The Short Version

I've had about 5 goes at writing this post but I keep getting all show-offy with aren't-I-clever writing and then run out of time and then it's 2 days later and everything's different. So here goes: speed-blogging!

I ummed and errr-ed about a personal trainer.
I went to the gym and to the pool a few times. Nothing bad happened. I have started to feel stronger and more energetic. I like this.
I still can't run. 10 steps on the treadmill and my achilles carries on like a ratty toddler . This is messing with my head. I dreamed I had to have surgery on it nooooooooooooooooooooooo!
but I digress
When J was away for work or working late I sweated it up on the exercise bike and did my core workouts at home (I'm up to Kona 2001 !).
I got a quote to have a cleaner for two hours a week, and decided I could go to the Cook Islands for a week for that kind of money so I'd do it myself*.
I was very ambivalent about this personal trainer thing.
I should be motivated enough to do it myself. What if they're sorry for me or think I'm a whinger? I sound like a whinger to myself! What if it IS too hard to get fit again? What if I can't do it? What if I FAIL?It's a lot of money (not as much as that cleaner though, sheesh!). Is it being a big la-la to want a middle aged lady trainer so there's no possibility of being judged or condescended to by the young hot bloke PT?
On Sunday I put on my togs and packed my pull buoy and towel and goggles and a big heavy pile of ambivalence into my gym bag and headed off. If this young hot bloke PT is on duty at the gym after I've done my laps, I said to myself, I'll talk to him. That way I've talked to all of them. I don't have to make up my mind today.
So I did my laps.
He was on duty.
I start on Sunday!
I'm all excited! I'm a bit nervous and extremely ambivalent (see above; also he's "very strong on nutrition" which could be (ahem) 'a challenge'), but I'm excited! I even have a goal!

More anon, sweaters!

*We ARE going to Cook Islands for a week, in March! Whee!

lemme 'splain

no - ees too much. Lemme sum up.

I am very much aware and grateful that overall I have an awesome life. I am lucky. I am capable and determined and well-resourced. My blog is where I put all the bleaty shit that I need to stop swirling around my head and dragging me down so I can force myself to put on my togs and go to the pool or get out the door for yet another aborted run or stand in front of those bastard mirrors at the gym or line up the 2000 Kona replay and hop on the stupid boring go-nowhere but it'll-have-to-do-when-J-is-working-late bike.
I'm REALLY SAD about how unfit I am and how heavy I am and how all of that plus the ankle reco and the niggly shoulder from the crutches and the painful achilles and the b**** who switched my body-shame up several notches adds up to making rebuilding my fitness a bloody big job, and not one that be approached with have-at-it balls-to-the-wall gung-ho derring-do. Guts and glory won't work here. I have be patient. Take my time. Slow slow slow. Sucking it up. Always sucking it up. Seeing myself in photos and not cringeing. Walking around Melbourne and not going into shoe shops or running shops and squashing the that-used-to-be-me sadness when I see all the runners - and Melbourne is a great place to run; there are runners everywhere. Trying to not feel like a complete failure for some stretches, a few pushups and some core work at 8.45 pm becuase that's all I can bring myself to do after all the day's stuff is done. Sucking up the sadness and shame and doing it. Smiling and staying in touch with my good generous happy-for-you self when everyone else is celebrating their running groups and their 10ks and their tris. Sucking it up when the task seems so very big and feeling good again seems so very far away.
I have thought of a personal trainer, but I need someone who understands very very slow rehab of an overweight (obese if you ask the always accurate and helpful BMI) middle aged endurance athlete. I don't know whether there's anyone around here like that. I need a miracle man* who won't rush me 'cause you know,  you rush a miracle man, you get rotten miracles. I'll go to the gym and ask today though. You never know.
I know what to do.
I'm not going to give up.
I will feel strong and fit again one day. If it's medically possible I will run another marathon or several and swim long distances and do triathlons.
I am sucking it up even though the task seems so very big and feeling good again seems so very far away. Almost inconceivable

