Tornados and Hair Loss

A lot has happened in the past week.

I went home to Iowa City for Easter and there was a tornado on Thursday night! Seriously. Look:

That's frighteningly close to my parents' house. Not close like down the street, but close like we walked there the next day. We rode it out in the wine cellar. The good news is that the pool was open on Friday so I was able to get my 1.5-mile time trial in (47:19). I'm not sure how I feel about the time. I'd like it to be faster, but that pace will get me in well before the cut-off at Lake Placid. We have a 1.5-mile open water simulation swim (they pack 40 people into 2 lanes) on Saturday so we'll see how that time stacks up.

On Saturday I rode 70 miles on a borrowed bike. It was heavy! I'm not sure how I ever rode 56 miles on my old mountain bike. Actually, I rode across the state of Iowa on that beast! It was a nice ride, through the rolling hills of the Iowa countryside. It made me think seriously about doing RAGBRAI next year. Now I just need to convince my city slicker friends that it's worth their vacation time.

I did an 8-mile recovery run around the reservoir on Tuesday. It was awful. I seriously considered hiding in a bush for one loop. I even had the blessing of my training partner, C. Oddly, I felt a lot better when we picked up the pace.

I was going to swim last night but I had a seriously disturbing experience on my way home from work. I saw old man Jim on the subway. And talked to him. I'm not sure why I was so surprised to run into him. I figured it would happen sooner or later. Ahhhh....I was literally shaking afterwards and opted to drink instead of swim. For those of you who don't know of old man Jim, the take-home message is: old bald men are soooooo 2005. I need to get out of this town.

I biked this morning. First, I fell down the stairs leaving my apartment, slid down 6 stairs on my back with my head and elbow banging each one (good thing I was wearing a helmet!) and my bike on top of me. I was so shaken when I got to the bottom that my only thought was to get on my bike and ride. And I did. 24 miles. I had limited feeling in my right hand/arm for most of the ride, pretty mush unable to grip the handlebars. I kept thinking I should just tell my coach but I knew he would have me out of training for weeks, and we certainly don't want that! I'm pretty sure I just bruised it. It's still very sore, but I can feel my hand again. My back isn't very happy either, but that's nothing a few (or 5) aleves can't solve.

I'm off to buy a new wetsuit after work. I'm not sure what one wears when trying on wetsuits. I'm also not sure if it's appropriate to ask for help getting the thing off.