Injuries… This too will heal.
I will be seeing my Physical Therapist on Wednesday to take another look at my orthotics and hopefully determine why my knees are not liking the latest adjustments. I exchanged emails last week, and she assured me that we’d get it resolved with a few more tweaks.
In the meantime, I’ve been concerned about running, since my last effort (only 1.5miles) was the first time in a long time I had to abandon a run… which is to say, I haven’t stopped running in the middle of a run since two years ago when I got my first stress fracture. Heck, even last year in the Seattle Marathon, when I got a second stress fracture at mile 23, I still finished the race… although, I walked miles 24-26 and only attempted to run again the last 100 yards… ouch! Don’t try this at home kids!
It probably sounds like I’ve had a lot of injuries… but really, I think I’ve been relatively blessed in my sports related accidents. My story of “broken parts” really doesn’t seem that bad when I put it in perspective.
Here’s the quick list:
- Oct. 2005 - Calcaneus Stress Fracture (right heel) - Training for my first Marathon, ramped too quickly (I thought) and got a stress fracture. I healed very quickly (5 weeks) and was back running again in time to train for my first Ironman Sept 2006.
- May 2006 - Crashed my bike twice in 2 weeks, got a big old goose egg on my left hip, healed, then crashed again, another goose egg and bruise in the same place. Learned my lessons… learn to steer! Watch out for rain!
- May 2006 - Strained hip flexor (left side) - This wasn’t a good month for me and cycling. But a strained hip flexor is an easy injury to come back from, for me it was caused by not stretching enough. Once I added pre-ride stretches, this problem cured itself pretty quickly. Now I know how to listen to this part of my body better.
- August 2006 - Crashed my bike again, this time only going about 5 mph, but I actually crashed into a parked car with so much force that I snapped the side view mirror of the car off. The result, bruised ribs (ouch), and an ugly bruise and dent in my right bicep. With only 4 weeks before my Ironman, this was a bad time for an injury… it brought some serious doubt into my head. But I survived and raced… and had a great time on my Ironman. The moral of this story: make sure you have your bike chain and drive train serviced regularly!
- November 2006 - Calcaneus Stress Fracture AGAIN (left foot) - Mile 23 of the Seattle Marathon is not where you want to get a stress fracture… or mile 23 of any marathon… or mile anything of any run. Interestingly enough, this one led to my doctor realizing there is a pattern… my high arches leading to poor foot mechanics and all of my non-crash related injuries.
- May 2007 - 5 months of using my orthotics to fix my high arches that led to my stress fracture and hip problems… turns into a case of plantar fasciitis.
- June 2007 - Orthotic adjustments, corrected PF leads to hip problem.
- June 2007 - Orthotic adjustments, correct hip problem leads to worse PF and Knee problems.
So, it turns out that the root of all these non-crash injuries are my high arches, and me being a stubborn pig who things the right approach is to “power through the pain”… which of course suits my nature and my chosen event (Ironman) but it means that if I’m tone deaf to my body, then I can run the risk of making a small injury worse.
I think most people in the world could stand to do a better job of listening, and I am not only not an exception to that, but I am in the upper quartile of people who could be a better listener. So here is my pledge to myself (and incidentally to the world)… I will be a better listener. I can start by listening to my own body better. But by learning to really hear my body when it’s screaming or whispering, I think I can become a better listener in general.
I am confident my PT and I will get the kinks worked out of my orthotics, and I will be able to continue to train for my Ironman, and my hope of qualifying for Boston… This too will heal!
In the mean time, I’ll take my runs slower, and shorter.
Workout:
- Type: Run
- Date: 06/25/2007
- Time: 16:00:00
- Total Time: 00:58:30.00
- Average Heart rate: 130
- Max Heart rate: 148
- Calories: 1049
- Distance: 6.35 miles
- Average Pace: 9:13/mile
Filed under: Fitness, Ironman, Run, exercise, sports injuries, triathlon
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Can I wear a life jacket?
I had my teeth cleaned today. As I was chatting with the dental hygienist (Who’s friend was telling her about Sweat365… huh, small world eh?) she mentioned that she wanted to do a triathlon last year, but she was so afraid of the swim she wanted to wear a life jacket.
Apparently the race organizers dissuaded her from racing and she gave her slot over to a friend, who she of course went out and cheered for. Much to her dismay as she watched the race, she saw another racer come out of the water wearing a life jacket! She was really bummed that she didn’t get to race.
I tried to tell her… most racers hate the swim (actually I think I said “everyone” which is probably a little white lie because some people like the swim)… but most don’t… in fact of all the triathletes I’ve ever spoken to in person about the race, I can only remember one of them say “oh yes, I like the swim”… most of us say “jeeze I can’t wait to get out of the water”.
