Dip baby! Come on and dip baby!

So does anyone other than me remember that horrible dance floor song?? Well, we ain't talking about that kind of dippin! We're talking the double dip, Arrowhead style. So as you loyal blog readers know, I endo'd there a few weeks ago. The endo resulted in a sprained ankle. I ran the Memorial Day Tri on a recovering ankle (one week after the crash). A natural tendency toward foot problems -- my massage therapist says it's based on the structure of my feet -- coupled with the ankle, coupled with the running, has resulted in a wonderful strain called plantar fasciitis.

Don't all you runners out there just cringe hearing those words? They are the words most dreaded by any runner. Why? Those words mean you don't need to be running -- at least not till you heal. Great. For the laymen out there, plantar fasciitis is where you pull the tendons on the bottom of your foot. Those particular tendons are the real tight bands that run from back of your heel to your toes. And when you pull them, it HURTS!!!

So I'm not allowed to run for a few weeks, this presents an immediate problem as the Arrowhead tri is in, um, 3 weeks. The MT said I could probably try running next week. Once. On soft grass. Let's hope it goes well. In the meanwhile I'm wearing ONLY tennis shoes (do you know how hard that is in summer??? Especially considering I JUST bought the most adorable pair of Nine West wedge sandals). I'm wrapping my foot in a bandage while I sleep. I'm icing it twice a day. And I'm NOT RUNNING!!!

In the meanwhile, instead of improving my running, which was my goal for this tri, I'll just have to improve my bike lap times and my time on the swim. As noted in Mallie's post, we hit the water twice out there this week, and I've had good swims. I have a difficult time pushing myself to race speed when I'm not actually racing (this applies to cycling as well). So when I did about 800 meters in 24 minutes yesterday, I was happy. That's way slower than I did in the Memorial Day Tri, but ... like I said before, I wasn't actually racing.

After the swim last night I hit the trail for a lap with Beth and Jake. We turned a nice 41 min lap. The bad? That's a lot slower than what I turn when I don't swim first (37-38 min laps). The good? I rode the DIP baby!! I had a solid mental block on the thing after the crash, but Jake was insistent I ride it, and I've learned when not to argue and just comply! lol. So I rode the dip. OK. Not as bad as I thought ... I didn't crash, and now I have no qualms about riding it again. Bring it!!

So the moral of my story is: face up and ride your dips, train like you race, be kind to your feet and RIDE MORE!!