enginerd's group - CLOSED (Page 13)

Nice job on your goals Robin! Yeah!!! Happy birthday on Sunday to you! and Happy "shape up" Anniversary too, that is awesome. AAANNNNDDD Have a great race!

Donato - woowoo!!!! on Lanzarote - can't wait for the official race report.

PS - I signed up for another race a super sprint tri Sept 7...  seems like a super fun distance.  My "hard" (for me) race is  2 weeks later.

May goals- I'm not sure I made goals for May.  I did the my first tri of the season in mid-May.  It was cold, windy and my knee started a new nagging pain.  After a trip to the sports med doc, I have a new injury.  ITBS.  Nice. 

June goals-
1.  First OLY on June 29!  As long as my knee behaves, I should be ready.
2.  Keep that knee healing.  It's been coming along really nicely, so I think I'll be OK for my race at the end of the month.
3.  Finish the bathroom remodels before the family comes to visit on June 28. 
4.  Finish the rest of the crazy projects DH has in progress before the family comes.
5.  Lose 6 pounds.  I've lost about 8 so far, but still more to go. 

Today, in preparation for the big family visit, I decided that the horses need to be cleaned up and tuned up.  Didn't know horses needed tune-ups, did you?  They haven't been ridden since Nov and weren't sure they were interested in being ridden now.  I picked Iago for my first victim.  He got a good brushing, a mane trim and about 30 min of easy walking around the property.  The labradog ran like a nut and even with her antics, he was a good boy.  He can act like a loon sometimes, so this was a good day.  Even though I haven't been on a horse in more than six months, I felt secure and confident.  Granted we were only walking, but it still felt good.  Here's a pic of me and Iago from a few years ago.  We've had him for 16 years and he'll be 19 in the fall.  He's our baby.

Have a great rest of the weekend, everyone!

Pattie

how'd everybody do this weekend?

I finally finished my race report for IM Lanzarote (link to it here).  You'll see why it took me so long.  It's the longest RR I've ever written (which is saying a lot) and it has over 80 pictures in it.  Enjoy!

Pattie, I like the picture of you and your horse.  I had no idea they needed tuneups

Go to your race list.  You'll see the option for Edit next to your race listing.  Enter your race report.  One of the options you'll have is to Make Race Public, which will automatically publish it in the Race Reports forum.

Now we're all looking forward to your first RR!

Re:  Injuries

Gosh, I've had a few.  We'll just keep it to the triathlon-related injuries; no need to go back to horse-related injuries dating  back to 1987. 

1.  Morton's Neuroma (left foot).  It started with a cold, stabbing pain in the top of my foot.  No pain when just walking around; serious pain after a couple miles of running.  The podiatrist injected it with cortizone (which hurt worse) and it went away within a month.  No recurrance.

2.  Stress Fracture (left tibia).  Part 1-  This one started with shin splints that just didn't seem to get better.  I was training for a 5 mile race and doing a lot of hilly miles.  The downhills were my downfall.   Got fitted for custom orthotics.  This is the injury that led me to triathlon.  The podiatrist told me that I had to take at least 12 weeks off, so I started riding the bike.  The rest is history.  Five months after diagnosis, I did my first triathlon. 

3.  Stress Fracture (left tib).  Part 2-  It flared up again a year later.  More rest.  Another winter of elliptical and bike.  New set of orthotics. 

4.  IT Band inflamation (right knee).  The most recent.  Actually, I think this one is my fault.  I bought new shoes (Saucony Hurricane) and put my orthotics in them.   Turns out that the shoes were too much motion control and with the orthotics, I now supinated rather than pronated.  I could feel that they weren't right, but ran on it anyway.  Well, I hobbled on it.   Another trip to the sports med doc for new therapy exercises.  I've been running with the new shoes minus the orthotics and all seems well.

Guess that's about it.  I try to stay injury-free, but my body just has trouble with run training.  Of course, I could do more by doing my therapy exercises more regularly/ at all.  I do make sure to not run two days in a row and no more than 3 days a week.  That makes it impossible to get any faster, but it will keep me healthy.  The sports med doc suggested that I should focus on the bike more and just suffer being slow on the run.  Sound advice, doc. 

