Jeff Y's Group - CLOSED (Page 42)

I have an idea.   Stay with me on this.

First, you sign up for an online poker site and lose a few hundred dollars on your credit card. 

Subscribe to a couple of magazines on gambling.  Buy some books on strategy from Amazon...

Tell the wife that you are really loving this gambling 'hobby' and that it's going to make you guys tons of money!

You probably won't have to go very far until she's really encouraging you to get more involved in that triathlon hobby of yours.  When she starts saying things (while you are on the computer playing poker) like "Sweety, shouldn't you be out training?" then you know you've got her! 

Tell her that if you are going to do this triathlon thing right, you won't have any time left for the new poker hobby and would have to give it up.  That would make you sad, but you'd be willing to do that for her.  And then mention how doing the triathlon hobby 'right' means you need a new bike.

She'll drive you to the bike shop herself. 

I'm thinking blondes and ferraris is a good plan for disaster.  Even when single.

I'm thinking about doing a 5k on Monday also.  I got an easy run in yesterday and my left shin is still pretty sore.  I may run it with the guests at my house and just go easy.  It's a good charity, so as long as I can hold myself back, it will be worth it.  I'm not sure how fast my buddy runs, but I will probably just stick with him.

What's everyone else got going on this weekend?

Nice job Matt.  Sounds like a good effort.

I ran a 5k yesterday as well.  I didn't really push myself as it was very hot and humid for me.  I was dripping sweat just standing at the starting line.  Just to give you an indication, I ended up just under 26 mins with an average HR of 184.  The last "fast" 3 miles I ran in a tri was 25 and change with an average HR of 165.

Great races guys. 

Matt - PRs are always a bonus, and that's a serious PR to knock that much time off.

Jonathan - That shows how much heat and humidity affect us.  It's been brutally humid (at least for us) lately, good job laying down a pretty nice race.

Oh absolutely!  The heat is my number one enemy!  I'm not sure that I could even complete a race like Kona even if I qualified, just because of the heat factor.  I also like speed too much.  I'd rather just go hard for a short period of time than spend all day at mod. pace.

Jonathan, we have to take care of that shin of yours.  We don't want to lose out on the opportunity for consistent running this winter.

Saturday and Sunday were opportunities for me to get back on my mtn bike and start to knock off the rust before my off-road race on the 24th.  On Saturday I was out there playing with my bike trying to troubleshoot a drivetrain problem.  I was standing on the pedals as hard as I could while holding myself back with the brakes when I grabbed a little too much brake and had to hold myself back with my shoulder muscles from going over the bars.  I heard a popping/tearing sound in my shoulder and felt like I was shot by a gun.  It took about five minutes before I gained my composure. 

I went for the ride, but dismounted a few times at places where riding over obstacles would have required pushing the handlebars.  Sunday I rode again, and the shoulder was worse overall, but still fine for riding if I didn't pump the handlebars.  I did a trail run and that sucked.  Had to let the arm dangle at my side.  Any movement of it was excruciating.

This morning I ran with a sling around my neck holding on to it with my hand and that worked pretty well.

Got a call in to the Dr. to see about fast-tracking an MRI.  There's something really weird feeling in there.  Probably torn muscle contracting which is really weird because your brain told your arm to move and it doesn't.

I swim tomorrow morning and race on Saturday.  I should be able to race either way.  I can swim one-armed if necessary.

Wish me luck.

Jeff, that sounds nuts.  I'd get that thing checked before racing in that condition, but then again I'm old, wise, and not competing for podium spots!

When I woke up this morning it was 58 degrees.  I'm currently searching Google satellite imagery for the giant crack in the Earth that indicates the end of the world is nigh.  To further exacerbate my confusion, after my six mile run at lunch today my clothes were dry and didn't make a distinctive wet plopping noise as I dropped them on the locker room floor.  

Current forecast for my olympic tri this Saturday is 58 degrees at start with a high of about 85. The current water temperature in the lake is 85 degrees, so I'm guessing there isn't a chance of it being wet suit legal (not that I have one) by Saturday.  Heck there may even be fog, which I'm guessing would delay the swim start?  The bike ride might be a wee bit chilly even coming off of the swim. Seeing as it was 100 degrees last year at the same time, I will take it!

Thanks for the concern.  I promise that while I tend to plow through benign pain, I don't ever want to extend an injury and won't do something that will set me back (knowingly).

If I need to on Saturday I will swim with one arm.  I prefer to adjust rather than avoid.

I saw my Dr. today and he referred me to the best sports-ortho guy in town who he got me in to see tomorrow afternoon.

I'm playing a little bit of group catch up right now.  I have been reading all of the posts for the last week and a half but not taking the time to post myself, then I was out of town in Findlay Oh. working some storm restoration Sunday and Monday.  we only had 9 poles on the job I was working and it went well so it wasn't bad.  The only bad thing out of it was a shortened holiday weekend with minimized training.

Matt, it sounds like you are learning the pacing game for your races.  It doesn't sound like you went out extremely fast like you were doing earlier in the season.  Good job!

I am hoping the discussion for the bike fit and speeds for a Road vs. Tri continue.  I have more to learn about the differences and proper fitting, so Warren get those pics up so I can learn too.

Jeff,  it sounds like that shoulder could be a little more serious than you might be thinking.  I can't imagine it would be a good idea to be riding or swimming in the condition it sounds like.  I wonder if it isn't a torn tendon or ligament.  Something that makes such a distinct sound doesn't seem to me like it could be much less than that.  Be careful!

