A look back

I was browsing the site and noticed that my last post was in October.  At the time I was struggling with foot pain and my Achilles, but I had lofty goals.  So now, nearly 7 months later, where do I stand?

Well, the foot pain is still there.  It happens only when I squeeze my foot the wide way across, or if I kick a ball with that foot.  It seems to vary in intensity, but never when I’m running, and as I type this I squeezed my foot hard and it barely hurt at all.

My Achilles has still been bothering me, but not nearly as much as before.

I have been working out with weights and doing some HIIT workouts.  My legs feel strong as a result, and I have put a bit of muscle on my upper body as well (nothing really all that significant, but I do notice a change).

I have been running since late winter, and have gotten some good distance (I’ve gotten to a 10.5 mile run).  My Achilles aches slightly until I warm up, and then feels fine through the run.  It is always sore the night that I run, but by 24 hours it isn’t sore anymore.  I have been stretching and foam rolling my calves and using a field hockey ball to roll my feet.

Lately I have been more consistently doing the eccentric heel drop exercises, and I have even started adding some weights while doing so.  I also bought a night brace and have been using that the last few days. My Achilles seems to be improving, and I’m hopeful that I can beat this condition once and for all.

For what I’m guessing is a related reason, I have also been experiencing less foot pain.  Perhaps my Achilles was putting some sort of pressure on my foot as well, not sure.

This last weekend I completed an indoor sprint triathlon (.5 mile swim, 13 mile spin bike, and 3.1 mile outdoor run).  I did fine considering my lack of bike and swim training, and my Achilles wasn’t too bad the next day.

As to my goals, I am scheduled to do the Iron Horse half marathon in a couple of weeks.  I have also registered for the Spartan Beast, which will be a real test of how well my Achilles is healing.  I have a century on the horizon, and am planning on doing a marathon in the fall of my body holds together, and if I can get my swim together I may be doing a half iron man in late summer.

In between I may do a sprint and perhaps even an Olympic tri if the swim training goes ok, and budget and schedules allow.


It’s been a long time!

I’ve been plagued with injuries which seem to be unrelated to working out. My left foot has been bothering me for months despite the fact that I have not been running at all. I did start to run in June, but shortly after starting very smoothly I hurt my Achilles on the same side, I’m thinking it was related to the foot pain.

I’ve been to two doctors, and they both feel that I should continue working our, so now it starts again. I plan to work on some strength training with some short light running to get me started.

Hopefully I can build from there. My goal is a half marathon, a half iron run relay, and an Olympic tri. If all goes well I’ll build to a full marathon by next fall.

I’ve written it, so now I need to follow through.


Training update

A little update on progress. My foot is still bothering me, not as bad but it’s still there. The doctor says it is a tailer’s bunion irritated by my work shoes because they were too tight, go figure.

I’m skeptical as I have new shoes and it hasn’t improved markedly. I have done some running (the foot isn’t an issue there). I ran a decent amount with a friend as I was helping her train for a race. I put in a fair number of easy miles and thought that maybe a marathon was in the list for this year. Time was tight for building up the volume but I was game.

My wife has been biking a lot this year building up to a century ride so we decided to relay with someone to do the litchfield hills olympic triathlon. Everything was coming together. After a few weeks of easy running I added a long run (about 8 miles) at a very easy pace. I had done 6 already so this wasn’t a huge jump.

It was however in my relatively hilly neighborhood. After the run my Achilles was bothering my. It was pretty rough. Same side as my foot issue. I took a week off and tried an interval run, bad mistake. I didn’t realize that would be an issue until I did some research afterwards.

I did some more resting icing etc and did the 10k for the relay team. Definitely felt it while running but was much better by the next day. I’m thinking full marathon is out for this year, but maybe a half along with a century ride.

Lets see how that goes.


Starting back up

The last 9 months or so have been difficult in terms if schedule. I got a new job, bought a new house, and tried to sell my old one.

There was a lot of work stuff, remodeling, moving, and general hard work. It looks like we have finally sold our house. With the last of the stuff moved out, and the pressing projects at the new house all done, I finally got a chance to work out.

I had a nice easy swim yesterday. It is amazing how far back you can fall in terms of fitness in a short time away from it.

I couldn’t help thinking back to my first swims. I didn’t have the aerobic capacity to finish a single length. Even now, as out of shape as I am, I can string together a few laps with ease.

I’m really happy to be back, and hopefully this will be the start of something big.

On a side note, my left foot has been bothering me for a few months. Mostly when I squeeze it. Have no idea what the issue is, but am going to the doctor to get it cleared before I start any running.

This week we’ll see if I can get a nice bike ride in.


I’m not dead yet

So the last 6 months has been very busy.  I have a new job, which is keeping me busy.  We have also purchased a new house and I’ve been working on some remodeling work there during all of my free time.  So I have done no working out of any kind since last summer.

Prior to that I was plagued with injuries stemming from a back injury, and as a result I put on about 15 pounds from my lowest weight back at the start of last year.  Since February I have been eating better, and I”m now down about 11 pounds, so I’m close to my fighting weight. 

The good news is that we are moving in this weekend, and I hope to pick up the training once we settle in.  I’m most likely going to start with some weight training to get myself ready to do some running.  I still have a goal of completing a marathon, and we’ll see if this is the year for that.

I’ll try to keep up with my posts, because, honestly it is a good record for me of what I’ve done right, and more importantly, what I’ve done wrong.  Wish me luck, I’m going to need it.


