Are You Living It?

Nice little mtb ride in China Camp State Park today.  It’s about a 45 minute drive up 101 from where I live in San Fran…  several miles past the Marin Headlands, just northeast of San Rafael:

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Thirteen miles of very easy singletrack, a little too easy actually (finally feeling better after a week of thinking I was getting sick, and really wanted to sweat it all out), but it was a phenomenal day with relatively little traffic on the trails so I have no complaints.

Headed South today on our way down to San Jose for Master Track Nationals. Guy Tucker and I are making a big old road trip out of it and are so excited! We have a 13 hour drive ahead of us - but should be powered by lots of entertaining conversation on our journey.

Well, I got the bad news this morning. Despite the wet read being negative, the Dr.s found a bulging disk in my lower lumbar spine upon closer inspection. The good news is that it is only pressing on the nerve root that causes pain and numbness…not the nerve root that affects motor ability. The bad news? That could change pretty quickly during running.

On Saturday Ryan, Seth and I headed out for a ride up Starvation Mountain off Highway 20 in the Methow. For those not familiar with the area it is home to some of the most amazing cross-country riding and the valley is a thing to behold on its own.

We were camping on our property near Winthrop and Saturday morning we loaded up in the Red TDI and headed up to the trail just outside of Twisp.  Ryan was driving and keeping us entertained.  As has been mentioned before Ryan keeps himself fit (that is an understatement).  So Seth and I were a bit nervous as to what might be in store for us….

Sitting in the MRI waiting room I realized 2 things:

That Ironman will happen exactly one year to the day from when I was sitting in the oncologist’s office at Brigham and Women’s Hospital, waiting to hear whether the growth on my sacrum was merely deformation and a bone spur or whether I had sacral sarcoma - a cancer with a 5% 10+ survival rate.

My client Robyn is a big inspiration to me. She’s a model athlete, completing every workout as written, logging diligently, and reporting her results promptly. She also takes note of the insights that come through her training, both in her training log and, quite eloquently, on her blog.

On the heels of scheduling my 1pm MRI to learn whether I, in fact, have a sequestered disk (like a herniated disk kind of) as the Docs now suspect is causing me all this pain and now weakness in my left leg, and after starting to cry in my husband’s arms, my daughter morgan walked up to me and handed me her fortune cookie saying it would make me feel better. I opened it up, and no joke, with my husband as my witness, this is what it said:

This photo was taken by Diane Boursaw for Wheels in Focus. It really captures my season - leading the charge and always looking ahead into the next corner for what may come.

And always study your enemy. Look at their weak spots - figure out the way they move and then ATTACK! (Ok - maybe I’ve been reading a little too much into “Book of Five Rings…”)

Looks like I missed a couple posts over the last couple weeks. So, to make it up to you guys, here is something on Jeremy McGhee. Jeremy was in a very bad motorbike accident in his early 20’s and has been in a wheelchair since. This was of course a big change in his life but he chose to still live the dream instead of letting himself down.