I Hurt!!!

I have no idea what's going on right now. Last week after the race my shins and right calf are starting to really hurt. I feel like it shouldn't be from over-training. My training schedule has been having long runs on the weekend with a short run during the week. I haven't knocked up my mileage nor have I increased days. Oh, that's right, I did increase my days. Last weekend I ran both days as bricks and was really getting worked on the run.

Either way, I need to get this figured out because I was finally making some headway on my run and I don't want to lose the progress now. So the question is "what do I do?" Either I go through the pain and hope I don't get a stress fracture, or I back off and lose some running fitness. I'm leaning toward backing off, but it's so hard to take mentally. I still want to get out there and work hard to make progress towards my goal, but I don't want to take one step forward only to take two backwards.

The more I think about it the more logical it becomes I need to rest. Especially since last weekend I had a hard time sleeping and have been really sluggish this week. Might need to take my week off a little early. Stupid block training schedule!

Tough One

This week has been pretty tough for me mentally and physically. I had a race on Saturday and got 3rd in my age group. I felt pretty good about the result but thought I could do a little bit better. I trained right through the race, so it wasn't going to be pretty, so I guess I should be pleased.

The training for the last two weeks has been tough and continuing. I haven't had a day off yet in this new block. That means i'm at 14 straight days and I'm starting to get strung out. Today after a 2.5 hour ride I had a short 35 minute run. It went pretty well overall, but towards the end I was struggling to keep a smiling face. My emotions were starting to get the best of me and I really started to struggle with things.

The point of this post is for me to bitch apparently. I might need to get a day off in here soon, so I don't crack...

Wheelset

My dream bike is ready and rarin to go! I went and picked up my wheelset on Saturday but just rode the bike this morning. It was slightly breezy this morning and afternoon when I got out on my rides, but the wheelset even handled well (fairly well anyways) in crosswinds. The greatest part was that I only made it 2 blocks from my house when I got a flat! Ridiculous. Then I was trying to figure out how to use the extender for the valve... anyways, it took me a while to change a flat this time. I am glad it happened then than at a race, though.

There was a huge difference on the flats between these and the training wheels. Plus, they rolled so much better and were insanely smooth.

I planned on getting a couple of flat rides today to really test 'em out on the flats, but ended up doing some hilly rides with a few others. It was a ton of fun! Plus, both rides worked me over. I had a hard run yesterday and got worked at that too. I felt great about the pace and made some improvements on my 10 mile pace. I have my running partner to thank for that, though.

Other than the new bike and some good workouts this last week, life has been pretty good. Work was a little stressful last week but overall pretty good. It was noted to me by a friend that he thought I might not like my job. I quickly said I loved it! I come on here and rant sometimes so the negative does tend to come out at times. But that also means the great things come out also. More to the point: I love my job. I've been meeting some great people around here and have been loving the area too. No complaints coming from me!

Hope life is well for everyone else too!

Seattle

Without skiing and climbing trips to report I find my life is fairly bland... in relative terms. I've been missing the backcountry and have been scheming up some plans to get out as soon as it gets slightly nice. I had the idea of biking about 60 miles into the Cascades with a bivy sack, some clothes, a lot of food, and a stove; park the bike and start on a solo hiking trip for a night. Get out there and push myself as hard as I can for 48 hours. I want to seek some of the adventure that I lost since last year. Who knows if I'll get around to it, but it's on my mind. 

On another note, I keep trying to post some of my training on here but find it's quite boring. I get outside for runs here and there and have even managed a couple of cold bikes, but for the most part it's all inside on the trainer, in the pool, or at the gym. And let's face it... me telling you that I ran 8 miles on the treadmill constantly gets boring. So while things are slow now, I'll get on top of it when I'm outside more and getting out to races. Races start at the end of April and will run through August for sure, and hopefully through October. 

I've also been trying to post about Fritz coming out the other weekend. It's been a while since we were drinking beers together in grad school. Fritz now has his dream job over in Minneapolis being something weird like an economist. He got a trip together to come over here and hang out for the weekend. As it just so happens... it was rainy in Seattle. Weird, I know. 

We spent our first night drinking as much good beer as possible and sitting outside by a fire eating pizza. Who can beat that? Too good. We basically spent the entire weekend catching up and playing tourist: checking out the Space Needle, going downtown to PIke Place Market, drinking a ton of coffee, nursing a hangover, riding the ferries out to the peninsula, and eating sushi. All of that pretty much summarizes Seattle. 

 

Relief

Thursday I had an appointment to see a bio-movement specialist here in town. I was a bit nervous because I didn't want to hear about a long-term problem that would take me away from training. Fortunately that wasn't the case. Initially she had me stand up without shoes on to do a gait analysis and look at my hips. The first thing she says: "has anyone ever told you you have a short right leg?" Wonderful... at least that's fixable with an insert in my shoe. Then I do a few one leg squat exercises so she can see how my knee and ankle move. Nothing too crazy came out of that. Then I laid face down with my feet hanging off the edge of the table, and I find out I have a pretty big over-pronation. I was told more than double the normal pronation. So now I have a slight lift in my right shoe, and modified superfeet.

At the end of the appointment I ask if I can run and she tells me yes as if it's surprising I asked that question. Well, just a few days ago I had horrible hip pain and sharp knee pain. Are you saying I'm ready now and this is an easy fix?

So I head to the gym and get in 4.5 miles on the treadmill. No pain or anything! Hip was still a little tired, but nothing like it was. It felt great.

Now I'm back on hitting the workouts hard. Had a solid swim on Friday, 2 hour bike with 20 minute intervals and a 20 minute run on Saturday, and a 1 hour bike with 4x5minute intervals on Sunday. Today, as usual, I get worked over at masters. 3x300, 100 kick, 3x200, 100 kick, 3x100, 6x50 sprints. That was just the main set! Now off to Crossfit.

Now that my left hip and knee are feeling good and I'm back on training the only other fun news is with work. Last week was stressful with a few presentations, meetings, and reports due. I am really hating the cyclical nature of this job. 2 weeks every month I am working long hours. Then for the other 2 weeks I am in a lull... well sometimes in a lull.

Hope everyone's meeting their goals too!