swbkrun with us!!! - Closed (Page 143)

Looks like another busy day in the office for Mr. Davis.

Thats awesome. Maybe he was drinking and seeing double of you???

OK, can we talk? An earthquake ravages his country and Dan only misses Saturday of training! Dude, intense! (Especially given you don't have hot water for a shower!)

Would love to hear about the state of things in your area when you get a chance. Did you get a lot of damage? Do you have power?  Food? Clean water? What's your take on the nuclear reactors (or is that way too big of a topic to discuss here)? We keep seeing unreal videos of the tsunami, seems there are more released each day. It's still so hard to fathom the scope of things from where we sit.

To keep this, um, tri related, good job with the workouts!!!!

And Steve, Julia, and Ryan, have a blast tonight. Sorry to miss you guys. May the squalls pass you by as well (there's a doozy going on at my house as I type this!)!!

Non-threatening run encounters like this are my favorite!  If you think that guy was good support, I had a guy bark at me once... ouch!  I say this as I'm snacking on chocolate chips right now, too...

Dan and Tuffli - I am so happy you both are okay!!!  Please take care of yourselves!  And Dan, that graph is crazy and scary!

(last post for now, I promise!)

Went to the orthopedic specialist tonight, and he confirmed that it's patella tendonitis.  He recommended just taking 3-4 weeks off running completely, maybe limiting the bike if it hurts, but I can swim unlimitedly.  SO frustrating.  Not sure how I feel about doing the half-mary on May 15 now.  What do you guys think? 

And how can I adjust my training schedule so I'm still getting in plenty of workouts and keeping my cardio up?  I'm not sure how many days/week I can bike or swim, I've never done either more than 3 times/week.

On the bright side, he complimented me on coming so far and on taking this injury seriously.  He said he could "tell I was a runner," which was SUPER flattering to me considering I've never thought of myself as a runner.  I guess I fooled him!

First, total praise for getting to the ortho and for having the good sense not to run until he says GO! Second, the short answer is you will lose some of fitness if all you can do is swim.  If you can bike WITHOUT PAIN you will lose less depending on the intensity.  If it were me, I would close down shop on biking too, for at least 1-2 weeks, swim and work with a PT on exercises to stabilize those areas of the bod that are weak and caused you this issue in the first place.  Third, I wouldn't fret about the half marathon now.  Could you be ready to run it?  Maybe, but more than likely it would be wise to drop down to a 10K if they have it.  Aren't you running the 5K with your mom anyway?  Maybe that's the focal point. 

See Erica the great thing is once you fully rehab this you can be totally back in business, plenty of time to make your '11 season a good one.  Push it too early and be in and out and in and out of training and have a total SUCK race season.  Take it from me and several of the other oldsters....you got plenty of time!  You've come so far...don't derail the progress.

Erica, it is good you know what is wrong and how long to rest it. Forget the half, focus on rehab and PT, then set race goals when you are healed! Yum, chocolate chips! I like putting some in my cereal.

Linda

There is nothing on the internet that John cannot find...

YOU CLOSED THE QUOTES LINDA!!!! 

listen to those two smart chica's erica... plenty more half marathons.  and now get drop your mom like a bad habit at the 5k!  wait til mile two then light her up!

Thanks Doug.  My average pace on the trainer is improving.  I'm up to 30 km/hr average as of the last two rides and I'm slowing adding in more minutes on the next bigger gear.   I think it is just going to take time to build the base.  I didn't ride a bike for like 30 years and my quads/glutes are slowly getting stronger.  I was fitted, but I am slightly skeptical about the fitter's job as it is not all that common at least in this part of Japan.   I did show a couple photos in my previous mentor group and people thought is was okay.  Maybe I will repost once I get around to buying a video camera - that might be a while given the current situation.

I  know from experience that my knee problems come from various muscles.  I've done enough work with trigger points that I can work things out myself most of the time, i.e., like 99% of the time.    I did try 3 or 4 regular docs and a sports doc between 2002 and 2007 when I was unsuccessfully trying to get back into running.  The regular docs said nothing was wrong (they took xrays and MRIs).  The sports doc I saw in 2007 told me that my quads were weak because I was getting old.  He gave me one simple exercise to do (extending my leg straight out while sitting on a chair - hold for 10 seconds, rest for 10 seconds, repeat for 10 minutes and do that 4 times a day....seriously.   I tried it for a while, but to be honest, life got in the way and I didn't stick with it.    The trigger point stuff worked for me and it is what is got me running again.  My approach right now is slowly build on both the running and cycling.

