This is for the Haters

So-  the knee doctor says I should never do triathlons.  Fine.  But that doesn't mean that my entire training world has to end.  Papa Millie and my younger sister and I are once again hitting the relay circuit.  August 4th, we'll be rocking our pee yellow shirts in the  Naperville Triathlon.  I'll be doing the swim leg again.

It gives me a reason to refocus.  It gives me a reason to get my butt back into the pool.  Time to refocus, reevaluate and reestablish goals.

Obviously the knee isn't 100% - so the first week or so - and possibly longer depending on how quickly the knee adapts will simply be adjusting to swimming again.  The eventual goal (by the time the Tri rolls around in August)  will be a 20 minute mile.  Doable I think, it's like 2 months away- well like 6 weeks.

My -hope- is that I can wake up early in the morning, swim, and then head into work- hopefully killing 2 birds with one stone. #1 Avoiding ridiculous stop and go traffic now that every main artery out of this stinkin city is under construction simultaneously (geniuses that work at the village, I swear)... additionally, it gives me an "excuse" to get into the gym every morning.  I'm going to shoot for three times a week for now....  I'm hoping eventually to get it up to five or six but I dont want to over reach or over commit.

Tomorrow morning, bright and early, back into the pool I go!


One- Two- THREE P's.

At Your Weight, You Shouldn't Be Doing Triathlons Anyway

Okay, its been forever and I don't really even have the right to ask anyone to open this and read it.  I mean, I'm like the worst fair weather friend ever.  As I've discussed ad nauseum I have never ending issues with my left knee.  

I've become a huge fan of Ivanka Trump shoes (they're super cute)  but very slippery.  One rainy day, my foot slid off a curb-  it wasn't a far slide, and I'm sure someone without bad knees would have just moved along like nothing happened other than getting a bit of a jolt.  Me however, hyper extended my knee.  After a week of not being able to walk on it, I went to an Orthopedist to see if maybe I tore something.  I went to OAD Orthopedics   and I have never been so flabbergasted at a doctor in my life. The Dr spent all of five minutes with me.  Looked at my XRays pulled at my knee a bit told me it was a sprain and there was nothing he could do.  I asked about a brace he told me their were no better than what I could get at Walgreens.  Pain killers- he told me to take something over the counter.  I told him I couldn't even walk on the knee-  it was just a bad sprain. Crutches?  No they weren't necessary either, the joint needed to move not be immobile.   If I didnt feel better in 4-6 weeks come back and he'd do an MRI.  He said according to my xrays there was arthritis building up in my knee and I'd probably need knee replacement surgery when I was older.  Great, but my need is immediate.  I literally CAN NOT WALK on my knee without intense pain.  And of course, his parting words, "With your knee you shouldn't be running...  and at your weight, you shouldn't be doing triathlons anyway."

Um- excuse me?  You know-  you read all these articles about health care and the cost of obesity on the average person and how expensive it is to insure heavy people etc etc because they never go to the doctors.  Given this experience, I can understand why some people wouldn't want to go.  Why would they want to when they great universally treated badly simply because they are heavy?  

Personally, since I clearly have experience in triathlon and was able to successfully complete them on multiple occasions-  wouldn't it be better to take me seriously as an athlete instead of just looking at me as a number?  

I get it- I have a really bad knee and triathlon isn't wise for the knee... but he didn't say "because you have a bad knee don't do triathlons" he said "Because of your weight don't do triathlons" and suggested I do something low impact, like swimming.

Which brings me back to the issue at hand. If I can't even WALK - how am I supposed to swim?  

This doctors appointment was either three or four weeks ago- Ive lost track now.  I was slowly starting to heal, I was even able to walk straight, but the joint still felt unstable  like anything would cause it to "go out"... I know there is something wrong with this joint.  Twice since then now, just the slightest wrong movement has caused it to "tweak" again -  I'm sitting here right now with my leg up and iced because I was sitting in a too-deep chair this morning and tried to get out of it (and it was essentially akin to straightening after doing a deep squat) and putting the slightest weight on it had me in tears.

