Time to refocus on swimming, biking

By Virginia Winder
Sometimes life is a pain in the foot.
Yesterday, the physio diagnosed me with plantar fasciitis, which is inflammation of the tissue underneath my food and arch.
I told her about the sudden pain while doing a step-up at the gym, how it's got worse in the past week and keeps going into spasm. She pushed, poked and prodded, then gave me the PF news.
"You've definitely strained it," she said. "It's quite inflamed."
Tentatively, I asked that dreaded question - how long will it take to mend?
"About 12 weeks," she replied.
"Oh no," I said, thinking of the Tri-Women triathlon I've signed up for in New Plymouth on January 29.
She thinks I could possibly walk it, but didn't sound too hopeful.
The good news is I can swim to my heart's content, without flippers, and I can bike, but at this stage only on the flat, so I might need someone to do the run for me.
As life would have it, the physio has done the swimming section of the Tauranga half-ironman (my 2013 goal), so we talked all about it and she gave me training tips.
When I told her about how I had just started to run, she gave me a website to look up. It's a programme of how to get off the couch and up to running 5kms in nine weeks, hence the name of the site: c25k.
I'm not going to dwell on what I can't do now, but instead focus on what I can - swim, bike and bodysurf.
Summer is here and a sore foot isn't going to hold me back.
The Tasman Sea is calling...

Today, I:
Worked for 8 hours
Slept for 8 hours
Ate three healthy meals
Drank 3 coffees
Drank 2 glasses of pinot gris
Drank some water (got to get over this camel-like hump!)
Did no exercise (food strapped, so am giving it a bit of rest - back into swimming tomorrow)

Great lengths to teach 'eyes' not 'I' lesson

By Virginia Winder
Spent this morning teaching about feature writing and realised what I find so weird about writing this blog.
It's written in the first person and is spattered with the "I" word.
"We are the 'eyes' not the 'I'," I always tell young journalists.
So, just for fun, I'm going to tell today's story in the third person.
This morning, Virginia literally creaked out of bed, feeling twinges in weird places - her right groin/hip, her left inner elbow, buttocks, and right shoulder blade.
It was an early morning for her because of a garden deadline and so she tapped away in her office watching the dawn slowly drench the day with colour.
Then it was a rush-here, meet-there, call-someone-then kinda day that left her feeling slightly frustrated at not being able to settle down and write, write, write.
But she still made connections, gave writing advice to a mate and landed a dream writing project.
"Gosh I love life and the amazing things that can happen in a day," she says.
On top of this, Virginia went swimming and clocked up 40 lengths of the indoor pool at the New Plymouth Aquatic Centre.
As she swam up and down, up and down, she brushed past a kindred spirit; a bloke she always sees bodysurfing at Fitzroy Beach during summer.
Catching waves is her greatest joy of all. "This coming season I'll be much fitter than ever before, so I'll be better at riding waves than I have been in years. Hopefully."
Virginia is now heading off to bed so she get can up at a ridiculously early hour to knock off a whole line-up of stories that have been niggling at her like unpaid bills.
She'll return to herself tomorrow because the 48-year-old now finds it even weirder to write about herself in the third person. "It sounds so pretentious," Virginia says, screwing up her face and shaking her head.
"So, in the words of Arnie... I'll be back!"

Today, she:
Swam 40 lengths of a 25-metre pool
Ate three healthy meals (but found it damn hard not to scoff down more enchillada!)
Drank 4 cups of coffee (2 too many)
Drank 2 cups of hot chocolate with low-fat milk (2 in a week would be more acceptable)
Drank more water!
Worked for 8.5 hours
Slept for 6 hours