Baowolf's Mentor Group - Sorry Closed. (Page 44)

As I read the posts of the group lately, we seem so yin/yang.  So many great things and scary things happening all at once.

Samantha/Mike: Good job with your bike/run respectively!

Mitch: Glad you found out about that foot striking before you had more issues with that foot.  I hear you loud and clear on recovering properly too

Carol: I'm back on track diet wise today and certainly hope you are doing the same!  Its really such a mental thing...once you get going, you don't even miss those treats!  I'm very sorry about your friends situation.  I'm actually a correctional officer when I'm not rupturing my achilles tendon so if you have any concerns, feel free to ask.  I've run into people like your friend during my career.  Sadly, they stick out like a sore thumb but most officers will look out for those types the best we can.

As far as my day, I did some weight training followed by my 250/100/75/50/25 swim ladder.  It went pretty well; I implemented similar rest between my yardage like the 0-1650 program did...and I still felt really good.  I did some water walking for about 5 minutes and that still feels really awkward.  I'm trusting the PT's that its okay to do this and the soreness I feel at my surgical incision is normal...I've brought this up twice and been told its okay. 

Hello everyone. I have been resting my Achilles injury pretty well.  Still swimming and cycling.  Looking forward to being able to run again. I know that I have to be patience but you know how we are.  

It is truly great to see everyone's activities.  It makes me both proud and jealous.  But I will like emphasis the pride.  

Hi guys. I just caught up on all the posts. The responses are pretty awesome and I do not think I could add anything to what everyone has said. 

As for myself, I enjoyed a week of light training after the race, and started a BT maintenance program. I'm also starting "Insanity' workouts after school with some co-workers for fun. (doing the workouts at a slower pace though than those in the video, more like strength training sessions.)

Carol - I'm so sorry to hear about your friend. It sounds like she took the selfless route, but it is hard to stomach that bad things happen to good people. You speak works of wisdom. And I also know that you know God works in mysterious ways, but it is sometimes reassuring to hear others say it. Hopefully your friend is taking it as well as she can.

Jay, Ken - Glad to hear the recovery is going well for both of you.

Samantha - You are a warrior! Nuf said!

Steve - I'm happy to hear good news from you. Hopefully it continues. And 3 times the mortgage means 3 times the pay right? Had to say it so I could use the money smiley. 

We had a busy weekend. A little tool time with the wife while replacing brakes and rotors on her car. We couldn't believe the mechanic wanted to charge us $1100 for $150 worth of parts and 4 hours worth of our time (probably takes them 2 hrs) and neither of us has ever worked on cars. Followed that up with a birthday party, wedding shower, and baby duty. It all boiled down to lots of fun, food and of course in WI you can't leave out the beer. Now, I'm trying to make up for all my choices while traveling this week, but I did surprise myself. I am traveling close enough that I can drive so I did some homework, found a hotel near a bike trail and brought the bike along for the trip. The trail was great, but busy tonight. I couldn't really push hard because I was passing people every couple of minutes, but I probably needed that after a hard ride Friday followed by lots of kneeling on concrete and bending over Saturday morning. 

Thanks guys only 5 more months before IM Tahoe.....  

Samantha nice HTFU ride, I hope you had full waterproof gear on.  I'm think you will be in shape for your IM, just keep plugging away.  I bet you are starting to understand what I meant before when I said you can build endurance or speed.  Bet you weren't really concerned about your bike speed on your ride.... Hang in there You have some time and you will be surprised how much your current base will carry you through.  You only need to add a couple miles to your long run, you can add the swim no problem and the bike well, that will just come as it comes. 

Samantha, great news on the job!  Ironically enough, my wife got a call for a reference from a nurse she supervised 3/4 years ago yesterday. 

My real question is about the bike.  I don't know yet but I'm assuming Samantha's soreness in the saddle area is normal but I've read that you should have a non gel saddle.  I've read that it helps with soreness because it helps your parts get used to not have any cushion.  Is there any truth to this?  I have a gel on my bike right now...so if I need to change out, I should do it before I get used to it!

