Beer Drinkers Appreciation Society (BDAS) 2023 Mentor Group - ALWAYS OPEN (Page 125)

Last week:
1 swim 1550 yds
1 run 4.32 miles
Time spent with heating pad on my back/hip/flank: 1 million hours

Five consecutive days off...I haven't taken five days off since I was in Italy at Christmastime. I am not engineered to take five days off!

This morning I went for a swim (1650 yds) at Masters. It felt okay. Not great, but not awful. Later this afternoon I'm going out for a 90' Z2 ride. This evening, if I finish mowing the lawn in time, I may got out with the tri club for their weekly OWS, but that's an extra to the plan, so it will be a game time decision. I mean, first I will have to extricate myself from the jungle that my lawn has become. It has been over a month since it was mowed because it keeps raining every other day. We are at the low end of the neighborhood, so our yard stays wet forever (plus, clay soils don't drain well!). Anyway...I think I might get lost out there. But...in other news...a black bear has been sighted wandering around the woods in our area (like 1/2 mile from my house), so I might get eaten too!

Well, I'm officially jealous of your daughter. Cool looking bike.

After the ongoing cabin project, and the laundry/bathroom to come, I'm 95% sure my old kestrel will be doing at least 1 more Ironman.

Isn't that the truth. If I think back to the amount of money that just disappeared through my 20s it's enough to make a man very depressed.

Well done on raising offspring more responsible than you were

Glad your 5 days rest did the trick Gretchen. Well done, I didn’t think you had it in you!

Nicole, paddle boarding now? Is there anything you don’t do?

Also jealous of your daughter Mike, nice ride!

Andrew, how’s the elbow? Well done on your strength streak still going strong!

My streak stopped on Saturday, race day, fair enough but nothing on Sunday and Monday either. I will start again today.
Thanks for all your comments about my run, I like the idea that it’s not necessarily the run which is the problem, but everything else I do before contributing to a bad run. So even though I still think (know) it’s the run, I am trying a new strategy before this Saturday’s race :
No running at all, light bike and/or swim every other day. I need to get some walks/ very light jog in too but my dog had surgery and can’t go on long walks right now. Can’t seem to be able to go on my own.

So Sunday one hour swim-bike (like swim run but… you get it).
Yesterday nothing
Tonight: 1500m swim (40 minutes or so)
Tomorrow Effall
Thursday: easy ride (40 minutes or so)
Friday: rest

Saturday: race when I take down 2022 Nat overall (not even thinking about trying to beat 2023). Or I ride at going shopping speed to save my legs and go for 2023 nat’s run time (under 15 minutes for 3k).

We’ll see


EDIT- oh, and no calorie deficit (unlike last week).

race report is up by the way https://beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid...


Edited by Rollergirl 2024-07-23 3:28 AM

Rest day from running today. The achilles was sore yesterday, so I'm staying off it today. It's feeling good this morning, so we'll just let it settle down. Swimming later today.

Question for everyone - do I pause the run training for a week or two, and let the Achilles heal up and slowly ease back in? I'm in fine shape for the triathlon in September. My main concern is the half marathon in October. However, if I take two weeks off, while still lifting, swimming, and cycling, I don't think I'll lose much run endurance, and maybe ease back in through August.

Edited by robertChiefsFan 2024-07-23 7:37 AM

Same! Thinking back on how foolish I was back then...omg! The money I wasted! LOL!

I would pause. Achilles injuries can take ages to heal, don't let it become worse

I actually have the same niggling pain on my left achilles and I am off running all week until my race on Saturday. Hopefully this will be enough, if not, I am prepared to pause again for longer. Thankfully we have swimming and riding left (and lifting for you although I would be careful there too)

Yeah, I looked at my run training plan for the half, and made some adjustments. If I take up to two weeks off from running to let it rest and heal, I should still be in good shape to ramp up for the half. I also hedged my bets and reached out the race director for the half, to see what sort of refund policy they have for injuries (if any).

I don't usually have issues with the lawn b/c I'm usually standing more. This just wasn't one of those concerts. Also, I didn't purchase the tickets.
There's a similar venue in Jersey just outside Philly and they rent chairs for the lawn and that was amazing. Not sure why Merriweather doesn't do that!

