Last night I got home from work exhausted and ready for bed. However, I mustered my way through making a stirfry with quinoa and had some time to hang out by myself. Somehow I got recharged enough to do my 1-hour of intervals bike workout. I used Sex and the City as incentive to get me on the trainer last night and it was quite effective. I made it through 2.25 episodes before I finished. I would say it was a successful workout. All I’m left with this week for workouts are: yoga tomorrow night, a swim with the tri club, and a long bike ride (hopefully outside if the weather continues the way it is right now).

Last week I had to take time off of everything so that I could deal with some personal life stuff and felt bad about it everyday. In fact, I made two (TWO!) attempts to get to the pool, but the one time I forgot my swimsuit and the next time the pool was closed due to a swim meet. I figured that it just wasn’t meant to be. As for biking, the wind was too much and I was hardly motivated enough to get on the trainer. This is definitely going to be changing soon enough. This week’s 2-hour bike training session is going to seem like hell, that’s for sure.

Yesterday, my swimming volume increased by almost 1000m at 3200m of torture! Well, it was only partially difficult – my coach “made me” do back stroke for a total of 600m. Today I have a bit of a headache from it, but it’s going away and I know that it’s just because of my neck being tense while looking at the ceiling trying to go straight and count my strokes to the wall. I’m going to go to the chiropractor to get it adjusted and all will be well. In time, it will get easier to do back stroke. This was what the workout looked like:

300m warm-up
3x 900m – 200m breast stroke, 500m freestyle, 200m back stroke
200m cool down

All I can say is thank goodness I didn’t have to use pull buoys this week! They really get annoying to use after a while, but I’ve almost perfected my flip turns with them in between my knees. This is a feat in itself that I will discuss later.

This morning I went for a 10-km run with a friend. My knee didn’t hurt for most of it, but it did feel tight by the end of it. I just need to keep doing my stretches and work on strengthening my lower back. Tonight I’m going to do my 1-hour training session on the bike and will “save” my 2-hour bike ride for the weekend.

Last week/weekend I cleaned my house almost completely and it sure is easier to organize myself when everything is easily accessible and organized. It has only taken me 4 months to [mostly] organize myself and my “stuff” into its rightful places; I’m still working on my craft supplies!

I took a look ahead for my training – wow, it’s going to be a LOT of work! Like, a LOT. 3-hour bike trainer sessions, many miles on the trail/treadmill, and many laps in the pool. I look forward to calculating how much it all ends up being in the end.

No, that is now how fast my maximum speed was today. That is the speed of the wind today. I had every intention of getting out onto the road, but it’s not going to happen with this crazy wind. I am going to do some commuting by bicycle and that will have to be enough of my ride. Tomorrow I hope to get a bike and a swim in to make up for today and this week. This week was a tough one because of some personal issues that I had. I look forward to next week and getting back into my training schedule.

Yesterday’s epiphany about what is causing my lower-back imbalance blew me away. It really did. It was so obvious! As someone who considers herself pretty self-aware, I feel a little silly about not recognizing what was causing the imbalance. The massage therapist, chiropractor, and physiotherapist were all wondering what I was doing to cause such lower back problems. They surmised that perhaps I was sitting consistently incorrectly while at work or that I was turning one way more than another. That sort of thing. However, not one of them asked, “Do you have a puppy that pulls you one way consistently?” If they had, I would have answered, “Yes, yes I do!” I suppose Dr. House is right: everyone lies. It may not always be conscious, but we do lie.

In order to deal with this predicament, I have decided that I must reduce the number of walks we go on that enables Clifford, my big red standard poodle dog, to pull on my arm and making the left side of my lower back stabilize to stop him from pulling me over. This posed a problem because I can’t just not walk my dog. So this morning at the crack of 7am, I took Clifford on our first bike ride. It was a little scary, I have to tell you, but it worked out pretty well. By the end of the 20-minute ride, he was lagging behind panting and he had no pulled on my arm not even once. We had a couple of scary incidents with some other dogs on our route, but it was pretty painless and I think with a new collar it will occur less and less. I am going to do this for the next few weeks while working on stregthening the right side of my lower back and continuing with physiotherapy. Hopefully in the next 2 months, I will be HEALED!