Steve, praying your surgery goes well!  Please, please come back here as soon as you can and let us know how you are doing.  Think of it like a race report.  Have you signed up for IM Tahoe, or just have your eye on it?

Anthony, way to go on packing up the bike for your trip!  That has got to be a great way to relieve some work stress on the road.  Great ingenuity there, as well as on the car repairs.  I cannot seem to change the pedals on my bike, so yeah, probably won't be doing a brake job on the car anytime soon!  Yes, bad things happening to good people is always a hard pill to swallow.  Thanks for the encouragement to wait for the good that can come from it.

Jay, it is so comforting to know that you and other correctional officers do look for folks like my friend and do what you can.  She is going to a federal prison "camp", and gets to self surrender, so that is good.  I think those used to be the "club fed" type places, but they are not quite so cushy anymore after all the press about that.  Thanks for the encouragement re: getting the food situation back on track.  I'm doing better on that so far this week too.  Not sure on the bike saddle thing...I have the normal harder saddle and suggested to my hubby he get same when he got his bike.  He started off hating me for that (not really, but you know what I mean).  Recently he has gone on a couple of shorter rides in just regular shorts and said it doesn't bother him at all.  I guess it's all what you get used to.

Samantha, wow, so you jumped from 70 mile bike right back on the saddle.  No wonder...ouch!  Good training though.  I hope you are feeling good about your training because you are standing up really well in the thick of it.  I've provided quite a few references over the years, and it was usually pretty obvious that employers had already made up their mind by the time they checked.  I hope that is the case for you, and you are on your way to that new job!  Yes, if anyone can turn this into "prison ministry" it is my friend.  Oh, and HTFU: gist of it is "get tough"; more literal is "harden the f* up". 

Kate, you are cracking me up by equating insanity workouts with "light training".  All a matter of perspective, and after your HIM training, you have some perspective!

Ken, glad you are resting that achilles.  We do not want any more surgery/long recoveries happening in this group.  Maybe you can think of it as forced swim focus.

Yesterday was a short/easy run and then a bike ride with hubby and a friend of his from work.  None of the runs really feel easy lately, but keeping up a little something there.  Bike ride was fun and we got to battle the 25+ mph south wind again.

I slept in this AM for an extra hour and it felt great. Love when I can do that!

Finally feeling like spring here. Temps in lower 70's, sunny. at last!

Looking at my plan I realized today that this week is the start of the "Build 1" phase. 12 hours of training, including some big bricks this weekend. The next 6-8 weeks are so crucial to get me set for the race, I need to try to hit them as much as possible (not that I wouldn't otherwise... ). Bikes are really ramping up to 3:00/3:30/4:00 hours, usually followed by a 30 min to 1 hr run. The warm weather will let me finally get off the training and making it on the road. whoo hoo! 

http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/discussion/forums/thread-view.asp?tid=483625&posts=13&start=1

Great timing for the question. People have been talking about this a bit on the Triathlon Talk thread. Some good thoughts in the couple of posts that I have read. I don't think a padded seat would give you many problems on shorter rides, but it sounds like the padded shorts are more comfortable over longer rides because they move with you more. Also, you should really be putting all of the pressure on your sit bones. These bones may be sore for the first couple of weeks from riding, but will get used to everything after time. Not much if any pressure should be on your "parts". Not good if you want to have kids, and it can just make the ride very uncomfortable - even scary if you lose feeling. Other soreness can be caused by chaffing, and apparently this is were more padding is bad. There are a number of lubricants out there that can be used to help with chaffing.

Mitch - Have you tried any of these tricks? http://www.activesplit.com/my-garmin-forerunner-305-doesnt-power-on-its-just-dead-solutions/ Hopefully one works for you.

No ride tonight. I had to move to a different town which has no bike routes (not much of anything for that matter), and I don't want to ride country roads in the dark. So a nice quick run had to suffice for my workout.

