Weekend randoms

And the chase for the Stanley Cup continues...go Hawks!

I feel a little lost, with nothing on the calendar until fall. Right now it's all about recovery and rebuilding after a really tough winter/spring training cycle. I know a lot of you run races all year, but these aging legs need me to play it conservatively if I want to run forever--which is part of my long term plans. I wonder how these professional athletes do it. Their training starts late summer, and if they make the playoffs, the season continues into June. That's some pretty tough training for 10 months out of the year. I'm sure they look forward to time off. I have to admit, I do like to take a break. But as stressed out as I get about racing, when I'm taking time off, I really do miss the excitement and feeling of accomplishment after I complete the training and cross the finish line. I might say that I enjoy running to just run, and I do, but there's nothing like having a goal race to train for. And a beer waiting for me at the finish line.

Oh, hold up. I do have a goal race-that Chicago Marathon in the fall. The goal right now is to stay injury free. I promised Becky and myself that I would take 2 weeks off running and cross train. The interesting thing that happened is that Mother Nature didn't cooperate one bit with my plan to bike. She's really been on a roll this spring--hot one day, cold and rainy the next. This past 2 weeks, I got one bike ride in. The rest of the days have been cool, windy, and rainy. I won't lie, I'm a fair weather cyclist. I can run in those conditions, but when you're traveling on 2 thin rubber tires, feet clipped into the pedals, well...I just get a little nervous. Remember last summer when I found that cyclist lying in the road, a victim of a hit and run, bike broke in half? The memory of that has stayed with me, and I'm just a little nervous about riding in less than perfect conditions. Plus, I'm kind of wimpy when it comes to cold and wind and I'm riding about 15 mph. Brrrr.

Since I couldn't ride my bike, I decided to walk. Low impact, right? I figured if I couldn't run, I could walk fast. That aggravated my toe like nothing else. Go figure. It's got to be the way I push off on my big toe, right? On Wednesday this week, I could barely walk. I was furious. Damn foot. Ice, voltaren gel, and lots of swearing...nothing helped. In desperation, I called our sports med doctor for a quickie steroid injection, but he was nowhere to be found. Don't judge me. I'm a medical professional and it's a do as I say, not as I do world. As it turns out, the next day it didn't hurt anymore, and I said f*** it, I'm going for a run. During the run, my toe didn't hurt a bit, but it was talking to me a little bit after.  I did the ice and voltaren gel thing again. As the day went on, it quieted down. So did I. This is so odd, but hey, as long as I can run, right?

In case you didn't already know it.

Work has been insane as we transition from the time of year when everyone is sick to the time of year when everyone needs a school physical. It's been more than a little hectic. In the midst of all the chaos, I had something really amazing happen to me this week. I saw three siblings for the first time for physicals, and while talking to the mom and gathering the past medical history, I came to realize that I had taken care of the oldest child years ago when the child was a baby and I was a staff nurse at a different hospital! I'd love to share with you all the details, but that would be a HIPAA violation, and no one wants me to get one of those. I do need to keep my job. If only I could live off blogging...but I digress. Anyways, it was quite a moment, and yes, the mom cried as we hugged. I kept thinking to myself about the odds of this child ending up in my exam room of my very large medical practice for a physical with me. I really should have played the lottery yesterday. Although after this visit, I felt like I had already won.

Speaking of winning and blogging, my husband keeps asking me when the blog is going to make some money for me. See my comment above. I just laugh and laugh and laugh! The blog is my labor of love, as I call it. Today I had a freakout moment when I realized someone put a spam link on my book club linkup. Somehow, they even got their link to change the url of my blog. Then I got an email from inlinkz that they tried to change my password. This was really bizarre. My first instinct was to send a cease and desist email to the offending party, but cooler heads prevail, and after some deep breaths, I deleted the link and I think I took care of everything. I hope. But if you see my content popping up elsewhere in the blogosphere, please let me know. All the while, I asked myself the question, what the hell is wrong with people? Please leave my little blog alone.

There's winning. And then there's losing. My son's rugby team, who was undefeated until the last game of the regular season, lost in a big way Saturday in their playoff game. I couldn't attend because I was at work (I couldn't get anyone to switch with me--11 doctors and not a one...) but as it turns out, it was probably a good thing. He's not too upset--this kind of stuff just doesn't bother him, and he moved on to play 7-on-7 football the next day. Man, I wish I could roll with the punches like he does!

One last rugby photo for this season...

Or this...

Onward and upward, right?

How was your week? Any races to report? Any wins? Any losses? Any advice?

I'm linking up with Tara at RunningNReading for her Weekend Update. The best place link up on Mondays! Check it out!