The Mystery Continues

Hi hi hi hi....

I'm still alive and somewhat kicking.  With my good leg anyway, ha ha.

I've had a few people message me asking me how I'm doing, what did the Doc say, etc.  Well, the ultrasound showed NOTHING.  Nada.  Zilch.  That's not to say that there isn't anything there.  Dr. Galea said he thinks something is there, we just have to find it.  So, I'm now going for an MRI.  He suspects that there might be some nerve entrapment happening.  How did that happen?  That's a good question.  My chiro thinks that I may have torn something and then scar tissue started to form and trapped the nerve thus the pain I was feeling when I was running.  I am a bit surprised that I don't feel it on the bike as well but I'm not taking any impact when I'm riding so that's probably one of the reasons.  If it is nerve entrapment then I'm looking at a nerve blocker and a PRP injection.  Hopefully that will help.  I'm going to see my chiro this week for some more ART as I think that there is still a fair bit of scar tissue around.  My RMT commented on how "crunchy" that area was so I figured it wouldn't hurt to address that.

Life has been incredibly busy these last couple of weeks.  Work has been ridiculous but, the big news is we've put our house up on the market, finally!  Our real estate agent said that it would be best to do it while we were away so we had a mad scramble to try and get it ready for showing this weekend.  Along with packing for a vacation.  This past week was pretty darn stressful.  I had sworn up and down that I didn't want to deal with this stuff before we went to Tremblant but once I got injured, it just seemed to happen.  And really, when they're showing the house, it's not really yours.  You have to make the bed every day, you have to hide your laundry and you can't leave anything on the kitchen counters.   Meh.  That's no way to live, ha ha.  We will be accepting offers when we're back on Wednesday so fingers crossed it sells!

As happy as I am to be on vacation, being here in Tremblant amidst all the hype that is Ironman 70.3, I'd be lying if I said I was ok.   Saturday morning they had a sprint and an Olympic race and as I watched people race down the finishing chute, tears welled up in my eyes.  Not racing yesterday was  really hard.  There were more tears shed at the start when I handed in my timing chip as well as after the race was done.   Listening to everyone talk about their race was tough.  I was happy for all my friends, everyone seemed to have a great day.  Inside, I was heartbroken.  I wanted to out be out there gutting it out.  I had such high hopes for this race.   I put my goals out there and I never got the chance to realize them.  It sucks.   I don't even know that I'll race at all this season.  I'm feeling pretty shitty.   I can't complain about the view though....

It's been 10 weeks since I've run any sort of distance.  I managed to run 3.5km on Saturday and that was my first run in 24 days.  I went slow and I didn't really notice the pain until I tried to pick up the pace a bit so I suppose that is a plus.  I will try to run again later on this week and see how that goes.   I think it's too early to say that I'm on my way back.  There are too many other aches and pains in this body to say that I feel good.  I don't.  I think this issue is affecting other areas of my body, my back in particular.   In fact, I'm pretty sure they're probably connected.  So we'll see how things go moving forward.  I do know that I need to do a lot of work on my core and hip stability.  So in addition to getting better I will need to be diligent about the little things.

Despite the super busy last few weeks, I have managed to squeeze in a few workouts.  Most notably a 115km bike ride on one of the hottest days of the summer so far.  I rode with a Strava friend that I had only met once before.  Liz dragged my butt all around Kleinburg, through Hockley valley and up all the hills.  It was a tough ride but it was fun and I learned a few things about road riding.  I have to say, the internet has definitely expanded my training circle.   She's organizing a 120km group ride in July that I'm hoping I'll be able to do.

These last few weeks have been really hard emotionally but I think now that the race is behind me, I can mentally re-focus and really put the effort in to getting better.

I have so many things I've been working on physically and mentally that I want to share with you guys so I'll work on getting those things on to "paper" and getting them up here.

Happy Monday - hope everyone had a fantastic weekend!  Who raced this weekend?

DNS = The Theme for 2016

So, those of you that have been reading along know that I've had some leg issues.  More specifically nerve related issues.  My chiro thought it might have been my piriformis and we worked on that but I was still experiencing pain and range of motion issues even after two treatments.  I went to see Lauren yesterday for a "check in" appointment (that I almost canceled) and I filled her in on everything and she did an assessment and figured that I was having some disc issues.  Specifically my L5.  UGH.  So she did some work to release things and did some nerve tension work which made me feel a lot better.  Sore, but better.  And then she said those 6 dreaded words:  "I don't think you should race".

Cue sad face.

She said I could if I wanted to but I could risk doing more damage to my nerve / disc and advised me not to.  She's right.  I have to keep my eyes on the BIG prize, which is Tremblant in June.  That being said, I was really looking forward to racing on Sunday.  I have a couple of friends racing as well as one of my athletes so I figured it was going to be a blast.  Oh well, on more race fee down the toilet.  That will be number THREE this year.  I will be there at the finish line though.  And I'm not down for the count, so there's that.  I "should" be up and running (ha ha) hopefully by late next week.  I have a follow up next Tuesday to see where things are at.  If I'm ok, then I slowly work back into running and limit my really intense speed work to once a week.  Or, if I'm going to have a couple of speed work sessions, then ideally there's 3-4 days in between them that I'm NOT running.  I can't do a hard long run, have a day off and then do another speed work session.  I might have been able to do that 2 years ago but it turns out that my body doesn't like that any longer.

