Every New Beginning Comes From Some Other Beginning's End

Here is a mural of The Bix 7 race in Davenport.

Hey, I'm going to post an update on my friend's son. Here it is:

Even more good news today. Early this morning L. went ahead and self extubated. The nurse said it was a first for her to have a patient remove his own tube. We then had to hurry and get his catheter out as he was pulling on that and it was the next to go. With the vent out he seemed much more comfortable and was even opening his eyes a bit. By the end of the day he was nodding his head to answer yes or no to questions (even once he mumbled out a "yeah"), was able to take some tylenol liquid by mouth and drink a tiny bit of juice. He covered his mouth with his hand when he coughed and the grand finale for the day was he waved good-bye to P.'s sister and to B. when she left. We are super, super encouraged by his progress. P. and I feel like we can finally breathe a little bit. We have been mostly at the hospital and in and out at home.

So, it all sounds pretty good. I have a feeling it will be like things were with Stinky, where they won't really know what the long term effects will be until they do some follow-up testing in the next month or so.

Okay, now I'm changing the subject. Remember how I kept talking about how I was going to try to do a triathlon and some road races this year? Well, I think I got some of that actually planned now. I've been emailing some friends and the girl crush about possible events we might want to register for and so far I've come up with this: The River Run in Iowa City in April (5k), a duathlon in Des Moines in May, The Dam to Dam race in Des Moines in June and my triathlon in Coralville in September. I still wouldn't mind finding a race in July and August, but even if I don't, this should be enough.

I have a bunch of people telling me I should run the Bix again. I'm not counting it out, but it wouldn't be that handy for me. I don't really have anyone to stay with in the Quad Cities anymore. I can stay with the girl crush and her hubby for the Des Moines races and that's great. I'll finally be able to see their house too.

The other issue is my daughters' schedules. I checked with them about the races I've committed to and we don't seem to have any conflicts right now. Coadster said she might even race in the 5 k's with me. She didn't seem to be particularly interested in either the duathlon or the triathlon.

As far as training is concerned? I'm actually in okay shape for this time of year after such a bad outdoor running Winter. I'd like for the weather to calm down and start warming up now, though. I would love to be able to start riding my bike to work on a regular basis and run outside at least 5 days a week again. Um, pretty please, Winter?