China and Indonesia ....

It's late in the evening on Thursday, January 14.  Just left China and now on my way to Indonesia.  Has it really been almost two months since I last wrote my blog?  Bad blogger.  Bad, bad blogger. 

So first, the boot.  It's finally off.  It was a LONG time.  I went in to the boot on October 7th, thinking it was going to be six weeks.  It finally came off on January 4th -- a solid twelve weeks in the boot.  Plus "electro shock therapy" every night (ultrasound gizmo to stimulate bone growth....hahahha what a joke!!  If that really worked, why was I in the boot for almost 13 weeks?)   At any rate, I'm out of the boot....FINALLY....and now can begin reacclimating to "weight bearing" exercise, as my sports podiatrist calls it.  What does that mean??  My interpretation is that it's going to be a LONG, SLOW, road back to running fully. 

It's now been almost six full months since I last ran in earnest.  Six months!!  The longest lay-off in my adult life, since probably college!!  Amazingly, I have retained my fitness level overall, since I could still swim and bike and do upper body and core weights.  But, it's going to be a while before I'm running hard/serious again.  When they took the cast off, they didn't do another MRI, since they had done one in early December (which resulted in an additional four weeks in the cast, since it was clear that the bone hadn't made much progress).  Because of that crappy MRI result, I got four extra weeks in the penalty box (the cast) and a really slow comeback plan from the doc.  This week, I get to WALK ten minutes a day on the treadmill.  If that goes without a hitch, next week I get to up it to fifteen minutes.  If that goes well, the following week I can move to the eliptical.  Eventually, probably sometime around early to mid-February, I will be able to begin doing one minute walk, one minute run alternately, for ... get this ... fifteen minutes.  With a forced day off the next day.  To be repeated every other day. 

I did the math.  Boston is out.  I will be lucky if I will have cumulatively run 26 miles by the time Boston happens on April 19th.  I'm seriously bummed to not be running this year.  The consolation though is that I plan to run Chicago in the Fall with my son.  Hopefully I will be able to do that.  I'm ok on going conservatively on the comeback if it preserves the opportunity to do all of my tri's this summer (including two half ironmans) AND also run Chicago in the Fall.  If taking it slow for the next eight weeks increases my odds of those two things happening, then I guess I'm ok. 

When the doc put me in the penalty box for an extra four weeks in the boot back in early December, I figured at that point that Boston was likely not going to happen.  But, I really felt sad when the reality of that became apparent as we were discussing my "comeback" plan when I sat in his office the day the boot came off on January 4th.  I honestly felt really sad that I wouldn't be running Boston this year.  Yes, I asked anyway.  And, yes, I got the answer I expected (basically "what, are you kidding?  Are you crazy?")  I sulked for a day or two, but then I had to pull myself together cause nobody likes seeing a grown man cry.  :)  Not that I really cried....but I was pretty bummed.  It's part of living in Boston ... how can you live in Boston and NOT run Boston? 

So, now I have a slightly more positive outlook.  I'm focused on this summer.  And Chicago.  I've registered for many of my races, so I already have "skin in the game" -- and that makes the "slow recovery" more bearable with several hundred non-refundable dollars already on the line.  Great incentive to heal completely and also get back in to running shape by June. 

I'm in Asia this week and I'm learning how to do better hotel workouts.  I brought my TRX on this trip -- it really is a great travel workout in case the hotel gym stinks.  So far, though, I've had pretty good gyms.  The hotel in Shanghai (JW Marriott at Tomorrow Square) had a GREAT 25 m pool, which I had to myself on two mornings in a row.   It was amazing.  I want one like that at my house some day!!  :)  The Westin in Guangzhou was a little more pedestrian, but I got a good strength workout in yesterday; and today I suffered through an hour on the hotel stationary bike, but my quads are killing me now, so I must have done something good!! 

Better shut this one down.  On my way to Jakarta now as we speak.  The hotel there has a 25 m outdoor pool, so I plan to be in it by 6 am tomorrow morning.  Which doesn't leave mych for sleep and I'm losing an hour on the trip.  Then I've got the weekend in Singapore and another good hotel pool (as well as a few great public 50 m pools which I might go hit instead on Sunday morning).