Yesterday’s epiphany about what is causing my lower-back imbalance blew me away. It really did. It was so obvious! As someone who considers herself pretty self-aware, I feel a little silly about not recognizing what was causing the imbalance. The massage therapist, chiropractor, and physiotherapist were all wondering what I was doing to cause such lower back problems. They surmised that perhaps I was sitting consistently incorrectly while at work or that I was turning one way more than another. That sort of thing. However, not one of them asked, “Do you have a puppy that pulls you one way consistently?” If they had, I would have answered, “Yes, yes I do!” I suppose Dr. House is right: everyone lies. It may not always be conscious, but we do lie.

In order to deal with this predicament, I have decided that I must reduce the number of walks we go on that enables Clifford, my big red standard poodle dog, to pull on my arm and making the left side of my lower back stabilize to stop him from pulling me over. This posed a problem because I can’t just not walk my dog. So this morning at the crack of 7am, I took Clifford on our first bike ride. It was a little scary, I have to tell you, but it worked out pretty well. By the end of the 20-minute ride, he was lagging behind panting and he had no pulled on my arm not even once. We had a couple of scary incidents with some other dogs on our route, but it was pretty painless and I think with a new collar it will occur less and less. I am going to do this for the next few weeks while working on stregthening the right side of my lower back and continuing with physiotherapy. Hopefully in the next 2 months, I will be HEALED!

I was just thinking today as I was biking to work that moving has to be the hardest thing on a person who trains for triathlon (and probably everyone else). This morning I went on my first run since moving and the Half Ironman. Discovering a new neighbourhood and establishing new routes is not an easy thing to do, but it sure is fun! I had lived in the same area for years, so my routes never changed. I knew how long they should take me on a good or bad day and I knew exactly how long they were, but these new routes are uncertain to me… foreign territory. And now that I have a dog to go along with it, it’s been a big adjustment. However, this morning’s run was a lot of fun. I discovered a route along the river and both Clifford (my 5 month old puppy) and I enjoyed ourselves. Because Clifford is still just a “wee” pup (he’s actually quite large) and I am just coming off of an injury and am not 100%, we didn’t go for very long and intermingled running with walking and stretching. I definitely look forward to longer runs along that same route… and because my old routes aren’t too far away, I’ll be going to those for longer runs.

This weekend I went on a Saturday morning ride with my training buddies. We were supposed to meet at 6:30am, but I didn’t leave my house until 6:15 for my half hour ride to our meeting spot. I was worried they would have left without me, but they waited! This is why I love training buddies and mine are especially awesome. We went on a pretty good ride, but I turned around early due to running out of time and food. I also didn’t want to push it too hard on my first long ride after the half. It turned out to be a 72km ride in 2:53, which was pretty awesome.

Last Thursday I returned to my mountain bike club and went for an awesome cross-country ride with the gals. It was exactly what I needed and I’m committed to going for the rest of the summer. Mountain biking and cross-country skiing are my favorite activities that I do just for fun.

Last night my raw food group got together and we had another potluck. Thanks to them, I got to have raw food leftovers for my lunch today and it was GREAT! I am going to try to have raw suppers all this week, but realistically it will be 2-3 nights.

So now that things are starting to settle into place, I am in full swing for my triathlon in merely 2 weeks away. I won’t be in top-notch shape, but I’ll finish… and with my knee/hip/back injury, that’s a good thing.