SBR Utopia ---- Permanently OPEN!! (Page 24)

Awesome!  Glad you're both able to get back out there.  Almost nothing quite so frustrating as not being able to run (and seeing all the other folks in states of sublime suffering out on the road!).  Hope you both stay pain free.  

Matt

Seriously!

When I was struggling with my knee injury last year, my Physical Therapist was telling me that one morning, she got up and was like, "Ugh, I really don't want to run."  And then she thought, "Nicole would love to be able to run....and here I am, perfectly capable of running, and I don't feel like it" and that was enough to get her up and out the door.

I watched the Houston Marathon a couple weeks ago and was amazed at all the different run gaits....there were so many people that I looked at and was like, "How is it that I'm injured and they're not???"

So glad your foot is letting your run, Chris!  Here's to being smart and staying healthy in 2014

I would have been totally fine with just swimming anyway except for one thing.  My morning swims are with the swim team - ie. a bunch of teenage girls - and I'd rather not get kicked out.... or arrested...

Oh right. The metric system.

Yeah, I totally agree. 

Glad to hear the both of you are on the mend! Stay healthy and take those preventative measures! 

I've found supplemental strength has helped immensely. 

I know, right?  I learned long ago never to ask my wife "what if I can't run again?" during an injruy phase.  I think she'd just beat me up at this point

Agree 100% with Salty re: supplemental strength. That coupled with being RELIGIOUS about a legit warm up and warm down has become my secret weapon. And Hey! I am sitting on the spin bike right now warming up for my afternoon run and FINALLY getting a chance to catch up on the group, so a good warm-up is great for that as well!

Any recs for supplemental strength Sally and Rusty?  You mean like squats?

Man, when I was doing more elliptical to try to keep some fitness, I'd add just some body weight squats and one leg standing work and boy of boy I was sore in places I didn't even know I had muscles

Re: strength

I think it's most important to work your weakness. Think about the areas where you are most injury prone. I think most of the time it's due to either weakness in that part specifically or an imbalance, where another muscle group is compensating for its opposite. Additionally there are specific groups that need to be strong for the best running (or whatever you are doing.) Calves for power, hip flexors for acceleration etc. 

I work on my calves, quads, hip flexors and abductors (to help with the IT band) and my core.

Examples: Step-ups, step-downs, toe-ups/bounding, leg raises, etc. 

Yeah, that is a great point about actual strength focused workouts, too Rusty. (In fact, I dedicate an entire season to it in the fall)

Hill work, certain intervals, as well as certain drills etc.

Thanks for posting the videos. 

Last night was the first of 2 bike tests for me, starting with a 5' test.  Coming off the holidays I was ready to cringe when I saw the avg watts for the test but it wasn't a total disaster - 351 w     Last year I tested several weeks before IM AZ (after having taking time off after IM MT) and was at 358 for the 5' test then, so being in the ballpark of that so early in the year is heartening.  Next week I'll do a 20' test and see where my CP is at using the 2 results.

My CT (computrainer) is in the basement lol (sorry, couldn't resist).  I'll see where my CP (critical power) is at by using the results of both the 5' and 20' tests (we have a spreadsheet we use to calculate it, but the math is pretty straightforward).  The word "threshold" by itself means different things to different people and is not very useful.  We use CP because it is straightforward and you can use the 5' and 20' results to determine the athlete's strength/weakness and structure their workouts to address their weakness (think of Skiba's house analogy).  As has been discussed many times in this group, you would also want to examine performances during key workouts and races to assess someone's fitness level.   

Chris, unfortunately no, I don't have a 5' test from last January to compare.....I was trying to get a bunch of x-c skiing in to prepare for the American Birkebeiner race in Feb last year so I wasn't focusing on the bike.  However, I did a 20' test on January 15 last year using the Ergvideo threshold test software on my computrainer and averaged 287 watts for that test.  However, I didn't have my Powertap on the bike for that test so I won't be able to directly compare that result with the 20' test I will do next week using my powertap on the CT.

So when you run the tests, you run both the PT and the CT?  or just PT?   If the former, do they correlate well?

Swim is slowly starting to come back, bumping up from 3K 2 times a week to 3300-3600 3 times a week makes a big difference!

Last winter I didn't run the PT while doing the test on the CT but last summer I started doing so (was just too lazy to get it out of the box and put a tire on the rim so I could use it).  But now I currently have the PT on the bike which I ride on the CT.  I use the Ergvideo software to control the load on the CT so I don't have to push any buttons on the CT head unit.  The Ergvideo software will generate a report after the test is done that gives me avg watts for the test duration.  However, I use the data from the PT as my benchmark because I would rather put my trust in the PT than the CT....nothing to back that up necessarily.  As long as each performs consistently for any test you do then you should still be able to track relative progress over time using either piece of equipment.  But, I haven't sat down to look at PT and CT data side by side to see if the difference between the 2 remains the same consistently.  Would be easy enough to do after next week's test.  Off the top of my head it seems as though the CT number tends to be lower than the PT but I think I had one test where they were very similar.  I can follow up on this next week.

90 mins on the trainer this morning and a 40 min run this afternoon.  Managed to hit a peak power of 1007 watts on the bike during an all-out 10s effort, first time I've gotten into 4 digits.

1:20 run tomorrow - it's supposed to be above 0C but windy and rain.  Yuck.

LOL...did I provide you a little motivation.  Get on the road bike, outdoors, on a smooth, clean, wide open road where you can put your head down and rock the bike.  You'll hit way over 1007.

On a side note, I'm about to get on the trainer.  It's been raining all weekend and I just washed my bike yesterday after it got caked in dirt, road grime, and sand.  Only planning on a 35-45 minute spin as my legs feel a little trashed right now.

Your Strava post may have crossed my mind.  

The weather for my run today was much better than I expected with the wind dying down and the rain never showed up.  The roads were slushy in places but pretty nice overall.

I took advantage of the same weather to get out on the bike.  Really just an aerobic endurance ride - except for a few seconds mashing the pedals (OK - only got into the 900's - next time!).    After a few seconds, I thought better of the high W on an endurance ride…  So much nicer on the roads - even when they're wet, sandy and still have a bit of snow.  It doesn't feel like suffering...

Matt

Another 20' FTP test in the books.

20MP: 286W

FTP: 272W

Improvement of 18W since 11/5/13.  I was in pretty good shape on 11/5 so nice to see some of the hard work paying off.  May have gave away too much in the first 10 minutes.  Averaged 277W for the first 5' and 281 for the second 5' and then hit the gas!! 299W for the last 5'. 

Nice job!