I'm sending out an S.O.S.  I need a recommendation on a knee doctor.  Preferably one who also has experience with feet-  as I have blogged about before, my left foot turns in slightly - a childhood issue that never corrected itself.  I know the two are connected.  

If you are in the Chicago area-  Western Suburbs preferably, and you know of a doctor who a. will not just see me as a pathetic fat girl with a knee problem...  and has helped you with a joint issue- please please let me know.  I'm desperate-  and any suggestions would be appreciated.  I refuse to go back and see Mr. Five Minutes is too much time spent on you-  at OAD 

Getting Back on the Horse... No One Mentioned it was a Clydesdale

Picture acquired from Anything Equine

UGH.  That is really all I have the strength to even type.  U.G.H.  If you follow me on Facebook  you may have noticed that my work outs with Brutus started again this week.

The month of December between holiday parties and getting sick-  like a step away from pneumonia sick- resulted in a full four weeks of once again stepping back from working out.  This week was my reintroduction to being beaten up by Brutus.  They say absence makes the heart grow fonder... in his case I think absence gives him too much time to think up really masochistic ways of showing me how much he missed me.  Can we say one workout of every form of squat imaginable.  That was Wednesday, its now Sunday and I can finally sit again without groaning.  Or beating my arms into a bloody pulp with with weights and resistance bands to the point that even brushing my teeth made me whimper?  That pain finally started to fade away yesterday (just in time for tomorrow's workout...goooooodie! )

I also have made a deal with him that I will check in to Lifetime every time I am at the pool so that he knows I'm sticking with my workout schedule...so guess where I was bright and early this morning and yesterday morning?  You got it in the pool.  Though I can't complain on that one.. it made me realize just how much I missed it -  plus the pool workout made the ache in my arms go away.

Over the course of the past few weeks, whilst unable to work out but starting to feel slightly better, I decided that I have way too much junk in my house.  Like, we really should be on an episode of clothes hoarders.  Mr Millie and I both suffer from "But one day this will fit me again" syndrome.  I finally had enough.  We don't have a big house, and our master was built long before Master Bedrooms were truly "Master Bedrooms" and not just the biggest bedroom in the house-  so we have a VERY small closet.  I went through that thing like a crazy woman -  SEVEN Bags worth of clothes went to Goodwill and STILL my closet is packed.  I know I need to condense more, and I really need to detach emotionally from a lot of those clothes.  I keep hanging on to things because they have memories associated with them, and not because I'll ever wear them again.  Same with Mr. Millie- He more so with me (I mean honestly he has Tshirts from every Civil War battlefield he has ever visited...has he ever worn ANY of those TShirts? No.  When I suggested we take them and turn them into a blanket since he never wears them anyway- he acted as if I suggested we take our dogs to the shelter and give them away.  They're TSHIRTS... and ugly ones at that, collecting dust in the closet. )

It's a process, I know.  And eventually we'll get to the point where our house is pretty and organized... I'm not expecting Martha Stewart, but at least to the point where I can actually close my closet doors and to where I know where everything is so I'm not running around like a mad woman at 6:30 in the morning going "I Know I have a black sweater where is it?"  and then have to change because I can't find the dumb black sweater.

That's about it for now.  I know there was more i wanted to share-   I always sound so introspective and wise when I'm composing posts in my head as I swim.. but then its out of the pool and "dang its cold"  followed by "ugh whats with all the kids"  which then leads to "Hmm a post workout recovery shake sounds good"  followed by a drive home and "lalala- I love being able to listen to my Ipod in my car"  and then off to the grocery store.. and then FINALLY I'm home in front of my computer and I have absolutely NO idea what I had intended on saying.  *heavy sigh*

So I'll wrap it up now!