My name is LBTEPA   you killed my father. prepare to die and I am fat and middle-aged and injured and I am not ever giving up.
More anon, swordsmen!
*or woman

keeping on

even my stretches and core work and a few pushups are better than nothing

Rubik's rehab

is what you call it when everything is so weak and unbalanced that overdoing one thing a teeny bit creates problems elsewhere, to whit: I have a sore achilles tendon. Bugger. Dr G00gle has told me to rest and NSAID like it's my job so  running is off the schedule again. *pout* Still, there's always y0utube: an absolute angel of a person has uploaded every single Kona Ironman special since 1992! Awful hair, high-cut togs and riding through T1, and of course the Ironwar - me and my exercise bike are So There!
Noddie and I are back to the Big Smoke to see her dermatologist at the Children's Hospital on Friday, as the side effects of her psoriasis medication are unacceptable. We'd already planned to see Bang Crash Tap on Saturday so we are just staying up another night. The Zoo, St Kilda Beach, the theatre andpossiblysomeshoppingIadmitnothing Here We Come!!

Gastro

Another one for the ODTAA* files. Bleh
*One Damn Thing After Another 
More anon, acronymers!

4.35

why, you ask, is our heroine blogging at 4.35 a.m? It's becuase I can't sleep. And why is that, you ask? What a lot of sticky beaks you are! LBTEPA is currently not running amok in the land of nod (as opposed to running amok in the Land of Noddie as I usually do hahahah I am so funny) becuase the steroids she is taking for the newly-formed polyps in the Sinuses of Doom only work as painkillers for the first two or three days, after which their function appears to be to cure encephalitis lethargica, in the wee small hours at least, and make your face all red.  I am using a radical state-of-the-art treatment (involving more [disgusting details omitted] than my five faithful readers need to know about) to dissolve the polyps so I shouldn't have to have more surgery but it's early days yet blah blah bleat bleat.

The LBTEPA Department of pre-dawn musings is also running hot becuase I have decided to post more often and I have been getting caught in the it's a bit antisocial to spend so much time in the study when J likes to watch tv together in the evenings thought-that-doesn't-really-make-proper-sense (mind you last night we watched Arrow, a fascinating exploration of moral grey areas (ahem).

The way to be who you want to be is do what that sort of person would do, so I am Using My Time Wisely, blogging and drinking hot milk and honey rather than lying awake with a headache, hot in the face and furious about the election.
Last week I trundled off the the Big Smoke to meet with the sinus surgeon (boo!), and also the ankle surgeon, who never wants to see me again! Yay! Yes, five months post surgery,  All Is Well with the LBTEPA ankle. It'll be weak-ish and swollen for another few months and of course my rebuilding into the Amazon we all knew and loved must be patient and take into account the extra weight I'm carrying blah blah blah yay yay yay I'm all better!!!!!!! And how good is running??And riding your bike? And swimming?!!! I. Love. It. All! But I digress.
Whilst in Melbourne I was lucky enough to dine with the lovely Cilla, which was a hoot. We spoke of deep things and ate fashionable food at a groovy restaurant by the river. I used to go there Back In the Day (I did have a day, really), only it's moved (confusing!) and is kind of ironically we-dare-you-to-say-we're-not-the-same groovy now, which I found hilarious. That could also have been the wine. I admit nothing. I played hooky got the later train back on Friday arvo so I had time to buy some shorts that fit me right now (see: extra weight, also: live in country town = B1g W is exciting that's so sad) before sashaying artistically along to soak up the Australian Impressionists in France. Ankle all better, new shorts and all cultured up - what could be nicer?
It's about time for the stupid wattlebird that sits in the tree outside our window to start its first-light squawking (its other name is the STFU bird) so I think I'll go back to bed now. I have a quiet day at work and I plan to talk the boss into letting me have a swim (she's strict but I can usually get around her :P)
More anon, sleeping beauties