Full On War!

February 18, 2010 -

This is war! As I have begun fighting to get in racing condition in a short period of time...my body continues to fight back and I won't have it. I go for a PR in running and I sprain my ankle. I get heavy into training for a 70.3 PR and my knee goes out. I finally get running and my hamstring tweaks. I start to pump up my brick length and I pinch a nerve in my neck and now I bump up my yards in the pool and come down with a wicked sinus infection.

As my body continues to bring the problems to try and derail me, I continue to smack it down by pushing through it all...and despite the hiccups, it's going well so far. The ankle healed long ago, the knee, although sore/achy is holding out, the hammy is back to normal after a hot date with the foam roller (love that thing), the pinched nerve should be gone in another day or two and I'm hoping this sinus infection is peaking now and should be gone in the next couple days as well.

I'm hoping after all this me and the old body can reach a truce and get back to the harmony we were in last year.

After my bike/run brick on Tuesday, I hit 2700 yards in the pool yesterday, which went great. I had a 6 x 75 warm-up (last 25 in each set kick), then a main set of 3 x 700 and a cool down of 150 easy. Although I slowed down each set of 700, I still swam strong and efficient.

Today I headed out for a longer bike. It was sunny, clear and gorgeous! The ride ended up being only 28 miles (I hoped it was longer), and incorporated three huge hills. I averaged 18 mph but really struggled with this sinus infection as my nose was constantly draining and I was hacking up huge green goobers from my lungs.

Now I seem to be really sick...bah! I wanted to go on a run outside tomorrow as it is supposed to be sunny and 60, but I think I will have to detour yet again to get well.

The war continues.

Stack It On

February 16th, 2010 -

With a 6 week 70.3 training plan I'm trying to do anything I can to get ready for Oceanside March 27. I am converting the usual one month "build" phase of training into one week. In an effort to try to get my miles and endurance up quickly I have decided to bypass the whole build phase and just start stacking it on.

I doubled my brick from last week by polishing off a 26mi bike/5mi run brick today, which went really well but also let me know I have a lot of hard work to do over the next five weeks. I plan to hit 2700 in the pool tomorrow and a 36mi bike on Thursday with a long run maybe 8mi this weekend. That should conclude my "build" week.

Supposed to be low 50's and sunny all week so aside from a couple swims I will be outside taking full advantage. Today was gorgeous coming in around 52 and sunny. I hit the 26mi Lake Sammamish bike loop at 19.5 mph and then transitioned to a 5 mi run at an 8:00 min pace. I was happy with these times overall but I had to work a little too hard to get them. It's all coming back fast though.

I also found my way back into a little nutrition today using the Gatorade endurance and some powertabs along the way.

As far as the knee, it's holding up well. I felt a couple times yesterday that it might be on the way to going out again...but it's all good. It felt great on the bike but was a little sucky on the first couple miles of the run feeling like it needed to pop or something. Whatever it was it worked out and I finished strong. I plan on getting some serious stretching and icing in to try and stay loose and ready for action. I can't afford any hiccups over the next five weeks.

I originally planned on going for a PR during this race and trying to hit 5:30 but I may be more like 6:00? We'll just have to see how well this stacking comes along.

My dad has been in full force training for St. George Ironman and we are doing the Oceanside 70.3 together as his training race for St. George. With all my setbacks do I have to worry the old man might have a chance to beat me???

I can't let that happen....bring it on old man...I just found my new motivation!

Jail Break!

February 11, 2010 -

I have been in the prison of my body the last few months and my left knee and right ankle are the warden. I decided yesterday that enough is enough and I escaped by means of swift biking and running. I only hope to stay ahead of the warden before I am caught and brought back to jail. I only have to elude him for six more weeks so I can race Ironman 70.3 Oceanside with my Dad on March 27.

It started with a wicked ankle sprain where I came down on a rock at full stride and rolled it all the way up and under...ouch. That took about a full month of healing before I was running pain free again.

In December I started to get back on my training program building my bike up to two hours, my runs up to 10 miles and my swim up to 2500 yards. Not a bad start in December for a successful 70.3 race at the end of March.

In the beginning of January my knee tweaked. I couldn't bend it. It was locking up swelling up and generally doing all sorts of weird things. This would go on for a couple days and then back to normal...for the most part. After this happened a couple times I finally went to have it looked at. An MRI revealed that I have a piece of tissue that broke off from somewhere (yet to be determined) and is floating around my knee. I'm guessing this little sucker floats into a place causing the pain and mobility issues and then after a couple days floats on somewhere else getting me back to normal. This problem took me out for an entire month.

Ultimately I will have to deal with this, but after a few test runs with no problems I decided, if I am going to attempt to pull off a 70.3 on six weeks of training I better start hitting it and see how it goes.

I started with my jailbreak yesterday. A very freeing and liberating, yet short bike/run brick. It had been so long it felt awesome! I hit 15 miles on the bike at a 19.4 mph and then transitioned into a four mile run at a 7:45 pace. Other than it being 38 degrees and raining, everything went really well, pain free and left me wanting to do more.

This is a good base to start trying to kill it as much as I can over the next six weeks... so barring any knee issues...I can come up with a respectable finish.

I'll try to keep posting on the progress build and the race.