like old website stuff - all I know is it was kind of complicated putting up pictures and making updates on this thing. Blogger makes it all so easy. Our updates go back to 2003 - and if you dig around, you may find some pretty funny pictures. Like this one:

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blog is moving

This is Marty. I have hijacked Bri's blog. Blogger is discontinuing FTP support for blogs so we need to move Bri's blog to briblog.martygaal.com (which will then go to a google host page), having some technical issues, so if Bri's blog disappears anytime soon you can yell at me.

Here is a picture of a goat.

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Of Swimming and Vacuums

Big day tomorrow – first open water swim of our series, which is run in conjunction with the Beaver Dam Olympic Triathlon. I know a lot of people who will be out there racing and it will be a lot of fun cheering everyone on. I am not doing the open water swim or the triathlon – I’ve held steadfast to my belief that it is way too cold (for me) to do an open water swim race right now and I don’t believe that the water is actually 70 degrees despite what people have been declaring. Particularly since it rained last night (which washed a lot of the pollen away - thank god) – it’s now a wee bit chilly. I have done races where the water has been colder (59 degrees thankyouverymuch in Geelong, Australia), but this is just a swim and a swimmer I am not. Much less one who wants to get in cold water willingly.

In the afternoon we have a Master’s bbq/cookout. And then at night we have another party to go to – obviously we are not ones to turn down social gatherings.

And in the category of ‘how boring can I make this blog’ we bought a new-to-us vacuum. A second hand, not very used Dyson. And it is AWESOME.

Lame.

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It has exploded

So last Saturday was all cold and I was bundled up on our bike ride. Not so this weekend, as I stripped down to trishorts and a sportsbra during the runs of our broken brick. And now that it warmed up all the trees rejoiced and have exploded their pollen all over. Our car is a dark green, not yellow:

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