ASPHALT JUNKIES Summer Bronzing Crew - CLOSED (Page 76)

Wow, WARREN!   Eleven different flavors?!  Now THAT's true love!!  

You're correct about the way you approach recovery from our sort of training and racing.  Body building and power lifting is obviously different because the loading to your body is felt in a different manner.  When I was power lifting I would cycle really hard for much longer than I would ever consider for running.  You can think of weight training in a similar to the way I approach my cycling training, you can build for a longer period of time and then take time to recover.  With that in mind, I am guessing you're not questioning the build, rather the recovery.

Recovery from power lifting/body building may take longer because of the longer period of time used to bulk up or build power.  This would cause more damage to the muscle that can take longer to get into the deeper muscular trauma that has occurred.  Taking a week away to allow that recovery would be understandable, although I never did.  (I recovered in a similar fashion that we do for our sport.) 

After a major race, such as a marathon or IM, I can see taking a week or more off completely.  I have taken a full week away from running after 3 marathons and 1 week away from everything following one of them.  Following all of my marathons I have had far deeper muscular trauma than any of my other training and this required more recovery time and a great reduction in intensity as well as volume.  This would be where I would say our sports become a little more similar but that's where I would stop the similarities.

Side note:  For all of my HIM's I was able to recover more quickly than any of my marathons.  I believe the reason for this is because the races are less traumatic to a specific part of a person's body.  Also a major factor is the individuals physical fitness level.  The fitter a person is the faster the recovery process will be and the sooner training can resume a normal pattern.

I'm dying here!!!!!

It seems the trauma to my knee from the bike crash is more than I thought originally.  I had been doing well until this morning.  I had ridden last night and rode only moderately hard to allow some additional recover in my legs after feeling some ridiculous pain last weekend.  I had only ridden 25 miles yesterday but awoke to swelling in my knee this morning.  There wasn't a lot of swelling but it was somewhat painful for the walk down the stairs and the first 30-60 minutes today.  After that things loosened up and seem to be close to normal.

My treatment is to go back onto Nsaids and not run or ride tonight, then attempt to resume training tomorrow night.  I am just over 2 weeks away from my last scheduled race of the year (a HM) and I have been hoping to have a solid PR.  I have not done a stand alone HM for almost 2.5 years and I would really love to see if I've gained much at this distance.  On May 11, 2011 I went 1:33:20 over a moderately hilly course which was a 4:40 improvement over my last HM.  I am/was looking for under 1:30 and I may go out at a 1:28 pace (6:43).  this would likely be a near blow up pace if I chose to go out that fast.  But you never know what you can do until you push harder than you thought you could.

She is making my husband look bad. He only bought me 2! And we finished those up last night so now I don't have anything to eat my peanut butter on .

Yikes, take it easy on that knee! 2 weeks should provide a lot of time for your knee to heal shouldn't it? As long as you don't act like a Junkie.

I have another You know you're a triathlete when moment...

You can't find your cooking spray then remember it is in your race bag. Isn't that where everyone keeps theirs?

So I'm seriously thinking about attempting a running program but I don't know if I have it in me. How much cycling and swimming would I have to give up? I'm so used to doing all 3 things all year round except for the short breaks for overuse issues.

I just don't know if I would enjoy mostly running. But I feel like I should be better at this after all these years.

It could be as Jeff suggested but I'll offer something we talked about not so long ago in the group;  toe pointing.

Do you think you can remember pointing your toes hard?  I would be surprised if you do but it is another place to check.  We've talked over the past few months about pointing your toes when pushing off the wall in a pool but not when doing OWS.  It can be easily understood that if you point your toes for a long period you will induce cramps.  I am not sure why a person would do this consciously but maybe subconsciously.

Stay on track with your running and riding and you'll be fine.  Your rides are certainly on track at this point based on your posts here.  Your running isn't discussed much, hence my FB post keeping you honest.  I am curious about the 2 - 12 milers being so close together.  Is that something the plan called for?  If I were to guess you needed to shift your schedule and it fit best by putting them close as you did.  That wouldn't be something I would recommend doing on a regular basis unless you have a typically high volume, and, well, we know the answer to that thought.

Like Tony and Warren have already said, IM is about the bike!  Set yourself up well by having both of them dialed in and don't skip any of them if you don't have too. 

Cramps are, as Jeff siad, a topic of much debate.  Electrolytes would be my first place to look.  I drink Powerade Zero much of the time to replace electrolytes but also drink water.  I am not balanced in my approach of water and Powerade, I lean toward electrolyte replacement more.  My point is that you should try to get close between the two to make sure you are replacing both.  Without one or the other you will begin to feel the adverse effects of a completely out of balance plan.