I’m baaack

OK, so I was out of the water for about 4 weeks with pain on the top of my foot.  I stopped all running just to be safe, and then last week I finally visited my doctor.  He said rest was the right direction.  He recommended new shoes (which I already had ready to go) and to ice and use Aleve if I needed to for pain.  He thinks it’s just tendonitis and that I should be able to run through it, so, yay!

 

I went running 3 miles the next day, then 3 miles at the Color me Rad race the next day.  I ran again (4 miles) this past Saturday.  I plan to start picking up the distance training again this week.

 

I also did my first open water swim of the year this past Sunday,  and it went ok.

One last update, I signed up for the Amica Ocean Beach Triathlon on Sunday, and I’m going to have to get serious with my training now or it’s gonna hurt.

Happy training!


More Troubles

My back continues to be an issue.  Since my last post I have had more back pain and I think running while favoring my back has caused me to injure my right foot.

I haven’t been running for any real distance in 2 weeks.  The good news is I have been going to a Chiropractor, however my back is still on and off.  I actually got really sore doing a few hours of woodworking last night.

I plan to start the running again slowly this week and I will return to the back stretching I have been doing (my back has been tight forever).  I also think I need to strengthen the back , so I’ll add that to the list of exercises I should be doing.

If all goes well I may be able to race iron horse, but I don’t want to push it.  We’ll see how it goes.


14 miler

My back was worse than I suspected.  I didn’t run at all last week…or the week before.  It was pretty bad.  I blew off my last long run (14 miles) and prepared to see my training go off the deep end.  I secretly feared that my year of the marathon was over.  I took Ibuprofen every 8 hours from Tuesday through the weekend, and had my normal spin class scheduled for Saturday morning.  I thought about not doing it, maybe doing swim instead.  My back was sore.  I foam rolled my back during the week, and I think it managed to isolate the pain to just my left side.

That is ironically also the side where I had IT band issues.  I suspect I have some real imbalances that I need to work out.  At any rate, I did the spin class but didn’t push it in terms of tension.  I had quite a few moments where I thought I should just stop.  But instead of stop I just sat up and stretched it.  I made it through the class, took a shower and headed out to help a friend do some work at their house.

By the end of the day my back felt much better.  I’m guessing the stretching and other work on the bike helped.  The next morning there was a 14 miler on the schedule.  I woke up and my back was fine!  I got my stuff together and headed out.  It was warmer than it had been in a while, so the run was harder than I expected.  It was tough to keep my heart rate down, and on the way back i ran out of gel.  I could feel the energy escaping me.  I actually had to walk several times.  But I never gave up, and my back didn’t hurt!

It wasn’t all bad, the run was through a part of the rails-to-trails section that I hadn’t used before.  It was really a beautiful area and I got to see this:

Later that day I did the annual shuffling of the seasonal items.  I.e., bring out the grill and patio stuff and wonder how on earth all of our stuff seems to multiply throughout the seasons!

 

This morning I feel fine, although a little sore.  I’m planning on starting some additional core/strengthening workout just to stop myself from losing what little upper body muscles I may have.  Of course coring training is important in it’s own right.  I have been threatening to do that for a while, but now I just need to!


Wow, it’s been a while

Work has kept me very busy, so, although I have been maintaining my run schedule, I have not been posting about it.

 

This past weekend I had a 13.1 mile training run.  I was super excited to be able to run that distance without knee pain.  Unfortunately, the day before I had moved my grandparents to a new home, and re-injured my back.  It was sore the morning of my run, and I considered bailing on the run, but I went for it anyway.  My neck and shoulders were also sore, but my back was my biggest issue.

My back was fine throughout the run, but oddly, my neck got stiffer and stiffer.  I suspect that I was favoring my back, and therefore tweaking everything else.  My knee was sore a few hours after the run, and I suspect that was a result of my back as well.  It took a couple of days for my knee to feel better, but even now my back is still pretty sore.

 

I hope to squeeze an easy run in this afternoon if I can swing it, and see how my back does.

 

Bike and swim training have gone by the wayside at this point as I focus on the run.  I have a lot of projects going on at home too that are eating up a lot of my time.  I plan to continue the running, and if all goes well I’ll be doing the Iron Horse Half Marathon in June.  Wish me luck!


Training Update

Last week was a tough work week and I had no time to get a run in at work despite my best intentions.  So this weekend I decided to double down on the running.  I did a really easy 4 mile run on Saturday, followed by a short swim.  I need to work on my swim some more, my arms were feeling very tired at the end of the session, but all in all it felt good.

 

The Easy 4 mile run consisted of a 3 mile section that was VERY slow (12+ min/mile) followed by a 1 mile hard run (8 min/mile).  It felt good, and I wasn’t sore at all the next day.  That’s a good thing, because the next day had an 8 mile run on tap.

I continued the goal of running slowly on my long runs, and tried to keep the pace at 11-11:30 miles until the last mile.  That last mile we picked up the pace to between 8-9:30 min/mile.  When I got home I was panting, but otherwise felt great.   I was on my feet the rest of the day, and this morning I felt totally fine.

One thing that I did differently was to use my orange superfeet insoles.  The last couple of times I’ve had sore or numb feet starting at around mile 4.  On Sunday I made the whole run without any foot pain or issues at all.  In fact, my biggest issue was my shin which was just very slightly tight during the run.

I’m feeling optimistic about my running for the first time in a long time.  The next thing on the list is trying to get a lactate threshold run working.  We’ll see how that goes.  This week is an easy week with no long run (but I do have a short indoor triathlon to to this weekend).

 

Happy training.


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