GrooveTime!group - CLOSED!!! (Page 54)

Where is everybody this morning? We finally have some nice weather ... 40 degrees and the sun is shining.  Just got a 6 mile run in and going to get ready for the first baseball scrimmage of the season ... can't wait to see all my boys again out on the field!! 

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Nice getting that run in so early in the morning and having the sun shine to boot!    I'm just off to an hour swim session with coach and then meeting a friend to do a long slow swim in a 50 meter pool after that.  

Hope everyone is doing well and has a fun weekend.  

STEVE:

I moved the pad around a bit today before my run, and placed it right under the ball of my foot. Can't say it made much of a difference though, because I started feeling pain at the usual 2 mile mark. I'm not giving up all hope on that cortisone shot though, since the podiatrist said it could take up to 10 days to kick in (although in my past experiences with cortisone shots they tended to work in a day or two...)

As a matter of fact, I was feeling the pain more intensely this time in my 3rd and 4th toes (versus 2nd and 3rd). Could I actually have that other type of neuroma as well, in addition to the Morton's? That would be just my luck. :/

I checked out the Newtons web site. Interesting stuff... I'm going to keep it in the back of my mind in case the neuroma doesn't get better. I had plantar fasciitis in the past though and generally weak calves so I wonder if they'd really be right for me.

Thanks!

ANNE:

SAME exact thing with me! The neuroma doesn't hurt at all if I'm walking, sitting, doing aerobics, whatever. It's only when I run. The pain goes away as soon as I go from running to walking. Interesting....

Tracey

ANNE:

See my previous post to Steve... went for a 3 mile run this morning and the neuroma started bothering me at mile 2, as usual, despite the cortisone shot on Tuesday. But I now feel more pain in my 3rd and 4th toes, versus between the 2nd and 3rd as it was before. I wonder if I have BOTH types of neuromae??

Anyway, dumb question but what is a cotton baton? I'm willing to try anything at this point!

Thanks!

Tracey

STEVEA:

I'm willing to try voodoo at this point to ward off the neuroma!!

STEVE:

Wanted to report on the TI progress. I tried the technique of "slipping" the hands into the surface of the water (versus slapping the arms down OVER the water...) I have to say I think it made a difference! At this point I'm not paying much attention to my times, but there were many instances when I was moving across the pool, saw the marker at the wall and said to myself, I'm at the other side already?? So I definitely think the technique is reducing my drag a bit, thus helping propel me along. I can totally see how bringing the arms up and over the water and then down is kind of like putting the brakes on just a little bit every time. My next goal is to try the technique of "holding" onto the water after you extend the arm. It's kind of hard to imagine doing it, because common sense tells you that you need to forcefully bring the arm down to push yourself along through the water... But I suppose that gets to the heart of TI itself: learning to swim more easily, less forcefully, and more relaxed, using the core of the body versus the arms and legs. I got the TI DVD too so I'll be checking that out soon.

Back at the pool tomorrow!

Tracey

Yo!

Our phone line accidentally got severed due to constuction a few houses away yesterday, and it just got fixed. So, we are re-connected to the universe-at-large, and not dependent on Lynn's cell phone.

However, I am now leaving the phone free in the hopes that a plumber will return our call concerning a rapidly-dripping kitchen tap. So, I've leaving you all to each other again for a while longer, but acknowledge that I owe several people responses.

Play nicely, kids!

....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....drip....

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip

drip

(Just trying to figure out which of those best captures the mood of the day. The plumber who hasn't yet phoned back? He's a drip. too. Now I'm back to leaving the phone line free. Drip.)

Hi,

Oh! Oh! Check BT articles - Steve's BT of the Month is up.

Denise

Edited by LadyNorth 2010-02-06 3:47 PM

Nice interview, STEVEB.  Are you still dripping??

DENISE -

Oh, Sweet Mother of Mercy - that just makes a bad day worse! There is NO WAY I am going anywhere near there, as I cannot stomach the thought of further insult to injure. The injury, fortunately, has been restricted to inanimate objects - phone line, faucet, computer (it has been giving me headaches since trying to get on about 20 minutes ago) - and not my body, but at least for today I refuse to subject myself to the abject emarrassment of listening to my own hemming and hawing.

Other than that.......how are you? It is good to feel reconnected to you all, and I know I have some serious catching-up to do. Anything new from balmy Minnesota?

As for bricks, a brick is when you effectively make two workouts into one. The most common is the bike-run brick, and one of the examples from Anne is a 45-minute run followed immediately by a 10-minute run. They are meant to simulate not only transition speed, but also the genral feeling of running off the bike. The most common ones are ones that emphasize the bike, which is what Anne's would do; thta is, the bike is relatively long, compared to the run. But they can be set-up in myriad ways, with just about as many permutations as there are seconds in a day.

Bricks can also be somewhat complex (Darren posted one about a month agao, and sometime I will post a killer brick known as "Icks") wherein the sequence can be run-bike-run-bike-run-bike-run, or variations on that theme. And Darren's had really long segments - 40km bike, 10km run, and that was repeated a few times. Doing ones like that, however, and very risky for anyone who either is not training for an ultra-ironman (that is, two or more ironman "races", back-to-back) or who has a bionic body. For 99.9% of age-groupers, there is no need to push huge endurance limits during training. Some HIM and IM aspirants will do a fairly long run following a very long ride, but again, there are risks involved in doing this -- at least too often!

