My first long brick

It's time to start into some longer bricks. Up until now I've been doing some decent distance Saturday rides but shorter or no runs afterwards. But with 3 months to go to Miami its time to get more serious. I got in touch with Chris and we agreed on a 80-90 km ride and my plan was a longer than regular run afterwards. We headed north on York Durham to Bloomington like usual and turned east. Originally I was going to head along Hwy 47 but decided to turn north at Concession 2 to avoid some traffic and ride some less travelled roads. We decided on Zephyr as our destination and followed Concessions 2 and 4 north to our turnaround and rode back south on Concession 3. Well, we discovered that Concession 3 was quite a bit more hilly than the other roads. My legs were getting a bit tired coming south and my mind kept wandering to the run I was planning afterwards and I debated on what distance to do. It had to be longer than normal no matter how my legs felt so I tried to back off some on the ride but those hills made it hard regardless. This was going to be a good test for me. We finally ended the ride at 86 km and a 30 k/hr average speed and my legs were complaining but I got out of my bike gear and threw on my runners and headed down the road. Even though my legs were rough I pushed myself to see what I was capable of. My legs started to come around by about 2 km and I maintained my pace where I wanted it and did 9.5 km at a 5:00 pace. I was very happy with that. It made me confident that I could slow down some if I needed to and still complete a half marathon so today was an important step in my training.

Back home

We got back from San Diego last night and everything was pretty much just how we left it. The house was still standing, the pool wasn't green, the plants survived and the dogs were still alive. So today it was back to training after 3 days of being a beach bum once Solana Beach was completed. It was nothing special, a ride and run as usual for a Thursday. Chris, Justin and I rode up York Durham Road to Bloomington and back and I ran with Justin afterwards. Just another Thursday.

Race Day!

Race day on the east and west coasts today. Although what I did today can't really be compared to Chris' race. He competed at Ironman Lake Placid today and even though he had told me he wasn't going to bring it all at this race and save it for Ironman Kentucky I had a feeling, knowing Chris, that there would be plenty of effort being put out. As I thought, he nailed it today. I didn't have a chance to follow him live during the day because I was out for most of it myself but when I got back from my race and with the 3 hour time difference he'd finished up. Sub 13 hours! Awsome job buddy! 6:31:44 on the bike on that course is wild. Your biking is really clicking right now and I can't wait to see what you post in Louisville. And by the looks of it there were no problems on the run either. Way to go buddy, we'll catch up when I get back from San Diego. Out here on the west coast it was pretty much a quickie but it was still a good indicator of where my training's at as I build towards Miami. Up at 4:30 this morning and even though Tammy had her 30th high school reunion last night she was up and getting ready to come cheer me on. Cassie was coming too as my official photographer but she gave strict instructions that she only needed 5 minutes to get ready. It was great to have them come and cheer me on. But the question I have is "When did surfing become part of triathlon?". Yikes! I knew there was a possibility of some waves but I sure wasn't expecting this when I got there. After finding a parking spot we made our way to the transition area so I could start setting up and on the way we could just see part of the beach where the swim would be. It was kind of obscured because it was down below some cliffs but I saw enough to identify waves. Big waves. Waves with breakers. This would be interesting. Anyway off to set up. The first racers started at 6:55 and my start wasn't till 8:25 so I had plenty of time to get ready ..... and think about big waves. I went through my routine of setting up, racking my bike, shoe placements, helmet, sunglasses, bib. All the typical stuff. I eventually decided I better get down to the beach and get a good closeup of the situation and get some practice in with these waves. I was hoping I wouldn't need rescuing before I even started racing. Now that would be embarrassing. The water was shallow for a good distance and I had to wade in for a while fighting off breakers as they pounded me but when I got up to about my waist I could start swimming. Unfortunately that was also the point where the waves were surf. That's where I had to dive into the surf so I wouldn't be swept back towards the shore. Now this was fine as long as I saw that sucker coming which wasn't always the case. A couple of times I came up to take a breath just as white surf surrounded me. Ok I'd had enough. I headed back to shore and decided to watch how the other swimmers handled the waves on their starts. And I pretty much learned nothing. The one thing I did figure our though was to turn sideways when a wave was coming in to "slice" through it and avoid getting hit head on. So I had developed my strategy, "slice and dive" and hold my breath. Now the other thing that had happened between the first start at 6:55 and my start at 8:25 was that the tide had been coming in the whole time. It had moved in by about 60-70 metres over that time. This meant that whereas the early starters got to run those 60-70 metres both into and out of the water we had to wade/swim them. And let me tell you, coming out was no picnic. That water rushing back into the ocean from the shore is hard to work against. Anyway the gun went off and I took off running kicking high to try and get over as much water as I could and at the same time I was trying to analyze the waves and where I should run towards to try and avoid the bigger waves. Ya right. They were every freaking where. So I ran, dove, waded, dove, waded, swam, stroked, Yikes ..... DOVE, swam. Once I got past the point of where the waves were building and breaking I only had the swells to deal with. Every time I tried to sight for the buoy all I could see was a wall of water so I had to start feeling for being on the backside of the swell and then looking up to sight. Well now that I had this ocean swimming thing figured out it started going good. I came up on the buoy quickly and my line to it was bang on, rounded it, headed for the next one, around it and back to shore. I was getting a little push from the swells, tide and waves now so it became easier to swim and before I knew it I was wading back to shore and stripping off my wetsuit. The run back to T1 though was long, about 250 metres and up this hill between 2 cliffs. It was tiring at first but once I ran a bit I felt good and it was a good bit of a warmup for the bike. T1 as always was horrendous. Way slow. I really need to cut my wetsuit legs shorter because the material bunches up around my ankles and it takes forever to get the thing off. I killed at least a couple of extra minutes there. So the bike was uneventful, flat for the most part with one small hill that we had to do twice since it was a 2 loop course and my average speed ended up right at where I figured it would, 34 km/hr. It might have been a bit faster but because of the way the transition area was set up there was a 100 metre run to the mount/dismount line which chewed up time both on the bike out and bike in. T2 was better, racked my bike, swapped shoes and out to run. I had it in my mind that I was going to push the run and that's exactly how I started. A 4:38 first km which had me wondering if I'd gone out too fast but I was feeling ok so I kept it up. A 4:38 second km and 4:35 for the third really had me pumped and I made up my mind that I would not slow down. 4:26 for the fourth km and while I was definitely working and feeling it I knew 1 more km was sustainable. And that's when I came up on someone in my age group just in front of me. My first thought was that I would shadow him without him knowing then sprint past him at the end but with my pace being so good I decided that I wouldn't change anything and lay down the challenge and see if he could keep up. I upped the pace and passed him, stayed at that pace for about 500 metres then started my kick to the finish. There was no response on his part and by the time I crossed the finish line I was at a 3:22 pace! My average pace for the run was 4:31! Are you kidding me? At this point I didn't really care where I finished, I was just ecstatic with my run time and that I'd chopped 5 minutes off my Mission Bay time and this was a more difficult swim. Turned out I finished 5th in my age group compared to 20th in my last 2 Mission Bay races. Wow! Even though it was a really short race it gave me good feedback. First I need to work on transitions, especially T1 and getting my wetsuit issue resolved, second my swim can still improve a lot and third my run is coming along great. Now to enjoy the rest of the vacation.

