So its been a while since I've updated as life has gotten rather fabulously chaotic! Pretty much all in a good way though, or at least in a great direction if not great in the present moment. Everything has been all mixed up in a jumble of life, work, and love. But all good things! So I'll break them down quickly into some headings.
The Move!:
The girl and I are moving in together! Which is fabulous and amazing and I love her dearly and I'm really excited to move in with her. However the process of achieving that has been a lot of work! Between my work travel, work, , doctors, trying to see some friends, and get some sort of regular training going its been a challenge to find time to pack. I also hired movers to do the grunt work, but I still have to move all the fragile stuff myself. So I've already moved my office, and many other bits from one third floor location to another third floor location! UGH! I'm just psyched that moving day is almost finally here as I'm really excited to get this move done, get unpacked and start the next chapter of our lives together!
Work:
Fortunatley theres been a tiny two and a half week gap between jobs to get some quality time at home to pack and deal with the move and get some real training blocks in. Looks like my travel schedule is about to lessen up a bit to its usual 7-12 days away a month which I am so ready for after a brutal stretch of only being home for something like 20 of the last 120+ days.
Doctors:
So I decided it was time to get serious and stop screwing around and really take charge of whats going on with my right leg. So I found a new physical therapist who has a great reputation of rehabbing athletes and runners, and went back to my orthopedist and told him to start over. I was not happy at all with my original physical therapist who I never felt really took an interest in me or my case and was just sort of "phoning it in" and not trying or caring enough. Plus I hate feeling like I'm one of three patients she's working with at a time. So... some quick updates on that front. My sports medicine doc and I decided to get aggresive at figuring out what the hec is going on... we suspected sciatica or a nerve issue, or possible stress fracture, or who knows what. So we started with an EMG which is a test of your nervous system in your leg where they cover you in electrodes and shock and poke you a lot (its not pleasant) and time your muscle responses. That came back clear! Hooray! no nerve issues. Thats great news as my Dad has that, and I was worried I would be fighting it for a very very long time. Next up tomrrow is an MRI to rule out other issues. So with our best theories put aside by the EMG (we suspected periformis issues were causing nerve issues) our new leading theory is quite simply that I just wrecked my legs with overtrainning. An exhaustive analysis with my physical therpist revealed tight muscle issues not just in my right leg, but all over my left as well. I have quite the reduced range of motion. So its possible this is all it is. But I and my doc want to rule out everything else first just to be safe. So for now my PT has me on a stretching routine that takes me 30 minutes in the morning and 30 at night. How did I fit this into my schedule? I wake up that much earlier and go to bed that much later. I will say that I'm optimistic its working well. Its only been 5 days or so of this routine but it feels like its helping. So who knows when I'll be able to run again... perhaps in another 4 weeks? we'll see. But fortunately everyone says I can still swim and bike so thats great!
Weight:
On the plus side being home and able to get some regular training in means I've been able to really get some work in on the bike and swim. Which means in combination with keeping my diet in check that I've reduced my weight a little lately which is great. I started the yeat at a high of 155lbs and I'm already down to 145lbs. My goal is a race weight of 138 or thereabouts which is where I got to last year. So with continued training I'm sure I'll get there. And my body fat percentage is down to 9.2% which is getting close to the 8% range it was in last year. Getting there!
Bike: I'm still suffering from a lack of power on the bike most noticeable on hills, but I'm slowly building back up. I just need to keep logging saddle time and keep working with my PT and it will all fall into place. at least thats my hope. For now I've been avoiding too many group rides as I'm getting dropped on the hills too easily and thats really frustrating for me as that was somewhat of a strength of mine and I also think I need to do more rides in small groups of two or alone for now until I feel strong again. This is about me and the bike and my legs... I need to keep the competitiveness inside me out of it. Its not going to do me any good! But I am hoping to start up the TTs again soon. Hopefully next week. In other news as well my new stem and new aerobar extensions have been fitted to the bike which is great. So my new position is now offiicially dialed in, and now that the profile design T2 extensions are all gone I will no longer have any annoying elbow pad dropping issues that my other bars were plagued with. So hooray for that! The elbow pads dropping everytime I went over a bump was getting really really annoying!
Swim: I am so so happy to report that theres been FANTASTIC progress in the pool! My yardage last week was 10,800!!! A new all time high for me by a ton! I'm really excited but how comfortable I'm starting to feel in the pool that my workouts now have a purpose! So far I'm sticking with this pattern for my weeks... Tuesday -2500yds, Wednesday 2000-2500yds. Friday 2500yds, Sunday 3200yds. My loose plan is that midweek swims are full of intervals and are meant to leave me feeling spent when I get out of the pool, and sunday's swim is a long slow endurance swim. I have typically been doing ladders on sundays to keep my brain occupied with only 10-15 seconds rest between each segment. Last week I did 3200yds in 1:09 and that includes rest breaks. So hooray for pool progress!
Run: None... currently on week 7 of no running.....
Races: My PT is optimistic that I could still do the Patriot half as a training day... but I haven't registered yet and I'm not going to focus on it as a goal. For now my only goal is to continue to build my base and get 100% healthy. I'll race when I'm ready and not before.
Ok... time for me to go do some things here to get ready for the move... and the chaos continues!
Heres a couple of quick pics of Cannon with the new bars on, and a pic of this handy dandy 4 bike rack I picked up to store mine and the girls bikes. Works out great!
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