While the standard brick is a bike-run one with the goals as stated above -- getting accustomed to running off the bike -- lots of duathletes will switch it to simulate the first two legs of a duathlon. And while it serves no function for race simulation, I really like doing swim-run bricks on hot days in the summer. I will do an open water swim, run to my car, strip off my wetsuit, and as it is in any race, my racing clothes are underneath. So they are nice and wet, and I just whip on my running shoes and away I go. I manage to stay relatively cool due to the wetness for quite a while, and then if I get too warm during the run, I just hop back in the water post-run. And even though I have never done a swim-run sequence in a race, I feel I benefit from working at running effcetively when I am in an exerted state -- i.e., post-swim.

Intriguing, eh?

LISA -

Um.....thank you? But see my just-made post to Denise. I am a few days away from venturing there myself; apparently 24 days hasn't been enough time to sufficiently steel myself!

And dripping? Alas and woe, yes. He never phoned, so I am probably going to have to find someone else. He may be a decent plumber, but he is terrible at returning calls. (On the other hand, we don't make it easy for people as we don't have an answering machine......) Still, I kept the line free for about 8 hours, wiith the exception of those few moments to play around with conceptualized drips. With my luck these days, that's likely when he tried to phone!!

Anything new on your training front? I'm meandering through the past couple of days of posts in no particular order, so you may have posted something and I just haven't noticed it yet. It will probably all become apparent to me within the next 30-40 minutes or so!

LISA again -

And I know we commisserated with each other about "flat" runs a week or two ago, but my recent ones have been very good; that one time was just one of those blips, I guess. I hope yours have improved as well!

I did 9.3km two days ago and 11.1km yesterday, and am setting my sights on 12/13 tomorrow. My times for those past runs were just under 5:00/km, and that wasn't pushing the pace at all. I've had several injury-ridden winters in a row, and so my early-race-season run fitness has not been what I would like it to be. This winter, however (KNOCK ON WOOD!!!!!) is shaping up pretty nicely -- may it stay that way!

LISA once more -

Ahhh! I see you already responded to Denise about her brick question. That's what I get for not carefully reading all the post in the proper sequence before I started in with responses! DOH!

ANNE -

Y'know, you mentioning the cotton trick rings a distant bell with me, and because I never treid it I had forgotten that I ever heard about it. I guess I didn't do it because I wasn't sure how I could get it taped so that it would stay taped during a race. Or something like that?

Anyhow, i am obviously thrilled that it seems to be working for you! How has it been since you first posted about it? (Was that yesterday or the day before??)

I guess it's very obvious by now that I have been around the block many, many times with a wide assortment of injuries, and one of the things I have learned is that "textbook" examples - or anecdotal accounts from other sufferers - don't necessarily apply to my own situations. In fact, I have a history of "presenting" injuries poorly -- that is, in ways that don't conform to textbook descriptions and symptoms. This was a huge problem for my tibial stress fracture, and less so for my torn meniscus, as definitive diagnoses were very slow to happen due to "missing symptoms"!

Anyhow, I say that so you don't overly question your own condition based on what you read or hear. For me and my neuroma, whne it was hellacious during runs I was fine as soon as I went back to walking or anything other than running. But for my two years running in Neewtons my runs are perfect -- but WALKING in those shoes immediately gets the neuroma mildly activated. It's so strange -- I run for any length of time to no ill effect, and then as soon as I stop and walk........I can feel the bugger twitching some!

Hi,

SteveB,

You got Diane and Denise mixed up.  Diane had the brick question.  I know, I know - all that dripping has confused you.
Denise

DENISE -

I could've SWORN I saw that question next to your picture, and not only that but I thought it was just a one-liner post. I have no idea what I saw or thought I saw......but the image in my mind's eye was very clearly that question next to your photo. Hmmmm.

Maybe it is the drip, although for the past several hours I have avodied making eye-contact with the kitchen sink in the hope that "out of sight, out of mind". But my mind seems to be "out of it" anyhow, desn't it? Oh, noooooooo...............

DIANE -

Wow, what an upbeat post!

As for the swimming modification, now is the best of the best times to do it. You have not had enough pool time recently to instill bad habits (terribly difficult to rectify), and relatively speaking you are clean slate, a field of newly-driven snow. So, it's a great time to work at bilateral breathing, which really is the best thing for wonky shoulders. I suspect your trainer has already told you all about this, which really is simple -- breathing to both sides doesn't "overload" one shoulder too much. Keep at it, and keep us posted as to how it's feeling to you!

Great job on your triple brick!! Some people would find what you did a bit taxing, but your seem to have handled it with great aplomb. Fun stuff, eh?

And you're on a perfect 3-1 recovery week sequence, whichh is how most training plans operate. And you're idea of doing the triple brick every fourth week sounds very wise, especially the goals you are setting for it. Cool beans!

And the bike........it's getting closer, and closer, and closer!!

TRACEY -

You're about set to become the poster girl for TI, or at least overall swim adaptability. I mean, your progress seems to be top-of-the-line, and everything you try seems to be bearing fruit. You're a quick study!!

"Holding" the water is counter-intuitive, but when you do it right it feels really nice and works effectively. I am not consistent with it (as with many swim technique issues for me, they come and go as they please ), but when it works all is right with the world.

Keep those updates coming!

TRACEY again -

Live and learn! I saw Anne's post about cotton "baton", nd I didn't think it looked right. I thought "batten" might be the correct spelling......but when I went to the dictionary to check it, it wasn't there in that context. then I went to google, and it's
"batting" -- cotton batting!

The abbreviated definition is "....thin pressed layers of fluffy absorbent cotton, used for surgical dressing....". So there you have it!

As I posted to Anne a while ago, I'm sure I've heard of this for neuromae before, but never tried it myself so it slipped my mind. I figure that any wad of cotton would do the job, so maybe just rob some from the top of your bottle of pain-reliever-of-choice!

Edited by midlifeinsanity 2010-05-24 7:40 AM