Over the past week and a bit, I have been training fairly consistently. Last week I did both of my bike workouts and I felt good about accomplishing that. In fact, I did all of my workouts last week. Yay!

Last Sunday I went for my long run and ran 6-miles pretty much pain-free. It was awesome. There were two changes that were made: I did my IT band stretches and I didn’t have my dog with me. I love running with my dog, but for the last few months, I have been having my arm pulled off everyday by this very strong puppy. I believe I am going to get a collar that inhibits the pulling and see if that has an effect on the dog and on my injury. This morning I went for a 10-km run and it hurt after only 3kms. It was so frustrating for me and my spirit was pretty down. It doesn’t help that my dog kept on pulling and pulling and pulling on my arm. I do think that this is the reason for the imbalance in my lower back. The injury started when I got my dog and the only time it didn’t hurt was last week when I ran WITHOUT my dog. It only took me 6 months to figure this out. However, now that I know, I can do something about it.

Also, this morning I realized that I have not done my IT stretches in a few days. This doesn’t help the situation, I’m sure. So I have resolved to get a collar that inhibits pulling and do my stretches and physio work more consistently.

Yesterday in the pool, I felt very strong. I did the workout my coach had set out:

300m choice
2 x 900m (100m flutter kick, 200m back stroke, 300m freestyle, 200m breast stroke, 100m flutter kick)
200m choice
TOTAL: 2300m

I do believe my coach is torturing by making me do 200m of back stroke without anything in between. I always get dizzy and am completely paranoid about hitting my head, especially at the pool that I swim in at lunch time. The pool lanes are crooked to the ceiling beams and they don’t have flags to mark the 5m-from-the-wall point. This means that I’m constantly looking behind me to see if I’m going to hit the wall, which doesn’t help the whole dizzy feeling. Also, it hurts my arms. I know that this is a good thing, but they get so SORE after 100m! I hope he reads this… grrrrr… I DON’T LIKE IT.

On the last 100m of the cool-down, I started to feel really dizzy. I thought that maybe I was doing my flip-turns weird or something, but when I stopped I realized that I was bonking. Well, I didn’t exactly know it, but I knew that I had absolutely ZERO energy left. I walked carefully to my towel, had a shower, and made my way back to work to eat. I knew that it was food that I needed and that I had maybe, just maybe, not eaten enough calories in the morning to sustain the swim I had just devoured. It seems that I also didn’t pack enough food for lunch and didn’t even think about the reserve stores I had in the refrigerator at work (this is what happens when one bonks). I went home early to eat and it took a few hours before I could complete thoughts and sentences. I slept like a log that night for over 9 hours! It felt so good.

What I have learned from this experience is that I need more food and more reserves at work. My solution: leaving bread and peanut butter at work is a good thing, Amy’s canned soup is really tasty and would totally work, and I need to buy a bulk box of Clif bars. While these are not meal replacements, they will work in a bind if such a thing was to ever happen again.

In scheduling issues, I’m having scheduling issues. Mostly with biking. The weather keeps messing with my big “ride my bike outdoors” plans. However, I might just be being a sucky baby. I do have new booties for my feet and have tights that I can use. But it’s about the planning of it and life things getting in the way. However, I’m committed to getting my rides in this week and will try to do the trainer ride after my yoga class tonight. Good times on the bike trainer!

They do. They just plain suck. I have been battling running injuries for YEARS. My training buddy made a passing comment the other day about how I hate running. I said, “Woah, hold on, wait a second! I love running!” She was very surprised because she had not heard me say anything good about running since I’ve known her. I said that it was because of the injuries that I’m miserable about running.

So I decided to take matters into my own hands (and with the advice of my coach) and saw the physiotherapist today. She told me what my RMT and I had already decided: my lower back is imabalanced and my IT bands are f-ing tight. So she gave me a bolster to do some really painful stretches for my IT bands and quads. Once we get that under control, we’re going to work on the lower back issue. Also, I’m going to look into getting orthodics. I do believe the time has come to accept the fact that my feet are getting worse instead of better and I need to think of it as a piece of equipment as opposed to a “bandage solution” to my flat-feet + bunions problem. My next steps are getting a recommendation from my doc for orthodics so that they are covered under my health plan and then I’ll make an appointment the next time I go to the phsyio, which is next Wednesday.