But the BT display doesn't really tell you anything does it?  That's why I used the snipping tool to get a shot from the Garmin software.

I know at least one of us (SAM!) is really excited for the weekend to get here!!!! If you're racing, spill the details!

If you're not racing, tell us the mental strategy you use to get through those really long or grueling workouts.

no.  the snippett was the prudent way to go.   i'm thinking people are just grabbing it because its some pretty amazing data to look at.  you captured an incredibly significant moment in time in a way that i'd guess very few others did.  maybe a hospital with patients on a hr monitor. 

big weekend on the mg!  good luck racing peeps!!!  and our first triathlon of the year to, right?  bryce is heading down to florida to race gator half.

jarrett and i are running the georgia half here in atlanta this weekend.  no real goals other than to hold a moderate pace throughout. 

Go racers!  I'm excited that it's finally getting to be that time of year! 

Mental strategy?  I don't think I really have one other than to keep telling myself how much better off I'll be after a tough workout.  Or sometimes, I just refuse to think about the fact that I'm working out!  Case in point, when I was finally able to break the 4 mile barrier, it was during the World Cup, so I just hopped on the treadmill and refused to look at the numbers until halftime!  The game took my mind off of it.

Woot! Lots of racing! Good luck to all! Sam, John, Jarrett, Bryce, who else? Go get 'em!

Mental strategies: Well, if it's a ride outside, I always know I gotta get home. Ha ha! Inside, that's tougher. Just keep rolling along. I often think of my entire week in the shape of one or two key workouts (bike intevals, long brick). So I love the feeling of checking one of those off for the week, that helps keep me going. I think about the end result or goal. I picture the hardest part of a course and realize this is helping me conquer it. I promise myself special treats when I'm done (like eggnog lattes around the holidays!). When swimming, I break workouts up mentally in half, and quarters, fifths, tenths, etc. When I hit the wall at a certain point I like to say I'm halfway. Or 6/8ths of the way. Or whatever. Runs, just keep going. I often do out and backs. So if you go out and wanna get home to that hot shower, you just gotta keep running!!!

I had a big milestone today!  I finally hit ONE mile in the pool!  Granted, it was broken up into sets, but it's my longest ever swim, and I'm pretty proud of that.  I was really bummed when I had to get out of the pool at 7am (it's the high school pool, so they're strict about getting swimmers out of there before students show up) because I was pretty sure I could have hit 1.2 miles, but there's plenty of time for that in the future.  I felt pretty good, too. 

The doc said unlimited swimming, so I think I'm going to try to swim 4 days/week and bike 3 days/week.  How does that sound?  I figure this way, I can at least get my 2 other disciplines down for the HIM and focus on the run when I can get back into it.

Good job Erica.  I think you have the right idea about getting in what you can. 

that's very polite of you not to talk with your mouth full.  our kids do a good job of this too,  their cousins however... its disgusting.

Don't know what happend there.  I will summarize..

No racing.

Good luck racers.

Mental - getting the workout started is where I give myself the mental push.  After that, see Kyla's response...very similar.

 edit...I was eating oatmeal at the time.

I'm not sure what the TV is showing you guys, but Sendai is a fairly spread out place.   I guess you are seeing what happened to the port area of Sendai and that they are lumping all the other coastal cities and villages under Sendai.   Our cable started working yesterday and I'm getting to see everything I heard about on the radio.  It is truly staggering and sad.

We are fortunate to live in the northwestern most part of Sendai and are about 75 meters above sea level.   As the crow flies, we are 11-12 miles from the coast and the tsunamis did not affect us at all.    Our water was out for 2 days and our power was out for 3 days. That cold water shower a few days back was not something I want to repeat and thankfully the power came back on the next day. 

I'm trying hard to keep the workouts going.  They help keep me get rid of some of the stress from the aftershocks, thinking about the nuke plant, etc.   

I promise to provide more details tomorrow about life in general.