This little piggy... turned all black and blue!

I may have broken my first ever bone last Thursday. I decided to do my swim in the AM (I'm usually a noon girl) and I was the only one at the pool. The three lifeguards that were on duty decided to drag the guard stand and two chairs to the end of my lane and watch the show. Ha! When I finished my swim, I hopped out of the pool and gabbed a bit with them (no, I wasn't flirting). As I was walking back to my bag to get my towel, I rammed my foot right into that darn guard stand! Of course, tough girl that I am, I cursed under my breath and tried to play it off as just a 'little bump.' Ha! Again!

When I reached my car, I finally took a moment to examine my toe. Couldn't even touch the first joint and it was already starting to bruise. By the time my 3PM bike ride was upon me, the toe was stiff and variety of pretty colors. Thankfully it appears that the middle toe doesn't really 'do' all that much, so I was able to get through my ride. I spent the rest of the afternoon and most of the evening with ice on it. Better late than never.

I was a bit worried about my brick the following day. Would I be able to run on this toe or would it lay me up? I ended up buddy taping it to its neighbor for support and held my breath during the bike portion of the brick (um, 22mph steady winds... difficult to 'truly' hold breath, but you know what I mean). Finally it was time to test the toe out. It let me know that it was there, but I pulled it off... and with fast (for me) run splits to boot! Hmmm... should break middle toe more often... toughens one up; makes one fast. HTFU syndrome, I suppose.

So now it is Sunday and the toe is really just an afterthought at this point. The joint is still tender, but the bruising is subsiding. What is not going well today is my poor husband's schedule.

We had a 40-miler on tap for this morning followed by a swim. Unfortunately, those 22mph steady winds that I mentioned earlier = brush fires during our dry season. My husband was mandated to work today after a very loooong firefighting day yesterday. Both bikes are at the station with him (and 40 miles away from me), so I am home alone and bikeless. I sent six rambling (and panic stricken) texts to Heather this morning (7:30 AM my time; 1:30 AM Kona time) about our situation. Amazing coach that she is, she called me about 1/2 hr. ago (now 5:30 AM Kona time AND while on her way to Lavaman) and told Scott & I not to panic about today; this type of stuff can happen and we need to be flexible.

So, today is a down day for both of us. I am secretly happy about this since I haven't had much sleep over the past week (my cough finally seems to be under control, so hopefully this week will be different). Tomorrow starts a NEW day and a new training week. We're going to leave the scheduling conflict and broken toe behind us and hit it hard!

Race Wear Update
I have settled on the swimsuit approach for my first couple of tris of the season. It was the least fuss for me last year, so I decided why not test it out again. Right now I'm trying to decide on 'which' brands to give a shot. I need something supportive for what is left of my chest, yet something that will not restrict my diaphragm and will be as flattering as possible to my hip fat (there's not other way to put that). I've been staring at the pages of swimoutlet.com for a couple of days now and I'm trying to decide what prints and sizes to order from Dolfin, Splish and Club Swim. This may be one of those "order a ton and send back most" sort of situations. Any suggestions on fit for those brands?