M's win and

I'm still bored...........................................................................

Have been swimming, using the pull bouy so i don't kick. Endless 25 yard sprints. zz zzz
And spinning on the bikes. Not too hard, no standing. zz zzz
And doing a variety of sit ups and arm weights. zz zzz
Anything to raise the heart rate.
Jeez, even the hot flashes have subsided, so I can't even use those to work up a sweat.


OK, got the 2nd opinion on the knee. What else have I got to do while waiting? This guy was definitely better in the communication dept. Any doubts we had have subsided. Of course, the appt was supposed to be yesterday, til we got there and found out someone must have accessed the computer deleted me and inserted some other gimp. I've got the Rodney Dangerfield of knees !
The one week til surgery countdown has begun. zz zzz


My coach and teammates continue on..
Here's Coach Lesley (on the right) and Patricia (PNak) and Carol... out for a nice swim in the lake tonight. Carol and Les have an Ironman race in less than a month, which is why they are forcing the "open water swims" issue. I'd join them but putting on the wet suit would put too much stress on my knee. yeah, that's it. Well, HAVE YOU tried putting one of those things on??



oh, and it's RV season at the lake again. Time to call the parking enforcement. Doesn't Gina's car look nice? it's not. and doesn't our shrubbery look nice ? it's not.

Wildlife and Winds

So, I'm bored, have scanned all my fav. web sites, read both newspapers front to back, checked the mail, done some laundry..... so I'm milling/limping around saying "look how windy it is outside", "oooh boy, it's really windy", "I can't believe how windy it is", etc (talking to Gina who is not really listening), then I see a raccoon on the back porch, (now I'm un-bored) going around the house, I poke my head outside, it reverses direction.... now who knows where it is? all the while I keep saying things like "it's so windy it blew the raccoon out of the tree" and "wow, sure is windy out if even Rocky can't stay in his tree" and " I can't believe the wind blew that darn raccoon out of the tree"......... and I wonder why Gina doesn't listen to me.

Next thing we know, we both see the deck umbrella go flying !!!!!!!!! OMIGOD !!!!!.

DOUBLE OMIGOD !!!!!

Gina runs to the back yard, I cautiously venture/limp out front (remember, there is a wild rabid raccoon on the loose) .... One minute I'm looking for a raccoon, the next I'm wondering where the hella did that 'brella go ?

OH, it's up on the roof. Great, we don't have a ladder tall enough for Gina (NO , not me) to get up there. At least it didn't go flying over and into the neighbor's house. I get back in the house and before I can get a camera (or even think to get a camera) it comes flying back down onto the deck where I had been standing. Thank allah I was back in the house. "Oooh, boy, it's sure windy out there."

Don't worry, it's all settled now.. umbrella has been tied down. Gina is blaming me cuz I kept saying how windy it was so why didn't I go out and put the umbrella down?

SHE WAS LISTENING TO ME !

I still don't know where Rocky went off to but I'm not doing any yard work today.

This all happened cuz I'm not out riding my bike for 50 miles and running for 10 or swimming..... well, I can't swim in the lake, too wavy cuz .......

it's TOO gosh darn WINDY !!

Limping Along in Limbo

If you remember good ol Festis, and how he walked.. well ..................
That's me... just limpin along til June 4. Saw the doc today to go over a few things. Not much new to report, except he keeps mentioning it might be the arthritis that will be my pain, after surgery. HEY, I didn't have ol arthur bothering me before so let's not get ahead of that wagon.
He is pretty sure I won't be doing any Ironman races this summer. And unless I have some miraculous recovery , rehab, and an awesome 10 week training session, I guess I would have to agree. I do think it would be stupid to participate in such a huge undertaking at anything less than 80%. Full strength would be optimal but I'm not sure that even happens for a majority of folks.

But just for fun let me tell you about my last swim at the secret pool.. always something there. This time a dude was practicing holding his breath underwater. At first he'd just go down and hold on to this weight. Then he started doing a kind of crab walk along the bottom across the lanes. It looked very weird, was quite distracting. He'd be under for a couple minutes.

Trivia time

Yahoo ! The sun is out, I did a bit of yard work, to earn my beer and sat out on the deck. I was reading this week's Sports Illustrated and there was a great article about Dan Patch. And it got me to wondering.... have any of you loyal blog readers heard of Dan Patch ? If you are a Rinehart, you surely have heard the name.

Special prize for correct answer. No fair Googling, Wiki-ing or reading your copy of S. I. Oh, right, like any of you subscribe to that literary magazine. :)

OK, gotta go figure out the special prize.

Tri Cities 75 miler

Weber canyon.

Here is Gina making it to the top of Weber Canyon. I wanted to get a picture of her, so when I got to the top, she was not quite in sight at that bend.. I stop, get my glove off, get the phone out of bag, turn it on..... takes forever while "searching for network" .. hello, I'm not making a call, just want to use the camera feature.... just got it going as she passed by. whew.. that was harder than riding up the mtn.

