Injuries

October 16, 2018 Leave a comment

Early in this year of training, I hurt my calf. Just running along, then all of a sudden whoops, my calf is busted. It was a bad pull if not a tear, and it was debilitating and discouraging and basically awful. When you’ve built so much into your training, not just as physical conditioning but also as an emotional and mental therapy, being prevented from doing it is close to nightmare.

Yesterday I went out for a run in the cold rain. I started on hills, which was nothing particularly new. At my turnaround point, I felt something in my upper inner thigh. And it wouldn’t go away. It wasn’t one of those normal running pains that come and go. It was flaring when my thigh went back and when I brought it forward, a sharp kind of pain that felt white and distinct. Before long, I was walking. The first time I’d had to walk since I hurt my calf. I walked for about a mile and then was able to jog home slowly. I knew I couldn’t do my scheduled strength workout though. My first scratched workout in this 12-week plan.

I didn’t pay enough attention to myself when my calf got hurt. That is, I didn’t take note of the process of what happened after. At least not in a way that I internalized as any kind of useful information. If I had, I wouldn’t be so devastated right now. I would have learned something. I would believe in temporary, not permanent things. I would feel the value in rest and recovery, even if it’s forced. I would be okay.

I don’t feel okay.

I was able to swim today, a strength workout of about 2,000 yards total. Just an hour. I did it with a pull buoy so there was very little load on my legs. Still, I felt it when I had to stabilize myself in the water. It was hard to force out of my mind.

In the parking lot, I jogged to the car. Just to see. I felt it. Sore and tight. I wouldn’t make my run feeling how it felt. Another scratch.

It’s not failure. It’s part of the process. It happens. Injury and recovery. Build up and taper. Still.

I don’t feel okay.

Rebrick

September 1, 2018 Leave a comment

Bike:

image
  • 11.49 mi Distance
  • 39:37 Moving Time
  • 647 ft Elevation
  • Avg Speed 17.4 mi/hr
  • Max Speed 40.5 mi/hr

Run:

image
  • 2.58 mi Distance
  • 26:13 Moving Time
  • 10:08/mi Pace
  • Elevation 169 ft 

It was time for another brick, the last opportunity before my first triathlon. I decided to try to closely simulate the upcoming event, as well as ride out on the same route that foiled me earlier in the season, with a broken chain and a calf injury. 

This was what I needed to be confident that I could complete the race.

The bike went according to plan.  I took it relatively easy, not working too hard and focusing on keeping myself to about an 80% effort. One of the things I’d been concerned about was outpacing myself on the bike and having nothing left for the run, so I wanted to work on actively preventing that.

The legs still felt terrible for the first mile of the run, but by this point I knew what to expect and it was easier to deal with. I felt no hint of a problem in my calf on the way out of the out-and-back route, but just after I looped around to head home, it seized up on me.  It was bad enough that I had to stop completely. I tried to relax and calmly stretch it out, but I was cursing inside. I was terrified that this was going to be a re-injury that would prevent me from racing.

Luckily, the stretching seemed to help quite a bit. I started running again, very slowly, to test it out.  It held up.  I continued and made it home ok, without further incident.

I hoped it was a fluke. My first tri was just a week away.

A painful brick

August 23, 2018 Leave a comment

Bike:

  • 9.98 mi Distance
  • 33:38 Moving Time
  • 565 ft Elevation
  • Avg Speed 17.8 mi/h
  • Max Speed 39.1 mi/h
  • Avg Heart Rate 149 bpm
  • Max Heart Rate 173 bpm

Run:

  • 2.58 mi Distance
  • 25:49 Moving Time
  • 10:00/mi Pace
  • Elevation 170ft
  • Avg Heart Rate 166 bpm
  • Max Heart Rate 182 bpm

A key component of triathlon training is doing combination workouts, or “bricks” as they are called in the sport.  These are training sessions where you essentially simulate one or more transitions, doing a ride and then immediately going for a run, for example, just as you would in an event.

This was my first attempt at doing such a thing.  I really wasn’t sure how it would go, since I’d never done it before, so I decided to keep both the bike and the run relatively easy.  I’d shoot for around 10-12 miles on the bike and about 2.5 miles on the run, as flat as I could manage from my house.

I felt really good on the bike, putting down the miles with relative ease and moving fairly comfortably.  Things took a turn when I was close to the end, though.  I came to an intersection in the middle of a hill and had to stop for traffic.  Then as I started up again, preparing to tackle the rest of the hill ahead of me, my chain snapped.

Like, literally just broke in two.

I heard a snap, my legs started freewheeling and I looked down to see it just dangling off my chain ring.  

I was only a mile from home, so a rescue mission didn’t take long to reach me.  It was frustrating, though, and dropped me out of the zone hard.  I hurriedly changed into my running gear (no tri suit yet) and headed out on my run, eager to regain the momentum I had had going before the mechanical failure.

My legs felt awful. I had never experienced anything like it.  I’ve been tired on a run plenty of times, and having finished two marathons in the past, I know what it’s like to feel nearly 100% fatigue in your legs.  But this was different.  This was like my legs belonged to someone else and I was controlling them remotely, or something.  It was really weird.  They felt almost numb, even though I could feel them.  It was clear very quickly why people practice this sort of thing.

After about a mile, the weirdness started to clear up and I felt more like myself again.  I crested a hill and started down the other side, when a car appeared heading toward me.  I moved to the side of the gravel road, into the shoulder.  And felt a twinge in my calf. Different than a cramp, it was like a very specific section of my calf contracted as hard as it could.  

I should have stopped immediately to stretch and rest, but I was determined to see this through and was locked into a mental race mode.  The leg hurt for the rest of the run but I finished it out and limped up my driveway.

I wasn’t sure how that was going to play out, but it didn’t look or feel good.