Sunday, May 8, 2016

#OperationTop5 Week 18: The Roller Coaster Ride

It's amazing what a difference a week can make.   On Monday I was thinking that my season was over and that I wouldn't be able to do anything except swim for the next few months.  I left my appointment with Lauren in tears because I was so uncertain.  She reassured me that I would be fine but I went down that dark hole of self pity.  By Wednesday I was starting to feel better about things, especially after my Osteopath appointment.  My back had stopped bothering me and the sciatic pain I was experiencing was gone.  I was still having some weird hamstring pain but after I visited my chiro on Friday, he did a full assessment of me, tested me for any disc issues (there were none) did some ART on my cranky hamstring and adductor and told me I would be fine.  Those words were music to my ears.  Especially because I was actually starting to FEEL fine.

Since I had so much free time on my hands this past week,  I took the time to take care of myself.  Lauren said it was important to bring my stress levels down so every night I'd have a nice hot bubble bath with some lavender epsom salts and I'd read.  Needless to say I slept like a baby every night this week.  I really needed that.  I also started using the Headspace app.  I've wanted to try meditation for a while and I had heard a lot of great things about Headspace so when I heard they were conducting a month long experiment in exchange for a years free subscription, I thought, why not, let's give it a go.  I've only been using it for a few days now so I can't really report back on anything just yet, but I will post a review in about a months time.

I also went and had coffee with a  friend of mine who had some serious back issues.  I had reached out to her earlier in the week to pick her brain about what worked for her and we made plans to get together.  I hadn't seen her in ages so it was really nice to sit down and catch up.  No Saturday long ride also meant I had time to do some shopping.   I hit up Sherway Gardens bright and early before it got busy and went to Lush to get more bath goodies.  I wanted to get out of the house because our contractor had arrived at 7:00 am to start working in the basement.  He's at our place 7 days a week working away in the basement.   Which is awesome but it makes for a very noisy home.  Thankfully he'd given us a few tasks to deal with this weekend.  We had to go and pick out flooring for the basement as well as a vanity and mirror for the bathroom so that got us out of the house and away from the noise.  He's made pretty amazing progress in a week though!





Sunday I was able to get on the bike to test things out.  While I didn't feel 100% - my back was still a bit tight, I didn't have any hamstring pain so that was good.  I managed 45 minutes on the trainer and probably could have ridden longer but I had to get ready for swimming.  Sunday was a pretty low key day.  We did some grocery shopping and then I did some meal prep in the afternoon in between dealing with our contractors.   All in all a nice relaxed Sunday, other than the banging around in the basement.

So, I do feel much better about things now than I did this time last week, however, I don't know that I'm out of the woods just yet.  I'm still very tight through my back, gluts and hips and I don't feel like I'm in alignment.  I feel like my pelvis is slightly twisted which could explain the tightness and slight tingling I've been feeling on and off.  I did a fair bit of mobility work after my swim on Sunday and that seemed to provide some relief.   So here's hoping things are moving in the right direction.

It was a quiet week workout wise but I still got my swims in and a lovely morning walk so I'm linking up with the lovely Holly at Hoho Runs and Tricia and Mississippi Piddlin for their Weekly Wrap.



Monday:  OFF

Tuesday:  OFF

Wednesday:  2300m swim.  I got moved up to a faster lane and I just about died.

Thursday:  4.5km walk.  I decided it was time to stop moping and start moving.



Friday:  2600m swim

Saturday:  OFF

Sunday:  45 minute bike ride + 3500m swim

Total time:  4h 5 minutes

I feel like I've kind of been on a taper.  I guess that's not a bad way to look at it but it's not like I'm going to be jumping back into crazy workouts either.  My coach said she only wants me doing easy zone 1-2 bike workouts and I can't run until I get the a-ok from Lauren.  So hopefully this week I can focus on cycling and then next week I can get back into running.  I've got 7 weeks left until race day.  And really only about 5 weeks of solid training time before I have to start to taper.  Here's hoping I make it through that in one piece.  At this point, I just want to get to the start line healthy.  That's my number one goal.

How was your week?  How do you keep yourself from going down that "woe is me" path when you're injured?

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