It's been about a month since I came out from surgery with the pump still attached to my stomach and about 3 weeks since I've been able to exercise again. It's felt like forever and a couple weeks. I started working out as soon as I felt it was safe (and my mom would let me) after the surgery and I'm almost to the point where I feel I'm back on the saddle.

I've learned the benefits of patience as I get back onto the team's dynamics and distance. In the old days I would have pushed as hard as possible maybe even before I was ready physically and emotionally. I almost dropped out of the team because I didn't think I could do it.... I wanted the reassurance that I wasn't going to die on the road in Tempe come November. Both Mike and Mary reassured me that I would be ready and now, a couple weeks later, I'm finally starting to believe they are right... it took beating the shit out myself today (0716) in a 3k swim and a 45 mile the following day (0717) to prove to myself that I can do this...

I've always targeted the swim to 2 hours or less. Mike Gaw, who did the swim with us, predicted my swim in the 1:50:00 range... exactly what I was looking for. It's not just the validation (I've only been out of surgery for a month) but it's also my finally accepting that all the training I've done was worth it and is allowing me to produce results a lot sooner than I thought I would.

Saturday's ride wasn't hard but it wasn't easy either. It was windy and that made my legs have to work harder and harder. I'm still not fully comfortable riding on a bike that is light enough to be pushed around when the wind gets too hard or it may be that the rider is also lighter and not putting too much weight on the bike to counteract the wind 🙂

I wrote this on Friday when I was finally cleared for unrestricted physical activity:

it feels so amazing to be able to do things without holding back and actually pushing yourself to see how far you can go. No more holding back, no more being careful that you'll get a hernia, no more being afraid if you're going to make it to Arizona or not.

And I meant every word on that post. I honestly did

Unpredictability

One of the worst things you can do to me (until now) is to make things random and unpredictable. Over the last few months I've come to accept that the world works on unpredictability, that there are so many shades of gray in this big world that if you can't deal with surprises you will be taken over by people who can.

What are you afraid of?

In case you didn't notice I'm on Lady Antebellum kick this week(end). Reading one of the prompts in the wheel of life exercise made me realize something (again) I'm terrified of opening myself up to people so that they'll hurt me and rip me to shreds and then move on with their own lives. It doesn't have to be that way but, in the end, that's how the cards have played and I'm not really looking forward to put myself through that grinder again.

But who do you turn to when things get rough? Who do you turn to when the shit hits the fan and you need to vent? And who will you do that for in return? I think you're really good at being the shoulder people cry on but you're really bad at accepting help and letting others take care of you when you need to. Yes, you are a control freak but even control freaks needs help once in a while and, the smart ones, accept the help from others

This song makes a compelling argument why I should. Listen to it and tell me what you think.