As I was driving to my home for the night, I was eating my Scrubway sub and thinking about how much I love banana peppers and jalepeno peppers, but I wanted to ride my bike and anything spicy really gives me heartburn while riding. I love spicy food, but unfortunately I have to watch what I eat in that regard so I can train well. oh sacrifices.

Samantha, your saddle issues are most likely related to just riding more than usual.  You can have 1-3 levels of padding on your shorts that you can wear to kind of move around the of most friction a bit.  Be really sure you are washing your shorts often enough.  Sweat and road grime will cause a significant increase in friction.  I have had mixed results from adding a cream or body/glide to the offending area.  A harder seat tends to be better in that it allows the hard sit bones to support most of your weight.  A softer seat can cause a greater amount of pressure on your soft tissue areas that increases friction and can feel like minor bruising.  Unfortunately some of it just happens.  Folks with more than 1 bike alternate bikes to move the location of the pressure points slightly.  But ya just gona take time. 

So surgery went well ish.  No ACL, Meniscus brusing/terring, no arthritis, bone spur, or other large structural difficulty.  He removed the synovium on the offending side (thin connective membrane that can get chunks of calcification in it and essentially do to my knee what Samantha's bike seat is doing to her seat) when I run.  Like rocks in your shoe between bone and meniscus and soft areas inside the knee.  Or that is my best understanding based on his 4 words on the paper. So we see how things go.  Web says that it could remain painful for months or years if not attended to.

Ok if I found the right info... we found this thing way early so much so that it didn't really show much  on MRI.  It turns out that if I had not been running when it developed it probably would have progressed possibly for years without bothering me much and would have been way worse.  So again if I have the diagnosis right from my doc who doesnt talk much, it got caught way early has less than a 10 percent chance of reoccurance over the next 4-10 years so 90 percent or better never return and I avoided any and all complications to the joint.  

If I had continued being a couch potato it could have calcified and blocked the function of my joint and done unpleasantries to the inner workings.  So odd thing where running saves my knee... I guess.  I will ask him if that is what it was when I see him next.

The short view at the intranet says 4-6 weeks recovery like any real injury and then good for a slow build back to full normal recovery.    

Steve - great news! Hopefully this will get you back up and going soon.

Our swim this AM was a total butt kicking. 3300 yards, but it doesn't seem like that much when we are doing it. Its a sneaky 3300 . The 20x50yd on :55 after warmups should have been a sign we were in for a good workout. I do fee fantastic (although incredibly hungry!) now, though.

Steve: That's great news on the surgery front.  Hopefully, this will put all of your physical issues in the past.  Anything new on the job front?

Anthony: Thanks for the link on bike seats.  The more I read, the more it looks like a personal preference.  I have a gel seat on my used bike I got so I'll give it a shot.  If it doesn't work well as I start adding miles, I'll try to find a hard saddle.

Mike: You're entering beast mode with that swimming distance...making me feel weak with my 600 yards lol.

Today was a great day at the PT!  I got clearance to be even more aggressive exercise wise.  I can start lifting weights to build up my quads, do balance drills on land, use an elliptical, and even use my sneakers instead of my boot (as long as I put my lift inside)  There's also a PT there who is a triathlete so I asked her if I can breaststroke and kick...and was told yes.  I'll stick with pull buoy most of the time but its good to be able to get some leg work again.  Ironically, I met up with the PT I drove crazy during my first session and she was able to tolerate me a bit better today.  She told me I'm making really good progress and she also assured me that my flare up over the weekend didn't hurt me.  I liked seeing her because she did very little weights and a lot more BW exercises.

Steve, awesome news on the surgery!!!  Heal quickly.  And then the job interviews are next week, correct?  Good luck on them.

Everyone else sounds like you are all working hard.  Great job!

I got runs in Sunday, Monday, and Tuesday which was awesome!  3 days in a row and it really helped my pysche.  Ballgames have interferred today.  Son has a doubleheader tomorrow night so that means I'll need to get up early tomorrow for a run.  The runs are slowish and not the distance I want to do but I'm just thankful to be out there.

