cautiously optimistic

Vineman is 12 days away. And even though I've had an assload my fair share of setbacks -- including ever-so-slightly spraining my ankle this past Sunday night when I tripped over a pair of shoes in my hotel room in the dark (sometimes even I am truly amazed by my talent) -- I'm telling myself everything will be OK on race day.

Yes, the nasty, juicy, I'm-hacking-so-hard-I-might-barf coughs are still happening. (And so is the non-stop travel -- I was in SF this weekend.) But I can swim without discomfort. In fact, I got my first open water workout as a Seattle-ite (is that a word?) done last week. The PR gal at one of the major wine companies here is a swimmer, and she encouraged me to join an organized swim -- complete with kayak support and coaching -- on Lake Washington, from Martha Washington Park to Seward and back.

The experience was absolutely incredible -- an amazing, supportive group of people who truly love swimming and an unbelievably gorgeous location. The water was a just-right 66 degrees, and at one point after the turnaround, the clouds parted and the sun shot through -- if only I could describe the way the light looked on the water. We swam 1.2 miles (though I suspect I swam more, since my sighting was horrible and I basically zig-zagged all over the place), and I felt so happy and so lucky to be out there in the water. (Never in my life did I think swimming would make me feel this high, by the way.)

I'm also running again. It's slow-going, and if I have to stop at a crosswalk or take a break for any reason, the cough-gag thing kicks in pretty violently. But I slogged through a short heat run last week (it's possible race day temps could be around 100 degrees, so I'm trying to brace myself for the worst) and got an 8-miler in on Sunday.

Sweaty, post-run me -- kind of ick, but pretty happy to be running again. (And yes, I guess I'm officially the dorky person who snaps workout selfies at the gym. But I try to do it only when no one is looking. At least, when I hope no one is looking.)

And I am finally back on my bike. I went a little nutso yesterday and rode 53 miles. This really wasn't what I was planning to do, but I couldn't help it. Once Muppet and I were reunited, we just couldn't stop. Yes, there were scary moments (I officially hate riding across the Ballard Bridge -- the bike lane is one person wide, and you end up playing chicken with people coming the opposite direction -- it's all kinds of horrible), but for the most part, I had a great time out there. Rode all the way out to Woodinville and back.

The "back" part was interesting, though. Since I live on top of a ginormous hill, there's really no easy way to get home. I finished my ride with about a 1-mile steady climb and was pretty much a mess of sweat, snot and dead bugs (yup -- it was death to winged insects if they flew into my sticky, sunscreen-slathered legs) when I returned to the house.

So tired that I couldn't even get Muppet up the stairs!

So I'm hoping for the best and trying to stay out of panic mode. Yes, I do feel a little like I'm cramming for a test at this point, but I'm just going to keep reminding myself that everything will be fine. I've done what I can. This has been far from a perfect training cycle (can you really even call this training?), but it is without a doubt an adventure.