Into Everyone's Life...

Yes everyone must deal with adversity. I firmly believe that those of us that are faced with challenges in their lives and face them with a confident grin are the people who usually win. This weekend has been a true test for Amber and myself. I knew something wasn't feeling quite right on Thursday last week when I met Amber at the pool and said to her, "lets just skip the swim today, I'm bagged." That's not like me, I can usually overcome fatigue but this was different. My muscles were really sore and tired and all I wanted to do was sleep. I had a tough bike workout the previous day so I thought that might be it but I could feel my body trying desperately to fight something off. Wouldn't you know it on Friday I was full-blown sick.

This has been one of the toughest flu's I've had, it simply won't ease up even though I've been doing nothing but resting for the last few days. I did have a good ride planned on Saturday but I knew on Friday that it was not going to happen. It was my last chance to get in a race-pace effort before GWN, I guess I'm going to have to rely on my previous training to get me through. As it turned out I'm glad I didn't ride because Amber called me about an hour and a half into her ride and let me know that she had fallen badly. I was in such a hurry to get out to her I ended up getting a $287 ticket for not coming to a full stop at a stop sign! "Officer did you not hear me, MY WIFE WAS IN A BIKE ACCIDENT AND IS ON THE SIDE OF THE HIGHWAY BLEEDING!" Amber is pretty beaten up and she'll need to take a few days off but she's still confident she can race.

I'm pretty sure I'll recover in enough time to be 100% on race day, this is my 'A race' for the year and I want to go in as fresh as possible. However it's a little unnerving knowing that you have done little to nothing right before the race. I keep thinking back to the Boston Marathon when I was throwing up every hour all night long because of food poisoning two days before the race and I had my best marathon ever! Think of this as forced rest and your body will bounce back.

What do you think Simon was thinking at the start line of this race when he was up against the guy that beat him in the Olympics. I know he had to face some physical adversity but I'm sure he had on a confident grin and was saying, "let's do this, I'm ready."