The last two days were great training days for me.Yesterday I went on a doozy of a ride. CV and I rode long (because we've heard rain is coming! Yikes!), ending up a few minutes shy of 6-hours. I felt dead from the onset and stayed that way the whole way but struggled on, collecting at least 3-hours at a respectable power output.
By the time the two of us got back into town, we were barely moving and swearing under (and over) our breaths at every bump on the road (and there's no shortage of bumps in Santa Barbara County. Chuckie likes to joke that the roads are one big bump. I actually look forward to the cattle guards since they're smoother! We were tired, hungry, cranky and ready to get off the bikes. After a solid 90-minutes of refueling and a short nap, I headed to the track for a 60-minute jaunt on the legs. It was dark and I was slow as a turtle but collected "time on my feet" nonetheless.
Today I woke like a slug. My eyes were puffy and had dark bags under them. Speaking of bags, I was ready to bag the day before it even started! But Chuckie reminded me how hard my friends on Team TBB train. That was my coffee. Train harder than them. After long discussions with the team management, I decided it best to branch out on my own this year. I'll be racing independently under Chuckie's guidance and am back with many of the great sponsors I've had since pre-Team TBB.
At 7:45 this morning I met with Heather and Trevor for a 4,500-yard swim workout of their design, with a mix of paces and steady state work. We then suited up for a planned 4-5 hour ride with time "in zone". This is Chuckie's way of saying, "Expect to hurt". He didn’t know how I would feel so we agreed to just "see what the day brings," which meant if I felt tired, I could expect to hurt that much more!
Though I felt great during the swim I was still hesitant about the follow-up ride, especially after a big breakfast, which only made me feel groggy again. As expected, I felt like crap during the warm-up but kept the effort consistent and strong from there forward, with just one stop the whole ride. I think Heather and Trevor are with me on this one but I hate stopping during our harder rides and it's something Chuckie seems to want to do (and does) more than anyone. He stops to smell flowers, to help snakes or tarantulas across the road, to pick up garbage and to take pictures. Oddly enough he never stops when it's time to pee. Weird.
Before long everything starting clicking for me and I got in no less than 3.5-hours at a solid power output. I was gritting my teeth by the end, even though I was still at a very aerobic heart rate (i.e., well below my lactate threshold). I felt like I was hitting bottom but couldn't help myself when I hit the bottom of Mount Figueroa. I was under strict orders NOT to do any climbing so I turned around after sneaking in just 100-yards of it (though climbing 100 yards on the Fig takes about 8-minutes!). Next time, I'll try to squeeze in 200 yards!). After a nice tailwind spin back to the YMCA, I scarfed some more grub and then headed back to the pool for a short flop to end the day. All I can say about that particular swim was that I didn't drown.
I'm ready for tomorrow. The menu: Run, run, and run.
It's time to fight the war...and training started today. Let's hope the rain waits!
5 comments:
Your training sounds so awesome. Wish I could do that, and I'm glad you're pursuing your dreams now. I hope Chuckie lets you have a few easy days now and then so you can recover.
Are you doing any kind of baseline health testing on yourself, like thyroid testing to see what effect all this training has? Some people have become hypothyroid from hard training, and it limits their performance (low heart rate, muscle wasting).
Are you still trying to work as a physiotherapist? It seems like a useful skill and profession to keep up on, especially with all those ailing athletes you're hanging out with (it's just a matter of time before something acts up right?).
I'm still working on the PF problem (two steps forward and one back). I'm a little tempted to get into tris rather than just running since the crosstraining would probably take some of the stress off, but I'm a terrible swimmer and afraid i'd kill myself on a bike (I'm perfectly capable of crashing for no good reason).
Good luck!
Cynthia
Hi Cynthia. I'm sorry to hear about your PF. It's a tough one to get rid of.
I'm not doing any testing (blood) since I don't have medical in the USA. When I'm back home in Canada I try to get these done. I'll be sure to do this when I return. I've heard of some athletes becoming hypothyroid.
I worked as a physiotherapist in Canada the last couple of months. I'm now just focusing in training, racing and coaching!
I'm bias, but triathlons are the way to go for long term longevity and health. I used to be only a runner and was injured more often than not. With the three sports there is a lot of variety and change each day. You can always start swimming with a group (Masters) and get some coaching with your stroke as well.
Looking forward to hearing from you and thanks for the kind comments.
Cheers!
Cnythia, have you tried heel-lifts, night splints?
You can use fingerstick tests for a lot of things these days. this site http://heartscanblog.blogspot.com/
provides access to thyroid and omega-3 tests (and there should be one for vitamin D too). I've heard people say they get tests for a lot of things at Walmart too.
Of course you can use the morning temperature test too to assess your thyroid.
I don't really have pain on first step anymore with the PF. The main problem is if I try to pick up the pace at all some damage seems to occur and it will hurt noticably later when I'm done. It doesn't hurt when running sometimes either, especially on soft trails. I ice most evenings b/c the foot gets hot. I think not treating it properly when the injury first occurred (ignoring it) and then not icing when the PF became constant has caused a lot of the problem (fibrosis?). There seems to be some nerve entrapment (burning pain in various parts of the heel at various times), and now something that feels like a neuroma (after a few miles mostly uphill). It's perplexing. I'm trying to keep running (limited to ~25-30 miles per week) usually slow, but also weight lifting, trying out classes and crosstraining at the Y, etc. Got on a bike in a spin class the other day and it was hard but fun!
solvang local enjoying your training details , hope to be in better shape to join tri club soon, need to get running a little farther so I can at least enjoy the group work outs at SY high School.
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