Rookie tooth fairy

All the buzz around the house the last few days has been the race between Kylie and I, and if I could lose the cast on my arm before she could pull her loose tooth out. I lost yesterday afternoon. Couple of rookie questions: 1 - what's the going rate for teeth these days? I don't want my kid talking to your kid and having to learn I underpaid, or worse yet, overpaid. Either way, pretty sure the tooth fairy stage of parenthood is easier on the pocketbook than at Dug's stage, with his rookie round of that right of passage, 16th birthday. 2 -What do tooth fairies do with teeth? Don't know why that inquiry never crossed my mind when I was the one selling teeth. Annie chucked it, against my idea of collecting them and one day making her a mothers necklace, and some matching earrings.

Got the cast off the hand today. Replaced by a real small splint. One of life's simple pleasures taking that first shower and getting to scrub that dead itchy skin off. Hand acutally feels relatively good, but have a little work to do on the tendon's through the wrist, it only lasted 15 minutes on the trainer tonight in a few different positions on the handlebars before getting pretty uncomfortable. Should loosen up in a day or two I'm guessing. Really happy to be past the immobile stage with this thing.

A few random belated thoughts from the sidelines of Leadville

You need a lot, as in everything, to go right, and pretty much nothing to go wrong, to hit a goal out there. While the dissapointment of not being able to throw down that day was massive, I'll be candid in saying that I'm fairly certain that the race conditions would have prevented me from hitting the number I had in my head the day I broke the hand - and I would have been disappointed at that... I think.

If you lined up finishers 100-1300, and told me to sort em' into groups that finished in 9-10 hours, 10-11 hours, 11-12 hours, and 12+ hours, I would have been wrong no less than 50% of the time. Rick M., Gary and I spent an hour watching people roll in and looked at each other countless times with that "really, that guy just rolled in at 9:30" look on our face. It was really cool every time we saw it happen. Best example of this was one in our own group - I have no problem admitting I played the fool in giving DT a zero to none shot at finishing that course, yet was shocked over and over during the day as he steadily came through the feed zones, and proceeded to do what was required that day to bring home a buckle. Really cool, humbling, and inspiring to watch guys and gals whom I wouldn't have guessed had any business being out there roll in with pretty amazing performances. I'm pretty certain that no one crosses that line having not left it all out on the course, but I agree with Dug, there are more demons conquered in the race behind the top 100 finishers, and that's the part of the pack I thought was coolest to watch and pricked some emotional engagement - you know, like watching the guy push his incapacitated son across the finish line at the Hawaii Ironman. Not quite as heartwrenching, but kind of like that.

Draper is very well represented at Leadville - to the extent that it was heard over the loudspeaker at the finish line "Draper, Ut needs to put together a team for this race" - he didn't connect all the Fat Cyclist Jersey's that matched up with those Draper racers.

Most important item in the support tent for the non SS'ers that day - chain lube. Conditions wreaked havoc on the drivetrains of literally everyone.

Felt sorry for myself due to the injury and not being able to toe the line, but my situation was trumped by Eldon's. He toed the line, got into the flow of the race, was having the day we all wanted him to have - going fast, only to have it pulled out from under him, literally, on an overcooked corner. Having it happen when your having a day is the harder pill to swallow I think.

Armstrong was sick fast.

My friends and their friends are tough folks. Most inspiring part of the day for me was watching friends come through, hurting, fighting the demons in their heads, trying to hurry when the body had little to no hurry left in it, getting a brief break to eat and see and hear some encouragement from supporters, and then having to clip back in and start slogging down the road again - and they all did it, every time..... not one of them let that race crack them. That includes the one who got more than weather related adversity that day, battling butt demons with a few squares and a hat at the top of Columbine. He'd been through a lot when he came back through Twin Lakes, but there wasn't any quit in him, just like all the others, he got back on and headed off by himself, intent on finishing, and I'm certain would have were it not for a tough call at a cut off point. Inspiring stuff, all ya'll.

One suggestion - move the gathering/lecture/meeting place from the gym down to that nice looking new football field.

