Cruddy Illnesses, a Flat Tire, and a Pseudo Camping Trip: Week 7 IMChoo Training

Training continued as normal this week with the regularly expected unexpected challenges.

We've learned to expect the unexpected.

The croup, or whatever virus that was that seized all three children throughout the past two weeks, finally made its way into adult world. And while we'd like to think we have superior immune systems, we do not. At least so far, one of us doesn't. Mr. T. put in his early-in-the-week workouts and then found himself basically paralyzed by the fatigue, headache, and voice-less sore throat condition that we saw in the minions.

And it sucked.

S'mores may have affected this week's long run.

This weekend also marked my family's annual camping trip. This year my siblings and parents opted to park their rigs about two miles from our house. And since the weather looked less than desirable (with a 70 percent chance of thunderstorms), we opted to leave our tent at home and just visit during the day and then sleep in our humble abode.

Because of the upcoming camping trip (can we even call it that), I opted to swap my workouts around so that my day off would fall on Saturday (big camping day) versus Wednesday (nothing's happening day). And it worked well until Thursday when I began a four-hour ride indoors, lost my short-fuse temper about something (I can't remember what it was now), and tried to finish my ride outside.

I learned a few important things from this experience:

1. Outdoor rides are mood lifters. From this point forward in training, whenever I can, I will ride outdoors.
2. No matter how peeved you are at your loved ones, do not act rashly.  In my case, that means do not go storming out with bike in hand but not the cell phone. (As I said, I still can't remember what quite ticked me off. I apologized when I returned, and all is back to its semi-peaceful state in Troxell land.)
3. Do not, ever, ride on Highway 19 south of Madison, South Dakota. Sharp rocks, high traffic, and narrow shoulders do not combine well, especially when said sharp rocks cause a cut in the sidewall of a tire.
4. Always carry your cell phone when you ride. I alluded to this earlier, but those more experienced than me tell me that I should always carry my cell phone in a plastic bag to eliminate the moisture issue from either sweat or rain.
5. PitStop is an ingenious product, and it works (if you do not have a cut in the sidewall of your tire).

Today hopefully marks the upswing of Jason's bug-of-death. He went for a run this afternoon and came home sufficiently sweaty, believing that maybe he eeked some of the bug out of his pores. I'm hopeful too.

SD Tri News has kept us really busy as well. In the midst of his cruddy cold, Jason covered a local sprint, and as a result, SD Tri News is up, running, and quite frankly, booming. We're so stoked to be a part of helping promote this sport we love in the state we love.

Upward and onward. We have about 13 weeks left until IM Choo, I think, but quite honestly, I'm losing track. We're just focusing on the here and now because that's all we can affect. And for me, that's a full night's sleep. Here's to hoping for a better week of training.