"Finding The Bright Spots"

I openly admit that it's been tough lately.  My litany of reasons(excuses) for feeling poorly continues to grow.  To keep it to the major ones however, I blame, in no specific order, my oldest son, my cataracts, my hurting heart, and of course this never ending god forsaken winter.  I could blame god for all of it I suppose, not just the weather, but since I joined the Church of God the Utterly Indifferent, I can not in good conscience lay it on him/her/it!

So I do try to keep finding the bright spots and today I pretty well convinced myself that I found one. I have mentioned before that my chest and heart problems do not seem as significant When I ride as when I run, and although I won't feel totally convinced until I can get outside to prove it, today was a powerful moment for me.

You see after my long, lousy run in the snow on saturday I was totally bushed.  My heart was pounding away, at least when it was actually running, and it didn't feel any better yesterday.  Despite that, instead of my usual Sunday break, I got on my bike and had a better than expected ride.  It wasn't overly long but I did manage a nice hour at 151 watts, sandwiched by a warmup and cool down.  Last night I again had the unsettling periods of arrhythmia, and in fact ended up taking a sedative to relax.

When I woke up this morning after some lurid and lucid dreams I pretty well determined to spend the day in bed, but alas, I first had to drive the kids to school.  Since I was up anyway I decided to go get my blood work done (for my thyroid stuff), and that took so long that when I got back home I was thoroughly awake....despite my best intentions!

I figured it was still too soon to run again, or at least that was my excuse to avoid freezing my balls off again, so instead I decided to go to the basement.  I had no idea how I was gonna feel.

Surprise!  My legs still felt good.  Along with my wm-up and wm-dn, I rode for an hour at 175 watts!  While that's not earth shaking, even for me, it was way more than I expected based on the way I have felt recently.

This I consider a very bright spot.  Like I said, I still need to confirm this outside, but there seems to be a significant difference between riding and running when it comes to this fatigue problem. I have no idea what it is, but it seems that the impact of running must be a factor somehow??

Or maybe it's all in my head....

Regardless, I at least I feel like I have a bit of direction to head in.  I will simply ride more and run less for a while.  I think if I can get one long run in every week (no matter how slow) and perhaps one shorter one, it will keep me in the game.  Besides, I've said it before, and I'll say it again, Ironman races are won or lost during the bike portion!

What's also gonna be interesting when spring gets here is how the transition from bike to run will go.  If I feel fine while riding will that carry over to an immediate run, or will it all fall apart at that point?  I'm gonna assume the best.

The other bright spot is that today I finally got a referral to another ophthalmologist, and although I still don't have an appointment date, I'm just delighted to be away from the first guy.  Every time I thought about him I got stressed, and that's no way to be thinking about a guy who wants to point a laser beam at your eyes!!

ride 90 mins, 60 mins at 175!

"Better keep yourself clean and bright; you are the window through which you must see the world."---George Bernard Shaw

Love
Peter