At Last

Kiwi finally has a diagnosis. The results from her endoscopy came back from the lab, and it turns out that she does indeed have IBD. There's good news and still some lingering questions that come with her diagnosis. Evidently the labs revealed that she has MILD irritable bowel disease. That's good as far as treatment goes, but the specialist said that a mild case may not explain everything that Kiwi has been experiencing. That's a little frustrating, but at least we can start treating something. Kiwi will be on prednisone for the next month or so, and supposedly we should see some pretty immediate results from that. According to the vet, once we get the inflammation down, Kiwi should be able to resume a pretty normal life, which includes running.

Speaking of running, I've been doing a little of that. It's amazing how much weight has been lifted off my shoulders with Kiwi's improvement. Last week was my biggest of the year. Friday and Saturday combined for my biggest back-to-back ever. On Friday morning, Adam Lint and I headed out to North Bend for a double ascent of Mt. Si (my first of the season). Both times up were under 50 minutes and felt great. On our way back from Si, Adam and I flagged the five mile course for Saturday's Cougar Mountain race. Then on Saturday I took part in the Watershed Preserve 12 Hour. 12 hours of running a 5.3 mile loop was not my idea of fun, but I felt like it would be a great opportunity to figure out my nutrition plan for Western and get some solid time on my feet. I actually only ended up running 10:37. In that time, I ran 69.88 miles. With 80 minutes or so left to run, I could have pushed well into the mid 70's, but I didn't want to put myself into too great a deficit. I feel great about having run 90 or so miles in two days. My week ended up at 127 miles. I know that's become quite pedestrian these days, but for me that's a HUGE week. With about 4 weeks of hard training left, I'm feeling really good about my current fitness.

And the last little bit of good news comes from the Tonight Show with Conan O'Brien. His debut is June 1st, and his first musical guest will be none other than my favorite band PEARL JAM. They will evidenty be playing new songs from their forthcoming album. That rocks!