Yesterday, I bonked while swimming, but I believe this needs another post.

My coach read my last post and called me a “slacker,” which is good. This is what coaches are supposed to do. The last line of his email was “180km is a long way!!” This is true. I am, therefore, committed to doing two rides this week on top of my regular commute of 16km/day x 4.

Also, upon his suggestion, I am going to a physiotherapist on Thursday about my knee/hip/IT band/lower back. My RMT won’t be very happy about it, but it seems like it might be a good thing. Thank goodness for extra health coverage!

Every once in a while during my training, I used to get occasional knee pain that I always attributed to “runner’s knee,” which is technically patellofemoral pain syndrome (PFPS). However, the past 6 months have told me that my most recent knee pain is different. My iliotibial band has felt tight and the pain doesn’t start right away in the run. It waits a few kilometres in to really flare up.

My RMT (ie. massage therapist) and chiropractor reluctantly agree that it’s my IT band, hips, and lower back that is causing the pain. My RMT is also my training buddy and friend, which is how this all got started. I started to complain during runs and she “checked me out.” Massage definitely helps and this summer when I took 4 weeks off of running, it all felt much better. However, the reprieve was short-lived and it is back again. Last night I went running with a buddy and, like clockwork, it started up a couple of kms in. We ended up doing the whole 5 mile run and the pain didn’t get too overwhelming, but it definitely didn’t feel good.

So this morning, I decided to check out Runner’s World just so that I could read once again about what it is. They said it really well in this article:

The iliotibial band, a thick band of tissue that runs from the hip to the knee, can cause irritation when it runs over the femoral condyle, the knobs at the bottom of the thighbone. Knee pain from a problem with the IT band typically doesn’t start until a mile or two into a run. “Because the pain is generated from friction, it releases chemicals that cause inflammation, and that takes a little bit of time,” says Sharon Flynn, M.D., a sports-medicine specialist at the Oregon Medical Group.

An IT problem or patella pain may originate in the hip, according to Michael Fredericson, M.D., an associate professor at Stanford University and head team physician for the Stanford cross-country and track teams. Runners who have IT band issues and patellofemoral pain–two common knee injuries among runners–are often weak in the hip abductors and external rotators. Strengthening the hips can help alleviate and prevent pain. “People talk about pronation of the foot, but really the whole body pronates to some degree–that’s how your body absorbs shock,” says Dr. Fredericson. “Controlling that comes down to alignment.”

Of course, prevention is always the best way to avoid these types of situations. However, since I’m already “in it,”I’m trying to figure out how to get OUT OF IT. My RMT said to “ice” my legs after I run, which I have reluctantly been doing every time I run. Seriously, getting into a freezing cold shower is so hard to motivate oneself to do. However, I very carefully put each leg separately into the ice cold shower and count to 30 and repeat 3 times. Sometimes if I’m feeling very brave, I will even ice the whole back side of my body. Trust me, it’s cold and uncomfortable, but it’s just another thing I do to stay in this crazy sport of triathlon. Runner’s World “Injury prevention” page has an article of the benefits of ice baths that tells how cold water reduces swelling and tissue breakdown. It makes a lot of sense, but it’s just not that comfortable.

Another way I am trying to deal with this situation is strengthening my lower back. Side bends, core strength workouts, and lower back strengthening exercises are in the cards for me, despite my aversion to such things. Alas, I must do them.

I am also going to purchase a new pair of shoes because the ones that I have are finished. I’m also going to run on the treadmill for a bit to see if that makes a difference. Hopefully in a matter of weeks I will miraculously be cured!

In other training news, I am fully enjoying being back into training. Last week I genuinely meant to get out onto my bike, but another flat tire put that thought to rest. It turns out that my tire is very worn and I need a new rear tire… I guess that makes sense. I’ve put thousands of kilometres on my bike , Sky, and she’s probably going to have to sustain many more thousands, unless I come into some major money and can afford the tri bike that I’ve always wanted. So I got my flat fixed and was planning to hit the road on Sunday, but it downpoured all day and the thought of putting my bike on the trainer without snow on the ground was just too depressing. Instead, I enjoyed every single moment spent having a lazy, rainy Sunday.