Huffing & Puffing Hill Climbing

As I sit here sipping my strawberry, blue berry and mango smoothie, I'm feeling pretty good.  This morning, I was huffing & puffing trying to make headway through 25 mph winds and up hills that used to be so easy.  Not so anymore.  After a 1 1/2 year hiatus, I finally tried riding up Yaupon today.  Yaupon is a three-tiered climb generally requiring use of the small chain ring.  Today, Vicki and I rode our usual Great Hills route which finishes by going down and back up Yaupon.   I did fine throughout the early part of the ride: Raincreek spiked my heart rate, but I made it up.  When my heart rate hit 185 on Yaupon, I had to divert over to a side road to let my heart rate drop before finishing the rest of the climb.  We ran about a mile after our ride.   As Vicki wisely reminded me: This is the worse it will feel this year.  I'm happy about that fact.  Thanks Vicki.

I work really hard to not compare my current fitness level or ability to what it was before cancer, but some days it is hard.  Today was one of those days.  Now. Here. This.  I'm thrilled to be out on my bike and getting stronger.  The mountain won't win for much longer.  

I'm off in a few minutes to start the process of getting custom silicone breast prosthetics which will replace the bean-bag, generic ones I have now.  I can't quite commit myself to reconstruction surgery at this point so this is great option.  Today's focus is matching skin tone color, figuring out how many freckles and picking the appropriate size.  Later this month, I'll have a chest scan done so they can contour the prosthetics to fit on my chest.  Pretty cool process.  See all the fun stuff you get to do once you've had breast cancer?

Time to brag about Elise for a moment.  Elise started working at HEB as a bagger about 5 months ago.  She was recently nominated by her peers and selected by management to be her store's recipient of an HEB Women of Distinction Award.  It's a big deal not only because she got an award but also since she's only worked there for a short time on a part-time basis.  We are very proud of her.  She will receive her award at a luncheon at Cool River on March 27th.  Yeah, Elise!