I’m at the tail end of nursing my Achilles back to health after a bout of tendinitis left me sidelined from running all winter. Lately I’ve been increasing my jog-walks and the Achilles has been feeling better and better, but my trainer has thrown in some elliptical workouts as well until I’m back in running action. Thus, I’ve begrudgingly trudged over to the Y to elbow my way to a machine in the cramped, stuffy cardio cave so I can sneak in workouts longer than the 30 minutes the equipment is programmed to allot me. While I was there last night, ellipticising it up, a girl got onto the machine next to me and commenced her workout. The rest of this post is dedicated to her.

The rain gods must have read my post about crappy Seattle weather and decided to troll the entire city by unleashing torrential downpours and strong winds for the past few days. Good thing I live on a hill; otherwise, I could be running into flooding problems that are plaguing many of the city’s residents right now. I’m also finally happy to be on coach’s and doctor’s orders not to run until the Achilles tendinitis heals, because there’s no way in hell I’d want to run in the kraken-summoning tsunamis unfurling outside. No running, unfortunately, means that Teresa has taken this opportunity to remind me that I haven’t swam (swum? Swum looks weird) since Ironman Canada, so that fast little bastard has started adding swim workouts to my training schedule. Boooooo. Just when I was starting to begrudgingly psyche myself up and promise myself that I was going to work hard on my swimming this season by hitting all my pool workouts and not skipping any open water swims, my friend Mr. Oatmeal posted a link to this charming piece of news on my Facebook wall: “More than one million gallons of raw sewage backed up into Lake Washington over the weekend. The sewer system in Medina was unable to handle all the rainfall from the storm, causing raw sewage to back up into peoples’ homes and into the lake.” Oh, great. That should really get me excited to dive into the lake for some long swim workouts this spring. There’s nothing like practicing bilateral breathing while some kid’s pet goldfish rides a turd right past...

If you read the Great American Novel otherwise known as my Ironman Canada race report, you’ll recall how I mentioned that a couple of my toenails turned purple after the race. Here’s a picture of the initial discoloration in case you forgot: The pinky toe managed to survive, but alas, I lost Thaddeus von Middlenail. Maybe I’ve been watching too much of The Walking Dead lately, but I coped with the impending death of my toenail similar to a zombie apocalypse survivor having to deal with the fact that his loved one had become infected and was starting to turn. First, there was hope. Despite hearing from numerous people (including Running Magazine) that my purple nurple nail was dying and would fall off, I thought that maybe if I just left it alone, it would pull through. It’s like if Jas got bit by a zombie and I said, “Well, we don’t know for sure if he’ll turn. Maybe different people have different reactions…yes, I’m aware that a huge bite-sized chunk of his arm is missing.” So instead of accepting the fact that my toenail was indeed going to fall off, I masked its rapid discoloration with some nail polish. It’s akin to wrapping a scarf around my infected boyfriend and pretending that he’s now okay: After a while, though, my toe started to throb and I was distraught to discover that pushing down on the nail caused a clear liquid to ooze from underneath it. I thought to myself, “Well that’s not normal,” and resorted to covering the whole mess up with a Band-aid. Out of sight, out of mind! Zombie equivalent: The toenail eventually stopped oozing and things got quiet for a while. When I finally took the nail polish off my toes, I was surprised and a bit unsettled to see that my toenail was no longer purple, but white-ish. It was as if it tried to emulate my other healthy toenails but couldn’t quite pull it off. It looked the color of bone. That couldn’t be a good sign. Over the next couple months, the toenail went through varying degrees of looseness. Some days I’d be able to wiggle the hell out of it, while other days it’d feel more firmly planted, giving me false hope that things were finally looking up… …until one fateful night when, while Jas and I were sitting on the couch, watching TV, I halfheartedly wiggled my toenail to assess its condition, as I’ve grown accustomed to doing. To my horror, it was super loose. In fact, after a couple wiggles, I was able to successfully detach it completely on the right side and along the bottom, leaving a 1/3 attached toenail that resembled the spine of a book. Oh god, it had finally turned. I was looking at Zombie Toenail. I was devastated. The little guy was supposed to pull through, not succumb to the sickness and die! After sadly flicking my deceased toenail back and forth and thoroughly grossing my poor (non-zombie) boyfriend out,, I knew what I had to do. This bad boy needed to get removed, and the sooner the better. Since I was a nail-losin’ virgin, I didn’t know whether to take the thing off myself or to consult a professional. The problem with my toenail was that it was actually still pretty firmly attached on the one side that was left, as if it was clinging on in futile hopes that it would somehow prevail. I didn’t really feel like torture porning my own toenail out with a pair of pliers, so I asked Dr. Perry about it when I saw him for my foot...

