Ready for another challenge

Time for an update. Not really sure where this one is going. I'm starting on a Friday morning and hoping to be done by Friday evening. In between there will be a run. Maybe a ride. Maybe working on some bikes. Not sure. It's vacation and my plans are very fluid. I'm learning to deal with that, believe me!

I'm back! Did ya miss me?

It's been a good week, more or less. The Reforestation Ramble mountain bike race I participated in last Saturday, August 15, went well. Okay, better than I thought or hoped it would. It was only my third time on the mountain bike since surgery in May. I really wasn't sure what to expect or how I'd feel. I've always done well at this course. It plays to my style. Lots of flowing single track, some two track to break it up and not a lot of climbing. I'd usually say I'm at a bit of a disadvantage with a single speed but not there. The waves were ten riders every five minutes trying to keep age groups together as much as possible. I had a decent start and hit the single track in a group of three. We pushed hard to stay ahead of any chasers. About ten minutes in the lead rider lost a bit of momentum on a rooted climb in the single track. The other rider and I kept going, again pushing hard to keep a gap. The two of us worked together for the rest of the lap and the beginning of lap two. I was biding my time and trying to plan a good place to pass. I knew if we stayed together the entire lap he would easily out sprint me at the line. I stayed on his wheel as we hit a section of ski trail and when I saw more single track coming I pushed hard for a pass. Once in the single track I pushed hard to hold that gap. I kept thinking out of sight, out of mind. I know when I lose sight of a rider in front of me I tend to ease up. And it worked! I rode most of that last half lap assuming somebody was always right on my wheel. I ended up placing third in 50-59. A result I'm pretty proud of. I felt good, raced smart, recovered well, my support team (Tammy) made the race easy and started this week feeling fresh.

Thanks Gary Smits and XTR Photo for the shot! https://www.xtrphoto.com/

  

I had a pretty decent run this morning. I'm still using the half marathon program on the Garmin Connect app. Today's workout was a fast finish run. Now remember, fast is a relative term. What's fast for one is an easy day for somebody else. After a five minute warm up I was supposed to run one hour between 9:33-10:33. Believe it or not, I struggle to go easy. I tend to wander towards the low end or quicker on days like this. Then when the pace is supposed to pick up, I struggle to go fast. I tend to run in that no man's land that isn't slow, isn't fast and doesn't produce results. My past few runs I've really tried to keep the easy parts easy. It didn't help today when my watch struggled to find GPS. It kept telling me my pace was slow. But I knew from effort that it wasn't. But then my mind spoke up and said "Hey, maybe you really are going that slow." So I was tempted to push but I knew I was somewhere in that goal pace area. It finally locked in and of course, I was heading to the low end of the pace or quicker and tending to push. I reined it in for a couple miles before the hard efforts. The workout called for ten minutes between 8:23-8:43. Of course I planned my route to hit the hills for the harder efforts. Duh! I never claimed to plan training routes very well. I stayed on pace fairly well for those ten minutes. Next up was five minutes between 7:33-7:53. That's pushing for me, especially after one hour plus on a warm day. I stayed right in the middle and cooled down heading home. A good run that for a change I was happy with. 

The ride portion of today didn't happen. Messing around with bikes, one hell of a blood sugar crash, probably due to forgetting to eat after running and a powerful urge for a nap took up most of my afternoon. Again, I'm on vacation. No plan and I followed what my body wanted today. 

Now, maybe I should explain the title of this post and that picture at the beginning. The picture is meant to be humorous. Believe me, I'm taking this all very seriously, but it's not that serious! I mentioned an appointment with a radiation oncologist in my last post. That appointment was on Wednesday, August 19. I met with Dr. Michael Ray at ThedaCare Cancer Center. It was explained that my cancer is fairly aggressive. It has spread to the seminal vesicle on the right side. Good news is that it didn't spread to lymph nodes or bones. Dr. Ray explained things simply enough that even I could understand it. How the surgery went. Why I was referred to him. All my options. Studies that backed up his plan for treatment. I had a good (or bad, not sure how you look at it) feeling going in to the appointment. And I was pretty much correct. 

Here's what I'm looking at for the near future. I'll be getting a shot or shots to shut down my production of testosterone. Since testosterone feeds the growth of prostate cancer, we need to shut it down. Once testosterone is shut down, I'll start radiation treatment. Thirty-eight straight days. Yep-38 days. The treatments themselves aren't long, Approximately ten minutes. An occasional meeting with the doctor to check on my progress. The ten minutes isn't too bad, but the forty-five minute drive to and from isn't going to get old fast. 

Side effects from the treatments don't seem bad-to me. The alternative is worse. Just my opinion.  

After all this is finished, hopefully my PSA will be zero. 0. The last reading was 0.02. Low. Almost undetectable. Almost. Somewhere there is still a trace. Microscopic. Not enough to show on any scan. But still not zero. So that is the goal. 

I'm ready for the challenge. This is certainly not what I was planning for 2020. COVID is making it a bit more interesting. But I am up for this. Bring it on. I'm not planning on slowing down just yet. I may be down a bit but I'm not out! Six weeks of radiation may put a crimp in things, but I'll adapt. That's what endurance athletes do. And I do consider myself an endurance athlete. 

Whew! I've rambled longer than usual. I'll end this with some lyrics from a song on my playlist today. It sums up how I feel and how I'm approaching this next challenge. 

As always, thanks for reading. Any questions or comments are appreciated. Get out and run, ride or hike or ......enjoy the days. 

Made For This

Carrollton

I was made for this
Mind over matter
Silence the doubters
I have the power
Oh, I was made for this
I don't give up I won't back down
Goodbye worries no time to doubt
I feel the power, I won't be afraid
Fear won't stop me, I don't break
I was made for this