Crazy Few Weeks
Books, races, swingsets, keynotes, parties, birthdays, hockey teams, baseball games, fetuses, galas, radios, au pairs! Goodness, what a multi-faceted month I’ve enjoyed.
We’ll start by talking about the really important stuff. Check out the latest Martin-in-waiting! Can you believe the 3D images these days?!
This beautiful little thing is due to arrive on August 20, however, we expect he/she—as in “keeping it a surprise,” not as in, “hermaphrodite”—will be here a bit sooner. Sharon has a relatively benign condition called polyhydramnios, or too much amniotic fluid in the sac. This, of course, stretches her belly more than normal, which tricks her system into thinking delivery day is closer than it really is. She’s been having contractions since 30 weeks.
You may have heard—from me—that the new book, “Drinking from My Leg: Lessons from a Blistered Optimist,” launched on June 23. It reached #1 in Sports and Biographies and #36 Overall on Amazon.
Making that happen was quite the monumental time commitment over the last few months—lining up various partners to help promote the book on that one day. For the most part, it worked as planned and now I’m a #1 Bestseller!
Because of this status I’ve been contacted by both Korean and Polish publishers for translation rights. Chinese and Russian woulda been cool…
The day before the launch I keynoted a conference in Lake Placid, NY, then flew back to Colorado that night.
The day before that I traveled to said speaking engagement and for the Boston to Upstate NY segment we flew in a little 9-seater . . . and I got to ride shotgun! Yep, I sat in the in the co-pilot seat as we skimmed across the Adirondack’s at dusk. As I climbed over the others to grab my seat, I assured them they were safe, that I was a licensed Colorado driver, not to worry.
And that was on my 43rd birthday. I had been itching to post this photo, which was kiddie-corner from the house we rented in Boulder last winter, then I forgot about it until now.
The day before that I raced the Boulder Sprint Triathlon. I completed it without much preparation and, hence, was passed by more people on the bike than I’m used. Got what I deserved and I’m cool with that.
The day before that we had a birthday party for Jack at the local park. You know, burgers, dogs, Coors Light, cake, pinata—that sorta thing.
The four days (late evenings, to be specific) before that were spent building this gazillion piece swingset in the backyard. Well worth the time and money, I might add. The boys LOVE it!
A few days before that I was in New York City at the Waldorf Astoria, a guest of the Challenged Athletes Foundation’s Heroes, Hearts, and Hope Gala. The event, featuring Bruce Hornsby and Bill Walton, brought in $875,000 for the foundation and I had the pleasure of chatting a good long while with NHL/Olympic goaltender turned cyclist, Mike Richter.
Pulling a chronological 180, this pic was taken on Jack’s actual birthday, June 24, at his first every Major League Baseball Game. The Red Sox were in town to take on the Rockies. As this photo was being taken, Dustin Pedroia had just connected on his first of three home runs on the day, taking out the Rox in extra innings. We were long gone by that point. Jack’s four. He can’t hang.
Joined a new hockey team, the Ice Bumbs (yes, that’s how they—we—spell it) midway through the season at the local YMCA rink. We lost 3-2 on a shootout in my first game. I fell down several times for no reason.
Last weekend I raced, for the sixth or seventh time, the Boulder Peak Triathlon. It’s an Olympic Distance race with a couple extra kilometers on the bike that allows we competitors to ride up a 15% grade near the start of the bike. I only saw a half dozen or so walking up the hill. On the backside they’ve set up a new 35 mph “speed limit” to reduce the inevitable number of crashes on the steep descent. I was clocked at 49 . . . Appropos to the new book’s subtitle, my run was speed was limited, once again, by huge-0 mong0 Stumpy blister. Happy to say its healing amazingly fast. Must be the EPO. (That’s a blood-doping joke to those of you with quizzical brows.)
Spent the previous Monday at the Horsetooth Reservoir swim beach. DO NOT go there unless you like laying on a 45-degree clay-slickened bank that tends to send the less nimble into the rocks hidden beneath the murky water’s edge.
Also been getting some airtime on the radio sports shows lately, plugging the new book and child on Bob Babbit’s ” The Competitors” show and “The Simon Gowen Triathlon Show.”