Anyway, after the dentist I went to the pool, and swam my mind numbingly slow laps. I wasn’t the slowest person in the pool. In fact, I started in the “fast lane” because when I got there the slow lane was half closed for “wave making class” and the medium lane had the true slow swimmers in it. Since I’m normally a medium swimmer, I bumped up with another medium swimmer.
After about 10 minutes, a true fast swimmer showed up, and joined me and the other medium swimmer in the fast lane. We began circle swimming, but actually, it was more like us medium swimmers trying to stay out of this guys way. He was totally polite and didn’t seem to notice the flailing sea lions in his lane.
It was amazing watching this guy swim. He was so effortless. In fact he looked like he was swimming in slow motion…. but he was anything but slow. He freakin laps me while he was “pulling” and I was using full strokes. Amazing!
Workout:
- Type: Swim
- Date: 06/25/2007
- Time: 12:00:00
- Total Time: 00:30:00.00
- Distance: 1,000 m
- Average Pace: 3:00.4/100m
Filed under: Ironman, Swim, triathlon
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Walking Around Downtown
To and from the Dentist office to my car to the pool to my car… la la la.
Workout:
- Type: Walk
- Date: 06/25/2007
- Time: 07:00:00
- Total Time: 00:30:00.00
- Distance: 2 miles
- Average Pace: 15:00/mile
Filed under: Walk
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Flexibility - 0.2 hours - 06/24/2007
Workout:
- Type: Flexibility
- Date: 06/24/2007
- Total Time: 00:14:24.00
Filed under: Flexibility
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Lake Washington Loop… still a little looped.
The downside to having less body fat? You’re not just lighter, you’re a light weight… And it seems to me that the effect of a little too much wine or whiskey sits with me a lot longer… as in I’ll end up being run down for a couple days instead of bouncing right back.
Now, don’t get the wrong idea here… Friday night wasn’t even that crazy… between four adults we did finish a bottle of white wine, and a bottle of red wine… and one round of cocktails… And we did have a pretty hearty dinner, with Pasta, Salmon, Asparagus (baked with cheese, yum!), salad, bread, etc…
Maybe it was the ice cream cake and pizza at the kids party? Or the French toast and/or chocolate chip pancakes for breakfast this morning? Too many carbs means more water retention means feeling sloshy. Hmmm, that sounds slightly more dignified. I guess I’ll go with that.
So today’s ride, weather was OK when I was riding, not sunny, more like what we call here in Seattle “Sun spots”… which I guess means small spots in the grey sky where the sun peeks through. It did start a light rain around 25 miles into my ride, fortunately I had my rain jacket. And there was a fair amount of wind.
I made it around the lake, but I didn’t have time for my run, as my wife had to head off to an appointment. My plan is to attempt a run later tonight after the kids are in bed. The question is, will my knees cooperate? I have an appointment with my Physical Therapist on Wednesday. She says “no long runs” until she has checked me out. So I’m hoping for 10miles… that’s not long right? Plus, I’ll try REALLY REALLY hard to run 9:00/mile or slower…
We’ll see.
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 06/24/2007
- Total Time: 2:54:31.00
- Average Heart rate: 138
- Max Heart rate: 158
- Calories: 2253
- Distance: 50.67 miles
- Average Speed: 17.42 mph
- Max Speed: 33.6 mph
- Ascent: 3,259 ft
- Descent: 3,259 ft
- Average Cadence: 81
- Max Cadence: 120
Filed under: Cycle
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Recovery Ride - Recovering from Bacchanalian Excess
I wasn’t recovering from a hard effort as much as recovering from a long afternoon/evening of great food and wine… followed by waking up early (9am?) to round up the kids and take them to our 5 year olds birthday party with too much pizza and ice cream cake.
Granted, the birthday party was at “Pump it up!” a local kids birthday/party hall where they have inflatable bouncy houses, the moral equivalent of a padded cell for 5 year olds. And as my wife said after bouncing around in “The Jousting Ring” for about 5 minutes… “WOW! That’s a workout!”
But the result of drinking at least half a bottle of wine (although I suspect I drank more than double my share) last night… along with at least one Kamakaze (not exactly my idea of a cocktail [1, 2, 3] , but that was all the house had ingredients for)… has left me sore and grumpy.
After getting home from the party, and fighting with Network Solutions to transfer a domain registration over (they really make it hard and then after talking to a customer service representative they still sent me three automated email messages suggesting that “if I had simply switched my ISP there was no reason to stop using them as a domain registrar”… No duh… but the fact that you charge 5x the amount of the same service at 20 other registrars is a perfect good reason to do so!)… I was finally able to muster up the stamina to get on my bike and head out the door for a ride.
