T minus 15 days.     Bike + run = death

I don't like surprises.  I like to be told things up front (unless it has to do with my birthday in which case, bring it).  I don't like to find out something happens a certain way and only after the fact learn everybody else already knew.  For example, when you are pregnant your nose gets stuffy. Nobody told me this.  Or that when you are pregnant your feet get bigger.  I'm not talking bigger as in a little bit swollen bigger.  I'm talking a whole size bigger as in clown feet.  And they stay that way.  Even after the baby's born.  Also, your joints become looser.  This probably doesn't mean a whole to you.  It didn't mean a lot to me, either.  Until.....

Once upon a time in a faraway land (Chicago) there lived a fair young mother, swollen with child,  her charming, handsome husband and their precious (and quite precocious) little girl.   One day after  handsome husband went off to earn his daily keep,  precious little girl developed a  horrible red rash.  "Oh dear," exclaimed our fair young mother, "what horrible plague has befallen our precious daughter?  I must bring her with great haste to the doctor."  She immediately set off.  They arrived at the doctor's only to discover he was on a house call  and would be a bit late.  "Well, that's ok," our fair mother said, "I will simply sit here on the floor with my precious young daughter and read to her."  She lowered herself carefully to the ground, gathered her precious young daughter in her lap and started to read.  Time passed. Books were read.  Eventually the doctor arrived.  Precious (and precocious) young daughter jumped up and exclaimed "I have a rash."  Fair young mother got up, too.  Or, to be more precise, fair young mother attempted to get up.   " What the  *#*&%#??!!"   It was at this exact moment, when fair young mother's knee exploded and would no longer work,  that fair young mother discovered your joints get looser when you are pregnant.  Surprise.

I don't like surprises.  Tonight I was surprised.
 To be continued......