Fred Doucette's Half-Iron and Ironman Focused Group! -CLOSED! (Page 58)

While traveling I came down with a dozy of a cold with lots of coughing and very little sleep last few days. I'm a little better today.

In the last week between traveling and cold I've only done two workouts. Need to get healthy as I leave for tri camp next Friday.

I saw my PT yesterday. My knee is 85% but still needs work on having and keeping full knee extension. He made me aware how bad of place as I was back in January and I've made significant progress.  He says running for me is like playing with fire as my gait is off, which makes me at high risk for secondary injury. Until I own and always have full knee extension I can't build quad or core strength.

What has come to me over last week, I need to be happy I can run and do this despite many real issues and not get hung up on pace, times and the like.

I wouldn't worry too much about it.  IME, what you describe is par-for-the-course, and I think you took the right approach - give it a couple HTFU attempts, and then back off if things feel too difficult.  That's never fun, but usually it's the smart call. 

So, I'll be the first to admit, I don't like doctors (not the people, but going to them).  It's irrational and I'm stupid for it, but we each have our faults .  That being said, I took a naproxim sodium (Aleve I believe?) yesterday and within a few hours, the foot was 99% better.  barely notice anything today - zero pain stepping down on it this morning and no pain walking around yesterday afternoon.  Swelling is basically gone.  I may have freaked out a bit over nothing .  Thanks for the advice, and if the NSAIDs didn't help, I was gonna make an Appt, but I think I'm ok now.

I dont' regularly take any pain meds or anti-inflammatories, but they do really seem to help me with small issues like these.  I got caught up taking them regularly (as prescribed by a doctor for what she thought was hip bursitis), but stopped because I didn't like the idea of relying on them.  I changed my running habits, and that made the pain disappear and stay away (and I'm faster now).  For a flare up every other month or so, they've worked well though.

Speaking of anti-inflams, anyone ever try curcumin (turmeric extract)?  I've been using it occasionally and find it quite effective.  I suggested it to my Mom, and she didn't find it very helpful.  

Anyway, just another option to try if you want to avoid ibuprofen.

I went to see my doctor today. He thinks my asthma is what's acting up as my cold symptoms have fone away other than the cough and he gave me four new prescriptions including and some better codeine cough syrup. I hope to sleep well tonight finally.

I'm scheduled to fly to CA in a week for tri camp. Timing for this bad flair up of asthma sucks for tri camp. Not sure what I'll end up doing and I need to ship my bike out Monday.

@wiky...wow that's some fast swimming. I think my fastest 100yds was in the 1:30's somewhere. Great job!

@catwoman...I'm no expert but I just have good weeks and not so good weeks sometimes. I've had back to back weeks of heavy volume that I felt great on and lower volume weeks that I just can't seem to get it going. It might be what you're doing outside of training. I don't think people give mental thinking much respect but it is very physically draining. Are you doing anything for recovery on the harder workouts?

@jsiegs...Sorry to hear about  your toe. I had two toes, one on each foot, that swelled and the nail turned red after my 1/2 marathon. That had never happened before and hasn't happened since. The Dr dance sucks because all it does is cost your insurance company money and you time. I'm luck that I have a PPO and can go to whomever want. My tri club actually has a sports medicine Doc on our team and he's a sponsor also (Iron Care). He handles a lot of endurance athletes and we are very luck to have him.

@kathyG...another person with a cold and cough. It seems everybody has it. I've been very lucky so far that I haven't come down with something. It seems everyone at work is sick, a lot of the people we go to interview are sick and my wife was really sick a couple of weeks ago. I'm hitting peak training these next 4 weeks and I can't afford to get sick now. I'm glad to hear tat your knee is getting better. Smart to take it easy and let your body rest and get better.

So my MO seems to be that I just can't (won't) hit my training volume for the week. There is always some excuse and I end up just short or some weeks, a lot short. I'm about a month out from my HIM and I'm feeling pretty good about my progress and I'm starting to feel a lot stronger. I have to make these next 4 weeks count because they are going to be what makes or breaks my day on April 10th.

I'm riding the bike course for the first time tomorrow and I'm very excited about it. It's the same course that they use for IMAZ and they are just shortening it a bit and only doing 2 loops. We should have a good turnout and it's always better to train with others.

My knee is feeling better since I haven't ran on it in just over a week. I did do the elliptical on Thursday and it held up ok for that. I'm just afraid that with 4 weeks of peak training coming up that if I go to the Dr that he's going to tell me to rest. He could also tell me that I need to skip my HIM which would be devastating since I already missed mine in the fall. I think I'm just going to rest it a bit from the run and see how it feels in a week. I'm also thinking of getting fitted for some new shoes. Biking and swimming don't bother it at all so I can just increase the volume on those to make up for the running.

It's been beautiful here weather wise so it should be a great weekend for training. I hope everyone enjoys their weekend.

