Lulea Sweden

It's been a while since I was on my Sweden / Euro adventure. Thanks to foot surgery resulting in additional free time, in the next few weeks I've decided to post my favorite photos from the trip.

After Ironman Sweden I flew up north to a town called Lulea in Sweden. When my Mom was 19 she spent a summer working in this town and living with a friend and her relatives. We spent a few days in the town and went to see the house she used to live in before we traveled further up north above the Arctic Circle.

There's a small town near Lulea called Gammelstaden that is basically a church town. Many years ago it was required for people to go to church, but many lived far away from the local church. So they would travel several days to get to the church, stay in this "church town" overnight, then travel home.

These fences were in Gammelstaden and were so simple, yet so complex.

This final shot is one I captured while running the last day I was in Lulea. It was the only foggy day on the entire trip.

Foot

I mentioned in my Sweden report that I have a foot issue that has been around a long time. I've thought it might be Hagland's Deformity, but wasn't sure. Yesterday I saw a doc, who confirmed I do in fact have this wonderfully-named condition. He also confirmed what I have figured for a while, which is that if I quit running the extra bone on the back of my foot won't impinge on my Achilles and hurt it. But that bone won't magically disappear, so when I do run again, it will hurt, unless a doctor goes in there and removes that bone.

My left foot, with my extra pointy bone on the heal.

The bump on the back of my foot that hurts.

Sexy side foot profile.

Yesterday I was diagnosed and tomorrow I'm having surgery to say farewell to the extra bone on my foot. I figured it would be a month or so before they could schedule me, but when I was told my doctor had an opening tomorrow I jumped on that appointment, knowing very well that if I had a lot of time to sit around and contemplate surgery, I would literally RUN in the other direction. I know I want the surgery and I want to fix and rehab my foot, but the idea of someone cutting open my foot and shaving bone off completely freaks me out! I've never been in a hospital other than the one in Tobago when I super-manned off my bicycle and I have thankfully never had surgery.

I wasn't going to post any of this until after the surgery because to be honest, my surgery seems small compared to my childhood friend who is also having surgery tomorrow. Her surgery is for cancer and will take 6-8 hours. My surgery takes about an hour, and it's not a life-saving surgery. So for some reason it seems silly for me to be scared. But I am.

Supposedly after my heal is slimmed down I'll have more free time for several weeks when I'm unable to do any sort of training. If anyone has great tips to occupy my time and keep myself from going crazy I'd love to hear them. So far the only thing I have thought of is learning to knit...