I will try to salvage the 35 miles I had planned to run this week through longer runs back to back.  I am back to 50 mpw again next week for a total of 3 weeks then a 2 week taper for Columbus marathon.

I am into a recovery week but it is going to be a screwy kind of running schedule.  I wanted to get about 35 miles in over4-5 runs, scattered throughout, but after having to work Sunday and Monday I am going to have to cram them into 4 consecutive runs.  Tonight's 8 miles is complete, the rest of the week looks like 5, 8 and 12.  I have a wedding to attend out of town this Saturday and I won't have time to do anything then.

Brian, the weather here is great too.  For my run tonight I didn't really even feel sweat running down my face until 5.5 miles into it.  I am looking forward to running in cooler temps with all the heat we have had to deal with this summer.

That's good to hear.  Be smart there, tough guy.

Any word on that shoulder Jeff?  Didn't you have an issue with the shoulder while lifting a few months back? 

Be careful to not get into anything chronic or more serious.

Not quite any official word yet.  Dr. is supposed to call me today.  Yesterday I went to the ortho.  He seems to be the premier shoulder guy in Nashville.  He was the Team dr. for our pro hockey team for about 10 years. 

He was pretty sure that I tore my rotator cuff and need surgery.  He then sent me immediately to the imaging center for a arthogram.  A Dr. started by putting me under an xray and injecting lidocane in my shoulder.  He then stuck a needle down in to the shoulder socket and began to inject dye.  When the dye (that shows up on the xray) told him he had the needle in the joint correctly, he then inserted another type of 'dye' (probably radioactive juice) that the MRI machine would see.

Once that was done I went to get the MRI.

The Dr. injecting the dye thought I had a good tear either simply from what he saw on xray being highlighted by the dye or because when he injected in to the shoulder dye came out of the joint in a way it shouldn't have.

And the MRI tech wouldn't say a thing about what she saw, but her reaction hinted that she saw something really obvious.

So the Dr. will call me today and tell me I need surgery.  We talked yesterday about possibly finishing out my season before surgery, but he needed to see what was going on to tell whether it was something that had to be fixed right away or not. 

I will let you know.

A "small-to-medium" tear of my supraspinatus (sp?).  It's about 1cm x 1cm. 

And there's a small tear in the labrum too.

I'm going to be meeting him in the morning to look over the images with him and talk surgery.  It sounds as though it's mild enough that my shoulder should be able to remain stable for a triathlon.  So at this point I expect to race on Saturday.  It might be my last hurrah for this season though because it's already been something like 3 weeks?  Maybe going on 4 since I initially hurt this and they like to fix them within 6 weeks.    Or maybe he meant within 6 weeks of the MRI?  because he mentioned something about the MRI results being meaningless if more damage has been done in the meantime.

This puts my mind a little bit at ease regarding the severity.  I had been expecting to hear it was really bad. 

You all can watch my rehab progress.  The goal is to maintain as much fitness as possible while following the Dr's orders.  So it's very important to get creative.  I will talk it all over with the Dr. and/or the rehab folks but I expect to be able to get on a recumbant bike within just a few days and then move on from there.

That shoulder tear sucks!  It's to bad but I guess on the brighter side of things it's coming at the end of the season rather than the beginning.  It could have ruined an entire racing season.  That, of course, is easy for me to say since I don't have to deal with the surgery or rehab.

I hope you can come up with something to stay as fit as possible during the rehab process.  The good thing is that you live south enough that you can probably ride through November can't you?  I can ride through October if there isn't a lot of really cold weather.  I don't have any cold weather riding gear so around 40 degrees I''ll be on the trainer for sure.

On a personal training note: I have been able to salvage my recovery runs this week after working the storm from last Saturday night.  I have 21 miles in so far and a planned 11 miles tomorrow morning.  that will put me a few miles short of my goal but close enough that I am not concerned.  The only thing is, my plan was to split the runs and have a couple of days away from running before hitting another.  I should be okay though.

Jeff: Make sure you take care of that shoulder and follow the Dr's order's.  I had a similar injury back in high school and thought I knew best.  Now 18 years later my shoulder reminds me of that decision often.  Young and dumb I guess.

I finally received my bike back from the shop, it had been damaged in a run-in with my boy.  The bad part is that I am heading into the toughest bike course of the season and I haven't been able to ride.  That should make things interesting.

I have a 5K on Saturday and a sprint Tri on Sunday, this is going to be fun.  Still haven't decided how hard I'm going to run the 5K, but last week I felt pretty good the next day after pushing a 5K hard.

Tomorrow is my olympic distance triathlon.  This has been my A race target for all my training this summer.  I'm already pumped.  I just have this feeling that it will be a good day! Packet pickup is at 5pm today.

Forecast at race start is 55 degrees with a high around 80 by 1pm.  The lake water temp yesterday was 84.  I anticipate a pretty chill bike ride before it starts to warm up.  I guess I'd best see if I can find my arm warmers in my winter running gear box.  

These are my estimates for my time expectations:

Swim: 43 minutes

Bike: 1:30 ~18mph

Run: 1:00

Go get it Bryan. Keep the pace right and finish strong.

I think you'll be warmer than you think after the swim.  In training anything under 60 and I wear the arm warmers, but I did a sprint in the low 40s last year and wasn't cold at all on the bike.  You're just too pumped to really notice.

5k is right at limit of how long I can run hard and not be trashed the next day, at leas tin terms of being able to really race.  Be smart, but if you've already tested it last week sounds like you know what you're doing.