The new drugs I'm taking have made a big difference. I slept well last night for first time in 4 nights. I feel like the aliens have left my body and so much more like myself. I rode my bike in zone 2 tonight and felt pretty normal other than having water dripping out of the ceiling into our dining room. Kids gave the puppies a bath in our shower and accidntal broke the cooper pipe on the shower head when moving the hand held part around...oops

My husband wants me to go to tri camp in Solvang CA near Santa Barbara even if I can't do all the training. I'm scheduled to leave Friday and the goal was to get lots of early bike miles. I've been told I won't be 100% then and doing a big week of training worries me a bit. I'll need to pay close attention to my body. They have one day that is hill climb they time that averages 9% grade...pro times are under an hour and longest time to climb has been ~ 3hours.

I'm struggling a bit with how to train while recovering from this asthma issue. Biking zone 2 is okay. I may try short swim and run with more walking in my r/w.

A local very competitive AGer (wins his AG in last two IMs he has done other than Kona where he came in 7th or 8th in his AG) and now coach I've known since he was 18, had knee issues for 3 years and went to my current PT who figured out it was hip and ankle flexibility and within a few days pain went away.  The good results my PT has had with many triathletes is encouraging and why I see him even though it's far away and he isn't in my insurance network. I hope he can get me healthy and help me stay injury free which is the bigger goal.

How's everyone's training going this weekend?

Kathy I'm glad you are going to the camp! It should be fun... that climb does sound intense.  Very good that you have such a good PT.

Todd I really hope you can still do the HIM and that knee improves.  Seriously injury is so frustrating.

I got back to kids from trip and am relieved.  My sister is visiting from very far away (Alaska!) and we might go run together is central park this am, yay! She is fast, get pretty winded running with her, lol.  She and a group of her girlfriends from Alaska ran a relay race and won the women's division last year... they are a hearty bunch. 

First day back doing any type of training since Monday. It seems like it has been forever! Thanks to those who left me inspires over the past week.  I do appreciate them a lot and will be better at responding in the future. I think I am over the worst part of the dental surgery and much of the swelling has gone down. I just need to be careful about raising my blood pressure which could cause more swelling and some other unwanted effects. 

Kathy, I would love to hear about training camp?  Have any other members of the group ever been to one? What are they like? Are there certain camps for certain levels? 

Good news about the dental surgery.

I picked this camp as often camps are for fast folks and if you are slower than xx on the bike it doesn't work well with sweep vehicle and having vehicle carry extra water and supplies.

A friend recommended this camp as it has wide variety of abilities. Here is our itinerary for the week. I'm going Friday so I can do the Solvang century Saturday before camp starts but will likely do 50-70 miles.

Nice pics in your log Fred.  Looks like you guys had a good time.

ETA: The sword+shield might come in handy at the start of the IMWI swim.

So today was the first serious ride of my HIM training. I did 63 miles today out on the IMAZ bike course. We did one IMAZ loop plus a modified shorter loop to get us to 63. It was great riding the course and figuring out where all the bumps in the road were. Compared to the IMAZ course the route they're using for my HIM is two loops instead of the 3 for IMAZ and they are just a bit shorter. The main thing is that the turn around happens before the one hill on the IMAZ course so from beginning to end, the HIM route is about 100 ft elevation gain per loop. This is pretty flat and easy to average about 17-19 mph for me.

Here is one loop of the IMAZ course.

The Marquee HIM that I'm doing turns around at mile 14 which is before the climb up to Shea happens.

I did learn today that I have a pretty good nutrition & hydration plan and that I can do the distance. I also learned that my neck, crotch and knees start to hurt pretty good at about mile 50-52 so I have to keep working on that for the next 4 weeks. The spin classes have helped a lot with power on the bike and I can tell that I have more leg strength and endurance. The bad thing that I learned was that I might struggle on the 1/2 marathon. I just don't know what to expect after the swim and bike. I would like to do some bricks in the next couple of weeks and hopefully my knee will let me do that.

I also bought some infinit tonight and I'm going to try to see how I handle more calories in my bottle and less solid food on the bike. The actual chewing of the cliff bars wears out my jaw a bit. I handle the cliff bars very well but I would like to cut them down to about 1 an hour.

I'm also going to get a bike fit and tune up this week so I'm hoping that this will help with some of the uncomfortableness on the bike after 50 miles.

5 weeks to go now.

Maltodextrin is easy and about 10% the cost of infinit if not less. Having total control on taste is very nice. It took awhile for me to come up with flavoring that I liked. I didn't like the sugar free types of flavoring and used Raspberry Lemonade with light on flavoring.

2-3 years worth of IM training may cost $75 with Malt. mix.

It takes a bit to get the hang of how to do it.

I think what I used was 20-22 grams of Malt per 20' on the bike and 15 grams per 20' on the run.

I shipped my bike to Solvang today!

Makes tri camp seem more real.