To wrap things up it looks like I’m back on full-time daddy duty until the newbie arrives. A couple of months back we took in an au pair from Peru to help us out with the business of a hard-working wife (not to mention preggo) and an oft-traveling husband who needs to spend time working on the speaking business he’s been ignoring as of late. She didn’t quite work out as planned; we’re looking once again so if any of you have an au pair you can recommend, we welcome your input.
Slow is Good
I’ve been slow lately, in a good way. In the two weeks following our return from our big trip to Australia, I flew to five cities in four states for four speaking gigs and one race. Since then I’ve flown to zero cities to do zero things.
My time has primarily been spent caring for Jack and Luke, three and a half and two years old, respectively and Sharon has begun her career as an anesthesiologist at Lutheran Hospital in Wheatridge, CO, 18 miles south. We’ve hired a fabulous Peruvian nanny, Fabiola, who helps us out three or four days a week for a few hours a day.
I’d like to say that I’m so popular on the speaking circuit that the phone rings all by itself, however, not only am I not there yet but even the best of ‘em aren’t where they were just a year ago as professionals of my ilk are among the first to get scratched off the new budget in a pared back economy.
Alas, this gives me some time to retool and refocus not only on the speaking business but also on some other aspects of life. For instance, Jack and Luke have just carved their first ski tracks down the slopes of Vail; I’ve been playing hockey on Friday afternoons at the local YMCA (which also provides two hours of free child watch!); and the elder progeny recently stood/sat on the ice, mostly observing and crying, at his first hockey practice. We’ll try not to overload…
Sharon and I spent most weekends in October/November home shopping and we’re thrilled to have found one in Lafayette, just east of Boulder. It’s an enormous and gorgeous home, which we’re blessed to have come across and eager to get in to. We close on it next week, but will not be moving in until March 1. Our rental lease expires then and the current owners are waiting on their new home to be built, so they’ll be renting back from us.
My time and energy has also returned to training. With no home to remodel (as much as I liked it, I didn’t like the time sucking quality) or flights to board, the frequent rider miles have begun to grow along with some good quality runs. I swam for the fist time in three months a few days ago.
Which brings me to my latest health care provider, Jeff the Physical Therapist. Starting sometime earlier this millennium, my left shoulder began to ache on occasion, typically in the morning, but rarely to the point that I would even pay it an ounce of attention. About 18 months ago, it began aching when I would reach forward/overhead and be particularly bothersome both in the morning and at bedtime. Not that I did much of it, but I was still able to swim (and bike and run, which I always do more of) so I didn’t think too much of the pain—it would pass…
Just as last race season was getting underway, the discomfort I felt each morning concerned me that I wouldn’t be able to race in the coming months. Yet by the time I occasionally got to the pool at mid-morning, the pain would be relatively gone. This lasted all through the summer and right up to world champs in September. As much as I’d like to, I can’t blame my disastrous race and swim on this injury.
However, over the following few weeks of Ozzie vacation, the nights were getting worse and worse and progressing to the point where I’d wake up in the middle of the night unable to feel my left arm, the sensation subsiding in the aching shoulder. And when the arm didn’t go numb, then my left wrist would be very tender. One or the other.
Eight or nine weeks of this, and lots of ibuprofen, was about enough and about the same time we settled back into Boulder, Sharon started her new job, the health insurance got straightened and I was able to visit my new primary doctor and an orthopedic specialist at The Boulder Medical Center. The docs concurred that an impingement is to blame: the soft tissue between the rotator cuff and the underside of the bone that is the top part of the shoulder (acromion) gets pinched. This causes the pain. The numbing of my left arm is most likely caused by a pinched nerve in my shoulder, but in a different area than the aforementioned impingement. Whatever’s causing the numbness they feel is also referring the “pain” that I feel in my wrist, my brain not knowing the difference. Looks like I have an MRI to figure that part out in my very-near future.
So that brings me to Jeff of the Boulder Center for Sports Medicine who is doing a great job rehabbing me and this has allowed me to get back in the pool. Surgery may eventually come into play to gently reshape my acromion. If it does it won’t be for awhile since I’m focusing my efforts on the next year’s focal race: Ironman Canada, August 2010.
So, that being written, I gotta get the boys ready to head to the gym (the other local Y with free child watch) and work on my swim form. Slowly.