The runner in the family

Annie did the Hobble Creek half Marathon this morning - my legs hurt just thinking about it.

Here she comes...

There she goes... looks good from both angles.

Post race with Pilates, running, and Mom friend Carol....

I asked Brock how he thought I might do running 13 miles. He can't translate his sarcasm into sentences yet... so he did an impression in lieu........

Dude's dead on, clear down to needing a diaper...

Upgrade

Check out the new hardware - should be pretty bombproof once it's back to usable. Hand should be ok by LOTOJA. Form will be the bigger question. I will say this - the repairing of the bone hurts a hell of a lot worse than the breaking of the bone - pretty unpleasant day at the office.

Also have some thoughts and observations about Leadville after watching it from the sidelines this past weekend - will share some next post.

Disaster

P.S. Just took some snapshots of the computer screen to get these on here. Makes the video a little more tense knowing what I'm trying to wrench back into place. I'm an idiot.

P.S.S - yes, I'm aware my left pinkie may look as bad as the ring finger in the video. It's just fine. It was a dislocation, and also a field repair during a high school football game. First time I've seen an x-ray picture of it and will now admit maybe my alignment might have been a little off.

Started the video camera thinking I may get footage of a cool "in the field" repair of a dislocation. Ended up getting a four/five minute documentary of leadville hopes and ambitions dying on my last hard effort training ride before the race next week. Desperate wrenching on that hand, trying to stay positive in believing I could work it back to being right. Was still thinking it was 50/50 going into the hospital that it would just be a quick jerk on it by the doc to fix it. He knew the second he looked at it, and I was crushed when I saw the x-ray (tried to post it but can't get it off the cd they sent with me). Doc threw a temp. cast on and told me to see a hand guy to get it fixed right, so going to try and get into the TOSH folks first thing in the morning. Think it's more desperation than reality, but holding onto a sliver of hope that they can put some hardware in that would make it stable enough to race saturday. I still can't believe this happened. It's the bone that goes from my ring finger knuckle to the wrist, sheared in half on probably the least violent crash I've ever had.

The problem - part 3

Thrilled to report that the sister in law has officially wrapped up her Chemo and Radiation treatments for her cancer, and is on the 5 year ticker towards cured status. They've been through hell, and there are still some residual issues to deal with related to the cancer, but the cancer itself looks to have lost the fight at this stage. Grateful to a lot of people, and relieved in a huge way.

8/5 - The relief has been tempered a bit, actually a lot, by Elden's news tonight. What a fight the Nelson's have put up against this POS disease, and can promise you they're not done!

Crank that hamster wheel till you collapse

Have volunteered to donate a few miserable hours of my body to science for a buddy down at UVU. Figured I could learn some cool stuff, help a friend, and get some data that would be nice to know, as gravy on top. Have done a threshold and V02 test once previously on a treadmill - maybe selective memory, maybe the intrusive tube in the mouth vs. the mask I wore on the treadmill, maybe coming off a few days of being under the weather, maybe treadmill vs. bike, who knows, but this one seemed more brutal.

V02 testing in Pat's lab:

Everything's dandy here on the percieved exertion chart. Remember I had some friends in elementary school that wore something like this at night to get their teeth straight. Yes, the tube in the mouth is intrusive, no, it didn't add resistance on the intake, yes, it did feel like it restricted the exhale, had to push the air out hard once we got going.

May be a limited market or units you could sell, but somebody's gotta invent more comfortable headgear, my horse had it better than this.

Starting to work hard, and trying to quickly devise an additional breathing outlet, maybe my ears. It won't be long for me now...

Can't tell here, but it's taking all I've got left to not tip over off the bike and try to recover enough to lift my eyelids back up.

Couple of more sessions of abuse for Pat to get the data he needs. Got the data I was curious about out of this session - V02max and threshold are identical to where they were January of 08' on the treadmill test. Was hoping to see some improvement, but not the case. Will need to mix up the training a little after Leadville's done. Data is fun, generating the data is not fun.