Not Going to Honu

Sitting on the trainer, yet again, this afternoon, I thought deeply about how I'd come down to this and knew the only way out was to pull the plug now. I could not fathom sitting there for another ride while the California sun beamed and everyone talked, twittered, facebooked, blogged, etc etc about their epic rides, runs and I continued to "exercise".
I could have made this call 3 weeks ago when I first experienced the pain. Sure, taking that time completely off biking and running would probably have healed it by now and I would have lost some fitness and had a decent race in Honu.
But the thing is I cannot afford to have a decent race. Honu was key on my schedule this year because Hawaii is as "international" as my attorney and I can argue in court for my P-1 visa. I know it doesn't make much sense as Hawaii is still part of the 50 states, but that's the current immigration bullcrap for ya.
I need "international" results to get my P-1 visa- of course Kona is the main one as it's the World Championship, but there needed to be more.
Why couldn't I just travel outside the US to get real international races?? Well, I wouldn't have been able to get back in the US. My visa stamp is expired, I'm on an extension of my F-1 Student Visa (OPT) until Feb 2010 but if I travel outside the US I have to go to the embassy in Mexico and get another stamp. Given that my mom, now remarried to an American is a resident, and my brother a citizen, and that I've practically never lived in Mexico, it would be impossible for me to prove there's no intent for me to stay in the US for good.
So now thanks to my little knee injury, I have that much more pressure for Kona (good, I thrive in deep pressure), and can hope to find another 70.3 in June/July that I'll be healthy/fit enough to race to my fullest in and be able to explain in the court of law what happened with Honu- my international race.
So, that's that. I've handed my bike and run shoes to Kristin because I don't trust myself in a week or so that I'm itching to run and ride to not get going again. She'll be hiding them until 3 weeks time.
Look for me to be on fire at my next race.