Spandex, Yankz and a Chain Mark

Nothing says "Brick Workout" quite like the site of those three things on the athlete running down the side of the road in the park. And that's exactly what I had yesterday morning after stuffing my bike quickly into the boot of my Honda Fit, swapping my shoes and donning a cap in lieu of my helmet. This has been a recovery week, so my brick wasn't particularly long or arduous, but I was still happy with how good it felt.

Of course my hip is now acting up again. I was at the doctor a few days ago and made the decision not to get it injected. He told me that I would have to go easy on the workouts for a week (ack!) or risk long weakening my soft/connective tissue around the area (double ack!). I know me and I know that once I got the injection, I would have a lot of trouble NOT taking the risk of working out. I mean c'mon, a whole week? Right in the middle of my training? Except now my hip hurts more, and I am debating a change of heart. It's a tough choice. On the one hand, it would be better to take that week off now rather than closer to the race. On the other, I could get it right before a recovery week and just go easy on it. But how do I know that the recovery workouts won't still be more than I should be doing? And on some hand (lost track), what if it doesn't even fix the problem? Then I am risking weakened tissues on top of continuing to have this pain...

I am sure that my mother is reading this now and telling me to suck it up. Only she still hasn't figured out how to comment, so she's just saying it to herself and the dog lying at her feet. Nah-nah-nee boo boo!

Anyway, this is the decision I face. Do the best I can and hope the pain stays reasonable till after the race, or get the injection and take a week "off". ORRR wait and see if I can manage the pain and then decide whether or not to get an injection, while hoping that by then it isn't too late...

This post isn't really about Spandex, Yankz and a chain mark, is it?

In other news, the rain came this afternoon and I have hope that the unbelievable heat wave we have been experiencing has broken at least enough to make it less dangerous to train outdoors. 80 degrees at 5 am was not pretty, lemme tell you. Neither was leading a group ride of testosterone fueled crazies who wanted to hammer up the hills and race eachother when it was 105 with some astronomical heat index.

So things are looking up!