So, let's chalk that up to learning what my body can handle as it gets older and move on to some fun stuff.  Like this amazing outfit from Zoot.

I can't wait until it's warm enough to wear this!  Speaking of which, the temperature these days is KILLING ME.  It's downright COLD right now.  Mother Nature, get your shit straight, it's almost MAY.  I should be going sock less now!

But enough about the weather.  It's Friday.  That is reason enough to celebrate.  I'm not sure what my coach will have planned for me over the weekend now that I'm not racing.  IF there's a ride, it's going more than likely to have to be outside because our Pain Cave has been dismantled.  Yup.  G went nuts and cleaned out the basement because we have someone that is going to start working on it right away.

We now have a mini Pain Cave in one of the spare bedrooms upstairs.   Not really ideal but it's better than having nothing!  He even managed to set up the TV.  It only gets Netflix but that's ok.  There are plenty of things to watch on Netflix!  He was only able to set up one computrainer in there due to space so that means only one of us can ride at a time.

Oh well.  Now I get to live in chaos for 6 weeks.  I just have to keep telling myself Florida will be worth it, Florida will be worth it......ha!

Anyone else racing this weekend?  This seems to be THE weekend for racing in Toronto!

The First DNS of 2016

I really hope it's the ONLY DNS of 2016 as well!

I was supposed to run the Robbie Burns 8km this weekend but after speaking with Lauren on Tuesday, that has been taken off the table.  Am I disappointed?  Not really.  If I wasn't rehabbing an injury then I would have used this as test of my current run fitness.  But, I haven't covered more than 6.6km in my last 5 weeks of rehab.  Could I run it?  Of course but I'm sure it would be ugly.  Would it be smart?  Heck no.  Lauren said that the stress it could potentially put on my body isn't worth it right now.  And I agree.  So I will keep plugging away at my plan and my rehab exercises.   Last night I ran 7x3 minutes so things are moving along. 

In terms of progressing my rehab, I have now been tasked with practicing jumping off a step and landing softly and not letting my knees collapse when I land.  Not letting my knees collapse is difficult but not as difficult as landing softly.  I'm not very big but when I walk I sound like I'm 6ft, 200lbs.  Some people would say I walk with "purpose".  G says I don't walk as much as stomp (not having much carpet in the house really emphasizes this, haha).  I don't think I've ever been terribly light on my feet so I'm not surprised that my knees have suffered.  I'm really enjoying this challenge because it really forces me to be aware of my feet as well as how the rest of my body moves.  It also gets me off my butt at work.  If it's not busy,  I'll go into the garage, get an apple box, take my shoes off and practice my landings.  My co-workers expect this sort of crazy stuff from me so no one is surprised, ha ha. 

In case you're wondering what an apple box is....here you go.  We use them in the studio to prop things up. 

I've got a fairly quiet weekend on tap.  Of course there is the usual long ride & Masters swim and I'll be meeting with my trainer again.  This time I'll see him BEFORE my two hour ride.  Last week I ran, rode and THEN went to see him.  I was exhausted half way through my workout with him which is kind of a waste.  So he recommended that I see him first thing on Saturday and then do my ride.  So that's the plan.  We'll see how my legs like it, ha ha.  I'm hoping the ride helps alleviate some of the post workout soreness. 

It feels really nice to be back into a workout groove.  And I like seeing the green workout box in Training Peaks (that means my workout was completed, haha).  I'm a very goal oriented person so I look at each of those green boxes as a building block or stepping stone to my goal.  Speaking of goals, I LOVE the new feature on Strava that allows you to set weekly and yearly goals.  They've FINALLY added swimming in as a weekly / yearly thing you can set goals in.  I went out on a limb and set distance goals for each discipline for the year.  I will probably re-evaluate them mid season depending on how things go.  Right now these are my goals for the year:

Swim:  300,000 m.  Right now I'm 6,000m ahead of target but I know come the summer time my swim time will drop because we lose our Sunday Masters swim.  We usually try to make that up with an open water swim on Saturdays but I never swim that far in open water.  Maybe that will change this year.  Masters Canada has a Million Meter challenge and right now I'm at 953,000m so I've got less than 50,000m left before I get my Million Meter pin and swim cap.  With the amount of time I've been spending in the pool, I should have that by March!  Woohoo! 

Bike:  6500km.  Last year I rode 4700km so this is a big jump.  I figured we're going to a training camp for a week so we'll get a lot of riding in then and I know G and I will do some longer distance late season rides.  Plus, I'm sure Paolina will pile on the miles once I start riding outside.  Right now I'm 120km behind target but I'm not too concerned about that just yet.

Run:  1250m.  Last year I logged just under 1000km (980 to be exact) which is the lowest mileage I've logged in a very long time.  Now that my running is on the up and up, I think that this is doable.  I'm currently right on target and I haven't even been cleared to start building my mileage yet! 

So, those are the mileage plans for 2016.  We'll see how all that actually pans out at the end of the year.  

Do you set mileage goals for the year?  What have you got planned for the weekend?