The injuries I've experienced in recent history are:

Tendinitis on my front shin (last December) - this was most likely overuse.  it bothered me on 50K or longer runs.  just tolerable after 50K, but beyond that, it flared up.  Rest, PT, and strengthening excercises presumably helped, but I haven't yet tested it out at that level since.

Torn calf - this was kinda of a dumb mistake on my part.  Started using some newton shoes on my normal neighborhood hilly run.  Newton shoes shifted my run to a forefoot strike which was fine, but too much with the hills.  If I had built up gradually, this wouldn't have been a problem.  PT, RICE, and strengthening excercises.  Didn't bother me at all at Lanzarote, but that wasn't a hilly run.

Bruised under my kneecaps - this came from a bike accident where I landed hard on my knees.  Knees swelled up.  RICE, no running, some PT, and careful biking (keep the knee tracking correctly over my second toe) to keep from irritating the bruise finally led to recovery.

The only significant injury I've had in a while is a ruptured Achilles, Labor Day, 2005.  Weekend warrior, out of shape - went out to whip up on my son in tennis.  About 15 minutes into it I was changing direction going for a ball and I thought my shoe exploded.  It was a weird sensation, not really painful that much.  I went down then looked at my shoe and it was still in tact and I was a little confused.  I tried to move my foot and then kind of freaked out.

Had surgery about 5 days later - doc had to shorten it to get it back together.

Should have done the prescribed PT but didn't, so ended up going back 6 mos later begging for more PT which I did.  My right calf is 1 inch smaller in circumference now and sometimes I struggle with glute/hamstring pain due to the shortened length.

I see other folks who don't believe in stretching much, but it is an absolute necessity for me or I get pain all the way up the back of my leg and my calf tightens up.

So far so good - I played tennis quite a bit over the winter and now doing this crazy tri thing.

I built up too quickly before the half marathon I ran on 1/20. I think I tore something in my left knee. There was pain in the back of the knee, and kind of a loose feeling. To this day I don't know what it was, but I took a couple weeks off from running and built back up slowly. There were a couple times when the pain came back, but for the last several weeks it seems to be fine, although I've only been running 2-3x per week, usually 4 or 5 miles. I haven't run more than 10k since January.

So now that I'm feeling good, I'm going to sign up for another half marathon on 9/13. I have 14 weeks, and this time I will train much more carefully!!!

Also, my RR is up for the Mud Run!!! 

I hope everyone had a good weekend!!

I figured out an interesting (and relatively inexpensive) solution to my bike dilemma.  I got road handlebars (Salsa Poco) and short reach Ultegra levers and put them on my Cervelo One.  It was kind of a pain since I had to swap out all the cables and the front derailer was extremely uncooperative, but I was done by Friday.  I had to move a spacer and flip the stem, and there is still quite a drop, but it feels pretty good.  I did 50 miles on it yesterday and all was well, except for some back pain, but that's because I'm not used to riding 50 miles.  I think I"ll get some new (shorter) aero bars, and then the transformation will be complete!  I also ripped a bunch of the yellow decals off and now it looks a lot better.  Pics soon!

I stretch after most of my workouts.  I'm pretty good about doing it after every bike and run, but not so much after strength training or swimming.  I also have gotten in the habit of icing my knees after each run (doing it now in fact). 

In other news, I cut my run short today because I felt like absolute crap.  Of course my day was rather stressful - I went to work early, had a crappy morning, and left at noon to go to a job interview, which went well I think.  I got home way earlier than usual and planned to do a brick, but took an hour and a half nap instead of the bike ride.  I guess sometimes you just have to listen to your body and give it what it wants, and today for me that was sleep.

Bryan - i've heard/seen alot about those torture devices and i see them at the gym - how do you use them? 

 I'm good about stretching before running, swimming, and spinning - weirdly I'm bad about stretching before actual bike riding - horrible about stretching after all exercise, but when I do I notice how much quicker i "recover" and the soreness goes away faster.  Need to add after stretching more.  If I go the gym I stretch more as a general rule than if I do something at home.

Robin - hope the job thing works out for you!   

Syndi - UGH bummer!!!!!  Hope that heals up quickly!

 GO TANYA - all the best on your race.