If anyone is going to have a run-in with the bear, it's going to be you!

I think this is a really good plan. You could also try aqua jogging in it's place for a few weeks. It's an incredible workout (though very boring IMO, although I think Mike disagrees). I aqua jogged through an injury in college and was able to come back pretty quick and place at conferences that indoor season! Success story!

Nat, glad you had a good race and beat past Nat! Haven't had a chance to read your RR yet but will get to it later today!

Andrew, paddle boarding is awesome! Definitely a great core workout, though I need to do it more and see if my toes continue to fall asleep...not sure how to remedy that other than taking regular breaks and stretching my feet. It was a beautiful day for it though!
Sorry to hear about your elbow. I have trouble with pushups also. Hope it's nothing serious and already on the mend!

Mike, awesome bike! And definitely glad to hear your daughter is making smart financial decisions. It took me a long time to get to that point...slash I'm still pretty dumb sometimes (like on prime day last week...ugh).

Robert, rest that achilles!

Gretchen, glad to hear you're healing up, and hope mowing the lawn went well!

Me, I am still struggling with motivation in the mornings. I'm reading a really good book so that has been winning. It was also gross here and we had late session for vball so I skipped, though I just signed up for a grass doubles revco (reverse coed, means the net is women's height and the men have to hit back a bit further, so I get to crush it ) which starts tonight, so will get in a workout today at least. Also planning to go swim at the neighborhood pool tomorrow morning.

Still haven't tried running...I am feeling a bit anxious for it. Aiming to do it Thursday. Don't let me skip it!

+1 to the suggestion of aqua jogging to maintain fitness in the face of an injury. I did two weeks of aqua jogging in Feb (?) and didn't feel like I lost any fitness when I got back to running. I did, however, lose a considerable amount of sanity, of which I have very little to spare. I did use "waterproof" headphones in the pool ("" because while they say they are waterproof, they also say don't submerge them in water). It helped a little, although not enough.

1650yds in the pool this morning. Yesterday afternoon was a 90' Z2 ride. Both felt okay and the hip/back/flank problem is only minorly annoying at this point (still heating pad on it for all non-training hours of the day). I have a 64' interval run scheduled for later today, which I think will be the real test. Fingers crossed!!

Yesterday I mowed the lawn and my wife had dinner with a friend. I went to bed at 5pm to lay with the heating pad and well...I did what I always do when I'm laying down...I fell asleep. Sometime between 6pm and 6:45 I fell asleep and stayed asleep until 11:30, when I woke up hungry. Snack and then I went straight back to sleep. Healing must be hard work.

Well this is fun - the race director said that if I find that I'm not able to participate due to the injury, they can defer my entry to next year's race.

After reading your race report, I'm going to add 'trying to smash it up a big climb in the first few hundred meters and blowing out your legs' as a key contributing factor to a disappointing run. Pacing the course right, and knowing when to burn those matches is a difficult skill to master.

I hope your dog is back running with you soon. Ours is getting old, and it doesn't feel right on the days (any sort of speed work) I leave her behind... She's trained through a dozen half marathons, 4 70.3s and 2 full Ironmans with me.

One of the few good things to come out of the covid years, is a lot of race directors got a lot more flexible with offering deferrals. So that's good news you can defer if needed. For what it's worth, my last 70.3 in December was deferred from a race in March. And Ironman NZ next year was deferred from this year. So no shame in deferring if its the smart thing to do.

But in the meantime, you've already tried rest, and it came back. Go to a physio, or Dr and get it checked out. There's every chance you've got some other, underlying issue that is contributing to/causing the achilles pain.

@Gretchen, Welcome back from your unplanned rest. How did the run go? Knock on wood for you. Healing is definitely hard work, not sure how we get it recorded in training peaks though? And did you find the bear? Haha.

@Nat, Hope your sore achilles is a false alarm. There's only room in the group for so many injuries at a time For what it's worth, I'm not 100% convinced about your weekly plan. I agree that after some disappointing results, trying something different is a good idea. But, I've found I run better when I have run in the 2-3 days pre race than if I've done nothing. Maybe you could think about a really short 15-20 minute jog 1-2 days out. And/or a run with some short, but fast efforts. like 30sec efforts. Nothing that leaves you fatigued/sore or anything, but just keeps the legs ticking over.