This stretch of the road was about 6 miles long and all up hill. Not hugely steep, kind of like Stone Way, but 6 times longer. It was fun to do. I had a clicking noise that was bothering me, I thought it was a gear thing, (no, not my knee) and of course it only clicked when I was in the necessary granny gear. About 3/4's the way thru I looked down and saw it was some little wire hitting my foot, making the annoyance. I hate to stop on an uphill but did and bent that little wire and made my way up the rest of the hill in peace.

That was my favorite stretch of road on the Tri Cities 75 mile route. I love going up hill. But of course, what goes up.... must come down. There was a 2 mile section of 5%(or some such number) grade that truckers had to check brakes, and there were runaway truck ramps... so give you an idea of steepness. I was doing fairly well, trying not to brake the whole way down. But the cross winds were huge. It was scary trying to keep the bike upright.

The only other excitement came when passing the 2 farms/ranch that the dogs were not fenced in. One sure way to get the heart rate up and the cadence up to 127 is to have some huge barking dog come running at you.

Oh, and we did miss a turn, somehow. Just like last week. Only we didn't add any extra mileage this time. Just minutes staring at the map, and fuming about how we missed the "excellent marks on the road". And we got back too early. Cuz the beer garden wasn't yet open. Bummer.

Anne Miller

Anne Miller passed away on Monday. Peacefully, she just fell asleep, as was her wish. Thankfully, she got it. She deserved that much.

She lived with osteoporosis for, well, forever. I moved here in 1981, and lived with her and helped her with some chores (mostly it was a gift to me, a place to live and the opportunity to get to know her) and I'm not sure how long she'd been dealing with it then. Anne would have turned 95 this summer. And I'm sure I would have found the perfect "you are OLD" card for her.

FYI, Anne is my sister Joan's mother-in-law, Grady and Ardie's mom, but best described as a good friend.

Most of my memories of Anne are from my pre-digital camera days. But here are some pic's from the past few years. Mostly I remember sitting at her dining room table, having great conversations, or just quiet spells, and food (stuff we never had growing up in Michigan), and looking out at her fabulous back yard and garden. Gina loved talking with Anne, and sipping eggnog laced with booze at Christmas. A tradition that continues at the Young's, with a nod to Anne M.

\
2003 in her apt.


Christmas 2005, with Aileen

Grady, Kristoffer and Anne in the aloha spirit

Anne, Grady and Ardie, reliving their Hawaiian youth

Anne always hung on my every word.

Contemplating.

Spell Check

Got this off Utter Wonder blog..
love it. and she has such a nice shirt, too.

Hold everything !

So, last posting had me telling you the bad news of a lifetime on crutches. Today, it's different news, and nothing new has happened. hmm.

Seems the doc gave us the worst (best?) case scenario. But with a little googling, a brief chat with Gretchen the surgical nurse, talking to Dr. Trish, (our orthopedic surgeon friend who unfortunately moved to the northern territory, AKA AK) And a consult with regular sports doc (Anderson) , via Shauna, the world's best receptionist.... all info seemed to point to the fact that my horizontal cleavage most likely cannot be "repaired" (meaning the lifetime of crutches) and that he would probably trim the bad parts away, and send me home to a short recovery period.

And today Dr. Holland, via Dr. A, via Shauna...... confirmed that's what would happen... He will know best what he can/will do when he is actually in the knee. But that less than 5% chance for the repair surgery, most likely the trim job.

Why did he say the other? Did we just hear him wrong? Gina just had a hearing check and was OK'd , so we think he just forgot to add the ".... OR it could be this other scenario".

Whatever, we do have another pre-op consult with him, and this time we have a list of questions. And we are now hoping for a cancellation so that I can get in earlier than June 4.

Ironman is NOT off the schedule, yet.

OK so

I guess some folks can tear up their little meniscus, go have a quick little surgery, be out for 2 weeks and then be good to go..

I hate those folks. (except you Grady)

Me, I have to have the "horizontal cleavage tear" . The first time cleavage and me are in the same sentence.

This particular repair cannot be cut out, a meniscus-ectomy. NO, I guess due to the horizontal plane , it needs to be repaired. Which means suturing it up or whatever he's gonna do. Which means WEEKS OF NO WEIGHT BEARING . Did you hear me ?.... WEEKS OF NO WEIGHT BEARING. That means crutches... then more weeks of recovery...

Surgery is scheduled for June 4. I might get in sooner if someone cancels. woo hoo !

BUT, the good news is, and there is always good news, it should be good to go and it won't cause future arthritic type issues. So I should be able to train for another Ironman when I'm 65. I'm gonna knock Sister Madonna B.'s age group records off the charts.

As for my crutches life style... the Mariners suck so I should be able to see every inning of every loss.