The Blister and The Bike...

Last night before bed I carefully removed the band-aid that, earlier during my ski fun, I had placed on what was left of a blister. What I found was somewhat frightening...a blister that had formed with the flesh that had been remaining from the previous blister. Yipe.

I also noticed that the flesh that had been the original blister peeled away with the band-aid. Ew. The new blister must have formed on the ski back to the lodge. It now had some liquid and was the size of a quarter, as illustrated below. (No comments on how rough my heels are please...these are the heels of a mighty triathlete, not a beauty queen!)

The trick now would be to figure out how to cover that up so I could do my bike workout in the morning - especially because I don't wear socks in my bike shoes.

By the time I woke up this morning I had a semi plan for tackeling the blister issue. I just need to search for a band-aid big enough to cover it! Easy schmeasy. The search turned up a sterile pad I could use...but no steri strips to put it on with. Hmmm. Faced with such a dilemma, I requested the gerbil in my brain get off his hookah pillows and hop onto his treadmill in order to start working out option.

After only moments on the treadmill, the gerbil - brilliant that he is, shouted out 'DUCT TAPE!' Excellent....now where did I put the duct tape?? Unfortunately, I couldn't find it, so I used the next best thing - clear packing tape. My handy work is illustrated below.

It was a bit tricky putting my bike shoes on, but everything seemed to work out just fine. Now the big test, was I going to feel the blister with every pedal stroke???

Thankfully the answer to that question was no. All that was left to do now was to start pedaling!

Todays bike plan was another low cadence workout. After a 23 minute warm up I got right into the LC sets - five sets in total. Each set contained four minutes of pedaling at 70 rpm (using a hard gear to make it 70 rpm of course), then two minutes of squats.

The squats were done by placing an exercise ball against the wall, behind my back, and rolling down until I was in a seated position and my thighs were parallel to the ground . Then I'd hold it there for two seconds, then come back up again and with no rest at the top I'd get back down into that seated position.

The first 55 seconds of squats always went well, then the burn would kick in. There was a lot of mumbling and very big exhales as I continued in the sets. I tried to keep things interesting by changing the position of my feet for each set. This would work a different quad muscle each time.

Once my sets were done I continued on with 37 minutes of steady pedaling. The total workout time was 1.5 hours.

The workout itself was great. I felt like I had a lot of strength and because of the sets and switching things up the workout also went by quickly.

As for the blister, my clear tape system worked just fine. I could tell it was coming off my skin the more I would sweat, but my shoe was snug enough that it held the pad in place. The only time it hurt was when I had to walk from my bike to do the squats.

Of course all that sweating made the blister even bigger, so I had to do the dasterdly deed of popping it. Have no fear, only sterile appliances were used for such an operation.

Here's hoping it will heal up quickly because I have a run tomorrow evening. Oh, I just thought of another thing...hopefully the wee puncture hole will heal up before my swim tomorrow too because we all know how clean pools are!! All together now 'EWWWWWWWWW!!!'

Peace out my lovely friends.