Of course, with a possibly tight achilles this week, rest might be the best option. As always, advice from the internet is worth what you paid for it

@Nicole, I'm with you on struggling with morning motivation. It's also been miserable weather here, although we've had the cold/wet/windy variety. And staying in bed seems a much better idea when my alarm goes off. I did manage to get up today and do a run, I jut have to remind myself that although staying in bed seems like a good idea, I have never once regretted getting up and doing a workout. I have regretted the sleep in many times though.

@Robert, Like I said above, I vote you get the injury looked at. I'd say you want at least 8-10 weeks ramp up for a half marathon. Your fitness/training levels going in dependant, so for an October HM you definitely have the time to spend a few weeks on no/minimal running and still be fine. And like Mike says, now is a much better time to give it a rest than in a month or so. Plus one for aqua running, I've never done it myself but it's an excellent way to maintain run fitness. You're unlikely to make many gains, but definitely minimise your loss. Gretchen is our resident expert on that after her experiences this year.

ME, Interval run on the treadmill last night. I don't love doing them inside as I distrust the mileage, but felt pretty good. I added some pushups back into my evening bodyweight routine (23/23 days), and the elbow felt good, so hoping that was a false alarm. Up early for a 50 minute run with the dog, nice and easy, nothing special but ticking the miles off. The plan is to be on the bike tonight, with a bit of intensity.

@Andrew - thank you for the recommendation to see a doctor / physio. I actually have a follow up with my primary doc tomorrow to discuss my recent cardiologist visits and tests with him. (he had detected a slight heart murmur back in April, so I have gone through all the usual tests and visits with the cardio). I'll have him look at the Achilles and see if he makes a recommendation for a physio to look at it too.

Today was another go at the hill repeats on the bike, and I was a smidge faster. I stayed in one higher gear on the 3rd and 4th climbs just to see how it felt. Seemed to go ok. Strength training at lunch today. (I did not get anything in yesterday with it being my normal run day, and my new swim goggles did not get delivered until 5:30pm last night).

Also of note, I stretched a lot last night and I was reminded of how incredibly inflexible I am, and how tight every muscle and joint is. I've always been very stiff and rigid, with very little overall flexibility. I am unable to touch my toes while keeping my legs straight. I probably need to work a lot more on that, I just have never prioritized it.

Thinking out loud about the Achilles and the half marathon...There is also a 10k race option at the same race. I'm wondering if it would be worth seeing if I could downgrade my entry from the half to the 10k? Granted, the ego part of me says "don't be a quitter", but I think the more sensible part of my brain (and my wife's strong suggestions) would be to consider it.

Robert, definitely doesn't hurt to ask that question! Doing a 10K over deferring could be better than just deferring. Hope the doc visit goes well and they get you back to 100% soon!

Andrew, very true about regret! I'm going to remind myself of that. I finished my book this morning so now don't have an excuse until I start my next book at least...
I don't have the weather reason right now. Mornings are actually quite lovely now that the heat wave has passed!

Gretchen, healing IS hard work! That sounds like some amazing rest and hopefully helps you get better quicker.


I played in my grass doubles vball league last night, and definitely overdid it (unsurprisingly). Like, I can do these things fine in the moment, but afterwards my body is like, WTF though? We haven't done that in a really long time!
I played a little longer than I should've and was REALLY sore last night. Today I overall feel good, other than my left hamstring, right near where it meets my glute, so basically the same spot I injured in May but the other leg. Nothing nearly as bad, but it reminded me that I've been lazy and need to do my PT and STRETCH!

As stated above, I stayed in bed and finished my book this morning. I'm honestly not sure I could've walked to the park to swim, so I think it's for the best, but gonna do some stretching and strength tonight, and then for real get back into a routine starting tomorrow. I swear. I super swear, and if I don't...I need to think of a good negative consequence. We used to do you had to chug a warm Coors Light, but that's not the greatest since I'm trying to limit my calorie intake. Any ideas?