Snaking out of training

I'll confess. I haven't really trained at all this week. Not a bike ride taken, not a yard swum, not a single kilometer run. I have done my morning weight training, but it's been scaled back a bit. I will admit I did go for one walk.

Am I quitting tri? Am I turning to CrossFit? Have I lost my mind?

None of the above.

I GOT MY HUGE TATTOO DESIGN COMPLETED!

Warning: bewbs.

What you see above is the state of my Massassauga rattlesnake from approximately early 2003 until last Saturday. The linework was mostly there and the shading had mostly been done around the back of my neck, but there was a lot of blank space. The amazing Heather Myles of Inksmith Tattoos in Guelph agreed to take on the task of bringing my snake to life more than 10 years after the original artist had disappeared. Seriously - I'd been waiting to get this finished longer than I've been married!

It was certainly no walk in the park having my sternum poked repeatedly with needles, but Heather made it as pleasant as possible and it was incredible to watch the design unfold under her talented hand.

She laid in heavy lines first, then brought out the shader and filled the design with soft greys. His one visible eye turned shades of vivid green, with a cheeky gleam in the pupil. After 3 hours of work, I was absolutely delighted with the outcome!

Since then, I've been sore. Oddly enough, your chest is pretty good at telling you when it's sustained some damage, and that this is NOT A GOOD THING from a survival standpoint. I've been caring diligently for the tattoo, but since soaking it for long periods in water or exposure to bacteria could damage the work (and/or me), training has been put on hiatus. I've been spending as much time as possible topless and haven't even been able to contemplate wearing a bra to the office, let alone having a sports bra rubbing on the new ink during a run. I finally got in for my first real shower last night (relax: I've been having a good wash every day, but spongebath-style), and am very happy not to have needed to wash of days worth of sweat. It was bad enough I ended up having to shovel out our driveway on Sunday afternoon - moving 5+" of snow by hand with a sore chest wasn't much fun!

The second flake is now finished and I "graduated" this morning from using vitamin E ointment on the new ink to a good slathering of hand lotion - he's nearly healed! I'd actually contemplate training this evening, but apart from it being date night (every Friday without fail) it's also my office Christmas dinner. So, I'll wait until tomorrow to see how snakey feels about going out for a bit of a run. Hoping that the freezing rain won't kill off all the snow that we got from last weekend - I'm itching to crack out the cross-country skis!

There's still more work to be done - the original linework needs to be freshened up, and I'd like to fill in the design with some soft brown & white highlights. That, however, is going to have to wait until I get some training done - Around the Bay is only 100 days away!