Yes I applied for 2 jobs so far and got to the interview stage for both of them.  It looks like that means 1 in 4 for the first job and 1 in maybe 6 for the 2nd one.  There will be two rounds of interviews if I get through the first round.  I really want the job I am interviewing for on Tuesday it would be a significant pay raise even with the higher housing cost (300% higher cost) and close to a huge gym with 2 pools and swim lessons.  It would be about 100 miles from IM lake Tahoe.  I told my wife I only have 5 months to train for it, she said no sweety you have 17 months. .... 8(.  I will need to do 20-30 hours of research this week for background information for the interviews and then keep the information straight about the two school systems on interview days.  The really good news is that the higher paying job interview is before the lower paying job, so I should know if I am in for the 1st choice job before interviewing for the 2nd one.  It is hard to say just how much experience the rest of the competition has, so not sure where I stand, but the odds are not horrible at this point and both of the lower paying job is an 8k raise, the higher paying one is 25k raise.  Ya longer hours more days per year, but with my son going into college and higher housing costs I like the idea of the 25k one more.  Worst case I still have the job I am doing now at a 5k raise for next year.  I know TMI. 

So ya walking slowly without crutches today, no pain meds, went to work. No soaking, ie swimming etc for more than two weeks, no running, walking, biking, but hopeful.  If I hadn't gone through with the surgery I would have just been stuck for well ever.   

Smanatha HTFU is a BT term ish means "Harden the F___ up" in vulgar terms or merely toughen up, suck it up, doing something really harder than you have done before making prior workouts quantitatively less impressive in comparison.   

Everyone else... keep up the good work.  

Great news Glad things are looking up.

Carol - Great new about your step dad as well!  Very positive.

Everyone seems to be in a good place!  I'm training and just about to sign up for a race or two.  Can't wait!!

Yardwork is dangerous, hence, I don't do it .

Steve -- good luck with the interviews; hope you land that big one! Sounds like a great position, and being near a good gym, pool, etc it all sounds great.

Just off the trainer this AM after an hour. Felt fine, although my PC decided to do a system update in the middle of my workout (using trainer road & sufferfest this AM) so the whole workout was interrupted for 10 minutes, at least on the PC. Kept pedaling away, and when it restarted, my Garmin decided to download all kinds of new stuff, and then reset itself. So, I finished, but only know it was an hour by the clock on my computer.

Time to shower then head off to work. Great day to all!!

Brian: Bummer on the knee.  Here's to hoping its just a slight tweak and it starts to get better soon.

Mike: Good work on the bike   Someday, I'll get a laptop and consider putting it in front of me.  For now, I watch Sportscenter when I go on the trainer.

Carol: I'm glad the surgery went well.  I think in many ways, you may have trained harder than most of us in that hospital yesterday!

I'm not sure if you all read the articles section but there was a pretty good one that was "new" yesterday.  It was written by a woman who has apparantly written a book about being a mom and triathlete.  I liked the article because it talks about swimming and overcoming your fears.

Now, I have to do a little bit of bragging.  Today, I was able to really let loose with my training for the first time since my AT.  I cranked up the weight for my strength training, did some leg strengthening work that I was shown yesterday by the PT, biked, elliptical, and swam.  Predictably, my legs were not where the rest of my body was but all and all, I was happy.  I did 30 on the stationary bike, 10 on the elliptical, and a 600Y ladder at the end of all that.  I was a little nervous because this is the most I've worked since switching my diet to keto but there were no issues.  My biggest regret was forgetting my water bottle and having to bike that long without anything to drink!  I know to those who are training hard this will sound silly but to those of us coming back from injury...I think you'll appreciate the fact that it felt great to really SWEAT again.  I rewarded myself with a serving of leftover jelly beans from Easter....after researching and confirming that carbs post workout won't knock you out of ketosis

I'm done!  Hope you all are having a great day!