Florida is Burning

Bouncing back from the Gator 1/2 has not been easy.

The week after the race, I was (understandably) flat and unmotivated. Then I caught a bug or something and felt even flatter and more so unmotivated. Sprinkle in a few good workouts here and there and I was ready to bounce back this past weekend. Saturday was a great ride. After a 6-month hiatus, I busted out the road bike and put it through one of the better bike sessions of the season. I woke up Sunday morning looking forward to a strong swim/run on Key Biscayne.

The swim was strong. So was the run. But then mother nature decided to indirectly punish me.

You see, due to numerous circumstances half of the state is currently on fire. Literally. Mix this minor tidbit in with a bit of shift in the regular wind patterns and POOF you get a nice dosage of smoke lingering over the city the way a greasy clubber hovers over a female bartender five minutes to last call.

Armed with a masochistic "If you can't train in it, how are you going to race in it?" mentality, I went through the workout largely unaffected by the airborne remnants of western Miami-Dade county. In fact, the 1-hour bridge repeats went fantastic. One of the best run workouts of the year. I felt great.

Until about three hours later, when the wildfires relocated to the back of my throat. AWESOME. Now I sit before thee, congested worse than US-1 at 5:30 p.m. and feeling like I swallowed a box of push pins.

Fear Not!, I say. For tomorrow we have a 5:45 a.m. intervals-until-you-puke-or-die-whichever-comes-first ride at the golf course. The worst part is that I am looking forward to it, regardless if I can breathe or not.

Burn, baby, burn!