Short post for this week:
Physical therapy is going rather well. I feel like my glutes are getting stronger and I have gained about 5 pounds since January. I think the large majority of this weight gain is muscle. Normally I would freak out gaining that much weight but I've gotten a lot stronger on the bike and I know it's the muscle gain that's helping me. I have about 3 weeks more PT before I can start running again. Strangely, I don't miss it anymore.
I'm loving my new TT bike and the mental and physical change it has brought on. I feel like I attack my bike rides now and use more power. I also am spending more time in the aero position. Definitely looking forward to doing some racing in the next couple of weeks and testing out how I feel cycling 56 miles after swimming 1.2 miles. After the races, my running can start again and I'll be able to slowly put the pieces of the puzzle together and see if they work.
This has not been the path I ever imagined I would take doing an Ironman. It's very unconventional. Let's see where it takes me.
Friday, April 29, 2011
Wednesday, April 20, 2011
Week 24: Finally, an answer
This is going to be a long blog this week. It's the story of triathlons for me and how I ended up not being able to run for 5 months. I started training for triathlons in February of last year. I did not have extensive experience in any of the 3 sports but I knew how to do them.
I ramped up my training pretty quickly and found that I excelled at running more than the other two sports. In triathlon, they say to "train your weakness". I did not heed this advice but instead trained my strength of running. My first race was in late April and 2 months later, I was experiencing IT band pain. The IT band runs along the outside of your upper leg between your knee and hip. It can pull on both joints and cause pain that just never goes away. It makes you think you have a bum knee...but you really don't. Typically people suggest using a foam roller or getting graston work done. I imagine this might work for some people and they cure the problem. All it did for me was place a huge band-aid on it so that I could continue to train and race but never solve the problem.
I design homes for a living. So the best example I can give is that if the foundation of your house is caving in, and your entire house is cracking inside, that all the tubes of caulk in the world are not going to solve the problem. Sure, you can caulk the crown over and over but that doesn't stop it from cracking again.
This was the same thing I was doing. I went to a chiropracter, a massage therapist, an acupunturist, used a foam roller, a stick, ice, heat, epsom salt baths, a TENS machine, and just about everything else including vitamins and pain killers. My knee ached continuously. Then I ran 15 miles in Florida in early November and I had ankle and foot pain that made running unbearable. The swelling was so bad they thought I had a stress fracture. After xrays and a bone scan, it was determined I didn't. That doc told me to start running again.
So I ramped up my running until March 20 when I ran 7 miles. The next day all the pain and swelling was back. The wheels fell off the wagon for me at that point. Because I honestly thought I would never run again. That it was all over for me. And I fell into a very very deep depression. I tried to convince myself that cycling and swimming would be enough for me. But I knew they weren't. And I just could not understand why such a common problem was not being solved.
Rest didn't work. Training through it didn't work. The plyometric exercises were not working.
Finally two of my teammates suggested seeing an MD. A sports medicine doctor. Ok, you might think that was the obvious choice 8 months ago. But it just was not the path I took.
Within one hour, he had xrayed my ankle and knee. Determined nothing was wrong with my joints. But that biomechanically, I was a complete mess. My gluteus medius muscles and piriformis muscles were so weak, they did not support me at all while running and my hips, knees, and ankles collapse when I try to run. It's a miracle I ran as long as I did. And as fast.
I started physical therapy immediately and the knee pain I have had for 9 months is now completely gone. My ankle and hips are still sore yet I am sure this too will subside. I have about 6 weeks of PT and then I can start running again.
I kept looking to fix the symptoms, instead of solving the cause. I know better than to do this and I'm not sure why I choose the path I took. It's hard work doing exercises twice a day, PT twice a week, and continue to swim and bike my training schedule. Maybe I was looking for the easy way out. Letting someone else do the work...ie massage, graston, etc are all done by someone else. Not me.
The good I take away from this is that I have become a much better cyclist and swimmer. And I did not quit. And that I do know that no matter how low I may fall, I can pull myself out of it and come back. I am looking forward to rocking the run on my Ironman. I am looking forward to staying healthy and never ever letting it get that bad again. And helping anyone along the way who struggled the same way I did. Because in the end, I would not have made it if it weren't for the help of others.
