By now most of you know that I spent a good chunk of my Monday at the friendly local ER after coming to a sudden stop from 20-0/mph by hitting a dog that was coming at Rebecca and me. My guess is that dog has ribs as sore as mine since I hit him broadside, then launched into the air landing on my right side. While the films were negative for rib fractures the physician diagnosed me with a fractured rib based on physical evaluation. My post last week was about life giving you rest days. Well I should have known better than to talk about that since life has now given me an unknown number of rest days coming up.
Truth be told, I threw a party on Monday night after the crash, and I mean a big party; the only person invited to the party was me; a big pity party for me. It was everything I could do to not lash out at the innocent bystanders around me. For the most part I just stuffed my emotions down deep inside, probably a defense mechanism that I perfected from almost 12 years in the Fire Service. This one really hurt. I have been thinking about this specific race and its location for over 18 months now. With the race only 4 months out, yes there is time to still train after I recover, but this is critical time to be able to layer in the fitness needed to reach the lofty goals that I had set for myself. Coming to terms with this blow has not been easy for me. I could list a huge number or reasons why there will not be another race like this, and in reality there won't be.
However unfortunate that reality is, living in that place will not do me any good at this point. So what do I do from here? Focus on what I can do, which is really quite a bit. It may not be the intensity of work that will get me to my original goals for Hawaii 70.3, but it is sure a lot more than logging nothing. At this point, I am counting walks as a win. For right now I will focus on what I can do each day. I will do my best to not host another party for one, and will be grateful for each day.
And with my wife's support and encouragement I am signing up for Arizona 70.3 in late October. Who knows, it might be even better timing to achieve those lofty goals. I will still do Hawaii 70.3 in June, with more of a focus on enjoying the experience. I will keep pushing forward and will also work on my ability to dodge those big dogs that like run out in front of bikes on quiet country roads.