Wednesday, April 22, 2009

The Latest. . .

Today I finally sucked it up and went to the doctor. It's been 2.5 weeks of no running, and enough is enough, even for a die hard "ignore it and it will go away" theorist, such as myself. At first, I thought it was just a bit of tendonitis that needed a few days of rest, couple of sessions of A.R.T, and some ice. However, none of the above seemed to be helping. Also, the pain and swelling isn't exactly in the right place for achilles. Turns out it's bursitis, which (fingers crossed) can be fixed with some large doses of anti inflammatories. I get to do a little test run on Friday, so we'll see how it goes.

While one heel is out of commission, I've been trying really hard to work on my OTHER achilles heel. . .also known as my swim. In addition to the bonus yardage I've been getting, I've also signed up for once weekly swim technique sessions. The two current stroke projects are bringing my hands way, way further underneath my body and learning to turn my hips much earlier. As Shakira says, "Hips Don't lie" and right now, my stroke is disconnected, with my top half twisting one way and bottom half the other.

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As you might imagine, this throws off overall timing of the stroke, so I'm attempting to fix that.

Fortunately, I've also been able to bike a lot, thus maintaining some sanity. Last week I put in about 350 miles, which is a pretty big week for me, though not quite a record. Hoping the heel thing corrects itself STAT, otherwise you may find me trying to beg my way onto a RAAM (Ride Across America) team!

Monday, April 13, 2009

Look What the Easter Bunny Brought Me!

I had a very exciting treat arrive this week, just in time for Easter. . .something even better than Peeps! A brand new Orbea Ordu, courtesy of Orbea and Shimano. I love it.



He/She--I haven't picked a name yet--is awesome! For our first real outing, we rode the Swamii's group ride, a fast paced group consisting of real deal cyclists. This is the ride that all the pros do when they come to town, and this being San Diego, there seems to always be someone in town. It starts off pretty easy, but by the time we reach the first sprint it's a guaranteed legs burning, heart nearly out of your chest, max effort. To say that this ride is a challenge would be a gross understatement, but I love showing up and employing my "strategy" of trying to hang on. Most of the time I get dropped by the front pack partway through--as does most of the group. The human shrapnel then forms into smaller packs and everyone continues working off of each other until the regrouping point.

This week, something amazing happened, and I stayed right up front the whole way! Since I had already started the mental patting myself on the back process, I decided to ignore the chatter about "tomorrow's race" from my fellow group riders. Nope, pretty sure it was all the new bike and Coach Watson's crazy hill repeat workouts in Mauii; )
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Thursday, April 9, 2009

Jeff Foxworthy Reinvented



Remember all of those "you might be a Redneck if..." jokes, circa late 1990s? Like, you might be a redneck if your house collapses and kills more than 3 dogs. You've been married 3 times and still have the same in-laws, etc. I was thinking the other day--what if Mr. Foxworthy became a triathlete and based his comedic routine not on the habits of those from the back country areas south of the Mason Dixon line, but on the habits of type A triathletes. You know, "you might be a tri-geek if. . ." A smaller target audience, perhaps, but I'm sure there would be no shortage of material.
For example, you might be a tri-geek if you've ever downloaded powertap files at a dinner party:


Heather G, Brent M, and Linsey C taking a brief break from their power tap downloading to smile for the camera

You think that compression socks or an aero bike helmet are part of normal daily attire



Ben @ the St. Croix Airport

You're either swimming, biking, or running (or holding running shoes. . .) in your Facebook profile picture.







Have no idea when your friend's birthday is, but you can list their run splits from their last 3 races. (Tom). . .

You get the drift, and I'm sure could think of a few of your own. Yesterday I woke up and discovered that, to my dismay, I had slept with my HR monitor on. Pretty sure that qualifies me for one of the highest levels of tri geek-dom (a fact which I embrace, thank you very much) But, seriously, who does that?? Normally, that would never happen because I would actually shower post workout, but on this particular day I had to can my afternoon run about 10' in--which every Ironman athlete knows is far too short a run to require a shower--because of some achilles pain. And since I discovered sometime ago that the K-Swiss workout tanks can double as pj's, it seemed perfectly fine to just sleep in those same clothes. . .HR monitor and all. Oops.


After some intensive A.R.T (active release therapy. think really, really deep and specific massage, but WAY more painful. actually, more like torture than massage) with Dan Selstead, I think the achilles is going to be ok soon. Dan, aka "dan the man", is pretty much on every San Diego athelete's emergency speed dial for the very good reason that he can fix pretty much any soft tissue injury quickly, so I have faith. In the meantime, maybe I'll use the extra time for organizing my Clif shots according to sodium content. Or weighing my carbon fiber bike.

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

Life on the "Outside"

After a month in the Hawaii training bubble, I'm back in San Diego. Now that I'm home, life is returning to normal, which basically means that all the usual training distractions--most of them good distractions, but distractions nonetheless--are also back. Errands to run, friends to catch up with, a wedding to plan, thesis to write--you get the drift. So much harder to ignore things like, oh, the parking ticket that needs to be paid (for parking in a BIKE LANE, no less, shame on me!) when it's sitting right in front of you.

What's that you say?. . .Happy hour tonight? Oh, but I haven't done my swim yet.


Kirsten, me, James, Rachel, & Beth--impromptu post Happy Hour photo shoot

(By the way, I DID still do my swim, it just may or may not have been after a marg. Thanks, Rachel.)

Don't worry, I'm still finding plenty of time to train. Off to the pool now for a 4k swim, followed by a tempo run tonight.

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