I ramped up my training pretty quickly and found that I excelled at running more than the other two sports. In triathlon, they say to "train your weakness". I did not heed this advice but instead trained my strength of running. My first race was in late April and 2 months later, I was experiencing IT band pain. The IT band runs along the outside of your upper leg between your knee and hip. It can pull on both joints and cause pain that just never goes away. It makes you think you have a bum knee...but you really don't. Typically people suggest using a foam roller or getting graston work done. I imagine this might work for some people and they cure the problem. All it did for me was place a huge band-aid on it so that I could continue to train and race but never solve the problem.
I design homes for a living. So the best example I can give is that if the foundation of your house is caving in, and your entire house is cracking inside, that all the tubes of caulk in the world are not going to solve the problem. Sure, you can caulk the crown over and over but that doesn't stop it from cracking again.
This was the same thing I was doing. I went to a chiropracter, a massage therapist, an acupunturist, used a foam roller, a stick, ice, heat, epsom salt baths, a TENS machine, and just about everything else including vitamins and pain killers. My knee ached continuously. Then I ran 15 miles in Florida in early November and I had ankle and foot pain that made running unbearable. The swelling was so bad they thought I had a stress fracture. After xrays and a bone scan, it was determined I didn't. That doc told me to start running again.
So I ramped up my running until March 20 when I ran 7 miles. The next day all the pain and swelling was back. The wheels fell off the wagon for me at that point. Because I honestly thought I would never run again. That it was all over for me. And I fell into a very very deep depression. I tried to convince myself that cycling and swimming would be enough for me. But I knew they weren't. And I just could not understand why such a common problem was not being solved.
Rest didn't work. Training through it didn't work. The plyometric exercises were not working.
Finally two of my teammates suggested seeing an MD. A sports medicine doctor. Ok, you might think that was the obvious choice 8 months ago. But it just was not the path I took.
Within one hour, he had xrayed my ankle and knee. Determined nothing was wrong with my joints. But that biomechanically, I was a complete mess. My gluteus medius muscles and piriformis muscles were so weak, they did not support me at all while running and my hips, knees, and ankles collapse when I try to run. It's a miracle I ran as long as I did. And as fast.
I started physical therapy immediately and the knee pain I have had for 9 months is now completely gone. My ankle and hips are still sore yet I am sure this too will subside. I have about 6 weeks of PT and then I can start running again.
I kept looking to fix the symptoms, instead of solving the cause. I know better than to do this and I'm not sure why I choose the path I took. It's hard work doing exercises twice a day, PT twice a week, and continue to swim and bike my training schedule. Maybe I was looking for the easy way out. Letting someone else do the work...ie massage, graston, etc are all done by someone else. Not me.
The good I take away from this is that I have become a much better cyclist and swimmer. And I did not quit. And that I do know that no matter how low I may fall, I can pull myself out of it and come back. I am looking forward to rocking the run on my Ironman. I am looking forward to staying healthy and never ever letting it get that bad again. And helping anyone along the way who struggled the same way I did. Because in the end, I would not have made it if it weren't for the help of others.
Wednesday, April 13, 2011
Week 23: Time to go back to basics
I missed the post for last week because I was in Florida "previewing" the Gulf Coast Course which is kind of a joke in the sense that I'm doing the swim part of a relay and didn't need to bike or run the rest of the course. But it is good previewing for IMFL. And the swim was quite the eye opener. I never imagined that there would be so much fog that I would be unable to sight. And we stopped so many times that I became seasick. So Gulf Coast really will teach me what IMFL will be like.
With that said, the buoyancy was out of this world. Between the wetsuit and the salt water (and the current), I don't think I was actually swimming. It was more like steering. I wasn't kicking hardly at all. I had to remind myself to kick. And each pull of my arm sent me skyrocketing forwards. It must be what its like to do Augusta 70.3. We were swimming parallel to the beach so if we had been swimming out to sea, it would have been different. I didn't do the 2nd swim but my friends told me that when they reversed direction, it was swimming as hard as they could just to "stand still".
