My Triathlon Adventure

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!

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!