Everyone has their own personal racing goal. Some people want the accomplishment of completing something difficult like a marathon or an Ironman, while others want to post a PR or finish in under a certain amount of time. Hardcore, dedicated athletes want to qualify for Clearwater or Kona, and elite racers want to finish at the top of their age group or maybe qualify for their pro license. All of these are admirable goals, but mine is a little different. Sure, I’d love to do the Boston Marathon some day or qualify for the 70.3 World Championships, but I really only have one race goal that I constantly work towards and strive to achieve: I never want to crap myself during a race.

I’ve come across a random assortment of links and stories in the past week or so that I’ve wanted to feature on the blog, so I decided to just throw them into a roundup-type post. I used to do weekly roundup blog posts at an old job and hated how time-consuming they were, but our readers really liked them so I trudged along and tried to spruce them up with my standard Beccanisms. Below are some various stories I’ve come across and have found to be interesting — hope you enjoy them! Kenny Powers is the Perfect Spokesperson for K-Swiss If you’re not familiar with Eastbound and Down, you should definitely watch it. The show’s about a crass ex-baseball player who becomes a gym teacher despite his ignorance about the fact that his professional pitching career is over. I’ve blogged in the past about how much I’ve enjoyed K-Swiss’s ads (and I have a super-comfy pair of K-Swiss shoes that I wear more for fashion purposes than for running), but this current fake commercial combines Kenny Powers, K-Swiss, and crass humor to create an amusing pitch meeting (language NSFW). Kenny Powers Gets Signed By K-Swiss – watch more funny videos And I Thought Jason’s Injuries Were Bad I shared some of the carnage from Jason’s recent bike crash, but I readily admit that they were nowhere near as bad as this guy’s (caution: NSFW). Apparently he was riding with a group of cyclists when the guy in front of him ran over a tree branch that flipped up and impaled him in the shin. What the crap! How fast were these guys riding, like 85 miles per hour? The article has lots of graphic photos of the clearly morphined-up cyclist laying in a hospital bed with a freaking tree sticking out of his leg. I hate this sport. The Classy Way to Win an Ironman Race Professional triathlete Julie Dibens recently won the Ironman 70.3 in Boulder, but she waited five minutes before crossing the finish line to ensure that the females who finish behind her get to have a prize purse. The reason is due to some bullshit rule change stating that professional Ironman triathletes must be within 8% of the winner’s time to collect their prize money. This rule makes no sense other than to screw over other podium winners because Ironman is too cheap to guarantee them a purse and rewarding their excellence. Your placement should guarantee you some money if there’s a prize pool set aside for that place, regardless of how far behind the leader you are. Julie Dibens is a class act, and I hope other Ironman winners follow suit and take care of their fellow triathletes. A Blast from the Past A triathlon website recently took a look at an issue of Triathlete magazine from 1984 and laughed at some of the absurd recommendations and equipment being featured. I like the image of the dude trying to clean his bike off in the bath tub — apparently a hose was too forward-thinking in the mid-80’s. The dude with the sweet ‘stache perched in the thinker’s pose atop a Cannondale frame is pretty awesome too. “Hey Baby, What’s Your Age Group?” Jason came across this post called Tips for Dating Endurance Athletes, and while the list itself is a bit hard on the eyes, it has some amusing gems like “‘I find fulfillment in charitable work’ really means ‘If I am not racing, I am volunteering or cheering on my buddies, and I expect you to be there alongside me as I stand out in 90 degree weather for 8 hours handing out...