So I'm ready for rough waters, yes it was pretty rough, and FOG. I don't know if I'm ready for 1.2 miles of it but it's coming soon. I'm quite comfortable doing 1.2 miles in a pool or a lake. I'm just wondering what it will be like in the open sea.
Now on to the bike. We decided that riding a bike in aero position with lots of drunk and crazed teens around us was not a good idea. So we drove out to the tail end of the course and did 8.5 mile loops until we got dizzy and decided a 4 mile stretch of freeway would be ok to get to the next 8.5 mile loop of the course. The first one was Pine Log Road and it is NOT smooth sailing. It's ok...just not as perfect as the other road, Steel Mill, was. Steel Mill was like a dream. Florida is flat. It is not false flat like Silver Comet. It is FLAT.
There was a lot of wind but somehow it only bothered me for very short sections. The part on the highway was very fast both ways..kind of weird...how the heck did I go 20 mph both ways? And I was not riding aero. I ended up averaging 16.5 mph for 52 miles. It's the fastest I have ever gone for that distance. But the most interesting part to me is I didn't push. I kept my heart rate at 5-10 beats under LT. I was never breathing hard or really even sweating. Low gear and high cadence and low heart rate. The ride was my favorite part of the weekend.
So why did I name this "back to the basics"? The IMFL course is where I messed up my ankle. It was over 5 months ago. When I was down there and realized it had been 5 months, I knew I had to get my act together and get my ankle fixed. Although I have been to two "doctors", a massage therapist and an acupunturist, I have never been to a REAL doctor. An MD. Tomorrow I go back to the basics and see a Sports Medicine Doctor. I'm going to find out what is wrong. And together we will fix it. I'm not about to give up what I love most doing. There has to be a reason for the pain to continue this long.
With that said, the buoyancy was out of this world. Between the wetsuit and the salt water (and the current), I don't think I was actually swimming. It was more like steering. I wasn't kicking hardly at all. I had to remind myself to kick. And each pull of my arm sent me skyrocketing forwards. It must be what its like to do Augusta 70.3. We were swimming parallel to the beach so if we had been swimming out to sea, it would have been different. I didn't do the 2nd swim but my friends told me that when they reversed direction, it was swimming as hard as they could just to "stand still".
So I'm ready for rough waters, yes it was pretty rough, and FOG. I don't know if I'm ready for 1.2 miles of it but it's coming soon. I'm quite comfortable doing 1.2 miles in a pool or a lake. I'm just wondering what it will be like in the open sea.
Now on to the bike. We decided that riding a bike in aero position with lots of drunk and crazed teens around us was not a good idea. So we drove out to the tail end of the course and did 8.5 mile loops until we got dizzy and decided a 4 mile stretch of freeway would be ok to get to the next 8.5 mile loop of the course. The first one was Pine Log Road and it is NOT smooth sailing. It's ok...just not as perfect as the other road, Steel Mill, was. Steel Mill was like a dream. Florida is flat. It is not false flat like Silver Comet. It is FLAT.
There was a lot of wind but somehow it only bothered me for very short sections. The part on the highway was very fast both ways..kind of weird...how the heck did I go 20 mph both ways? And I was not riding aero. I ended up averaging 16.5 mph for 52 miles. It's the fastest I have ever gone for that distance. But the most interesting part to me is I didn't push. I kept my heart rate at 5-10 beats under LT. I was never breathing hard or really even sweating. Low gear and high cadence and low heart rate. The ride was my favorite part of the weekend.
So why did I name this "back to the basics"? The IMFL course is where I messed up my ankle. It was over 5 months ago. When I was down there and realized it had been 5 months, I knew I had to get my act together and get my ankle fixed. Although I have been to two "doctors", a massage therapist and an acupunturist, I have never been to a REAL doctor. An MD. Tomorrow I go back to the basics and see a Sports Medicine Doctor. I'm going to find out what is wrong. And together we will fix it. I'm not about to give up what I love most doing. There has to be a reason for the pain to continue this long.
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