After a few false alarms I think it's time to work on getting active again. Yes... again. I've posted about this before, so I'm not sure what makes it different yet... hopefully it sticks this time.

This week I found out that the parentals aren't planning on going to Greece this summer. This clears up the schedule for me to actually take a week off this summer to ride to Montreal. I'm VERY excited about the prospect of doing this. I've wanted to do it for years, and it looks like this might finally be the right opportunity to do it!

I'm still worried about my back and knee/IT band of course. Not enough to actually seek medical help. Yes, I'm afraid of going in for a routine doctor's visit and coming out in a body bag. Whatever... My back seems to be fine if I'm not running (ugh), and my knee I think is finally recovered. I haven't felt any pain in it for almost a month now. I'm going to finally make it to a spin class on Tuesday and see how that goes.

I'm also starting to realistically reassess my goals. I've been wanting to do the triathlon thing for almost a year. I like the idea, but when it comes to finding time and energy to train it's really hard! I subscribed to Caius' logs about a month ago, and he's out there almost every day doing something... on days where I feel like I can't even get out of bed, he's still out there working himself hard. It should be inspiring me, and maybe it will in the summer when I'm active again, but right now it just seems like I have so much other stuff to do right now.

It doesn't help that I'll basically be learning how to swim from scratch. On it's own I think it would be tollerable. But I have to build up a running base too... not so hard if my back wasn't in such pain, but now it's unbearable. It's taking months for the pain to dim down a bit. At least cycling isn't as punishing on it.

So right now I'm thinking it's probably the best idea to just concentrate on cycling for another year. Maybe lift some weights too, be totally vein and build an upper body or something. I still have another ten pounds I want to drop, and it's certainly not happening with diet alone. Basically the way I'm eating now is good for maintaining... I'm always going to have to watch what I eat after being the size I was. But I'm not going to drop anymore without some physical activity. The last 5 pounds only came off because I was running for a few weeks, so the last ten are probably going to be the same.

I'm sure there will be another crazy ride to Ben's cottage, or maybe some kind of European tour in Spain, even doing some stuff with the Radonneurs, or some mountain biking in BC. That's probably about my speed. Training for a triathlon is not like racing cars. You can't just research all day then pay someone to fix you up because you don't have the time to do it yourself. Neither is riding a bike... but at least I know I'll have the time and the effort required to do it well.

Maybe next year will be different... or maybe I'll change my mind in the summer. It just makes sense to start off realistically.