I knew I probably needed a nice flat ride, and I needed to be willing to go slow. I made it 13 miles at about an 18.5mph average, which I later found out was assisted by a tail wind. Around 13 miles, I got passed by some guy, so I sped up to catch his wheel. We rolled around at around 21mph, and then as we rolled down a small hill, and up it again, I took the lead on the up hill. He grabbed my wheel, and I decided to drop the hammer. (I may be hung over, but I’m still competitive.)
Anyway, we rolled a couple miles down the road with me pushing harder and harder, and then right in the middle of the trail was a family with a pre-teen girl with her bike parked lengthwise across the trail. Of course I saw her maybe a tenth of a mile away (or more) and so I signaled to the rider behind me that there was a hazard approaching. And I called out “Heads up!” to which the girls reaction was to lazily turn to face us and roller her bike further across the trail now blocking the entire trail. That’s smart!
We slowed, and missed any issue, but as we rode past her father yelled out at us “Slow down!”… Now honestly, we may have been traveling a little fast. But the truth is we were in complete control, and there was no real danger (because both of us were pretty aware riders), but this girl was in fact being reckless and had other more careless riders been passing there could have been serious injuries.
After passing that mess, the momentum was broken and the other rider and I had a chance to chat. We exchanged compliments about each others level of fitness (although I didn’t admit to being burned out from the night before) and exchanged names and numbers. Maybe we’ll meet up for a ride sometime. It’s alway nice to meet friendly skilled riders.
Of course, after another couple miles, I turned around and slowed my pace to more like 17mph. I also felt I owed penance for my erroneous 8% grade claim from the other day, so I forced myself to ride up the back side of Simonds Road. Which, at 5% grade (I checked this time) is not nearly as steep as the West-East direction… but still a nice little hill climb.
Tomorrow… I hope to ride at least 50 miles, and run at least 10 miles. No wine tonight!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 06/23/2007
- Time: 15:00:00
- Total Time: 2:10:00.00
- Average Heart rate: 130
- Max Heart rate: 160
- Distance: 37 miles
- Average Speed: 17.08 mph
- Max Speed: 36 mph
- Average Cadence: 90
- Max Cadence: 120
Filed under: Cycle
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Flexibility - 0.3 hours - 06/23/2007
Workout:
- Type: Flexibility
- Date: 06/23/2007
- Total Time: 00:15:00.00
Filed under: Flexibility
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Flexibility - 0.3 hours - 06/22/2007
Workout:
- Type: Flexibility
- Date: 06/22/2007
- Total Time: 00:15:00.00
Filed under: Flexibility
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Single Speed Commute to/from Bellevue
Went to lunch with Phil and old friend Deb today. We ate pizza! Mmm… good!
Also stopped in to see Rob Cromwell and the old gang at my old job. Rob had a bug complaint about Sweat365, and he wanted to show me the “repro case” (that’s what we call it in the biz). Turns out he was doing something kinda interesting with the “Time of Day” field… actually, it’s a cool idea that will probably become a feature. But the way he was doing it, it was sending his workouts into the distant past (like before he was born). Ahh… ain’t bugs grand!?
Rode my single speed, thanks to the inspiration of Randy… I actually got to experience the amazing “built in speed” of a single speed on hill climbs. Now this is the thing… most people are afraid of fixies or single speed bikes when it comes to hills. They figure “oh man, that would suck to go up hill with only one gear”… and well, it’s not easy… BUT… it’s amazing how much faster you go up hill when you can’t down shift. I know this sounds counter intuitive, but it really is true.
I rode up Big Finn Hill in Kirkland/Kenmore which is about 1.5 miles of 8% average grade… and I averaged 17mph up this hill without even trying. I mean, I just flew, and I didn’t feel like I was working it hard at all. It’s amazing… I credit the bike… it’s all the bike!
Workout:
- Type: Cycle
- Date: 06/21/2007
- Total Time: 2:42:08.00
- Average Heart rate: 140
- Max Heart rate: 168
- Calories: 2001
- Distance: 47.23 miles
- Average Speed: 17.48 mph
- Max Speed: 36 mph
Filed under: Cycle, fixed gear, fixie, single-speed
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Walk it off!
After my 50 mile bike ride… and attempted 3 mile run today… that turned into a 2.5 mile run… I was still half a mile from home. Had to walk it.
Workout:
- Type: Walk
- Date: 06/20/2007
- Time: 15:50:00
- Total Time: 00:08:00.00
- Distance: 0.5 miles
- Average Pace: 16:00/mile
Filed under: Walk
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