Justin's solo training

It's been 3 days since Justin has been training on his own and he's doing a great job. He's followed the training schedule I left with him before I went to San Diego and has downloaded all his training data to his Garmin Connect account for me to review. I think he may have turned a corner last weekend when we did the simulated race at his cottage because I can see some more commitment and confidence from him. Or maybe its just fear that Miami is approaching and he's got to build up his distances. Just kidding Justin. There's a definite change in attitude towards his training and it will make a huge difference in the long run. Get it? The "Long Run". He's got 3 more days till I get back with tomorrow's long run and then a couple of easier days to start next week. Keep up the great work Justin, I'm looking forward to getting back and resuming our training together. As for me I had registration today for tomorrow's race in Solana Beach and then visited a bunch of favorite shops to see if I could find any good deals on gear. My swim suit is deteriorating quickly so I went to Paradowski's and found a nice suit on sale. Good thing because any longer and the one I'm wearing now will not be decent. Then off to my favorite shoe place, Roadrunner Sports. These guys have a clearance centre where if you're lucky you can find the greatest deals on running gear. Last year I picked up a pair of Mizuno's for $35! I was hoping for something similar this year. I was also on the lookout for shoes for Justin so I had my fingers crossed. Well I cashed in for both of us. I located a pair of Asics for Justin at better then half price compared to what he'd pay in Canada and as for me I found 1 remaining pair of K-Swiss Kona's for $30! Unreal. Funny thing is I was just on the Ironman website last week and noticed that K-Swiss had sponsored the Kona Ironman run portion of the race in Hawaii and had introduced this new Kona shoe and it caught my eye. And now I have a pair. I love Roadrunner Sports.

Don't you love it when ......

Do not underestimate old guys. If you're a young pup and going to challenge us you better be sure about yourself. While Tammy and Cassie were going to lay around in the sand I decided a run on the boardwalk would be in order to try and regain some training I'd lost this week. We were at Pacific Beach and a boardwalk follows the coast all the way south to Mission Bay where my early October triathlon is held. I figured I'd run down to the bay, around Fiesta island and back up the coast to where the girls were. It's a totally flat run so not difficult and my pace was pretty good, around 5:00 or just under. At around 6 km on my way back to where I started the run I came up on another runner, nothing unusual as I'd passed several other runners during the run. He seemed to be pretty fit and what looked like to be in his early 30's but his pace was slower than mine and I passed him and thought nothing of it. Apparently he thought differently because a couple of minutes later he passed me obviously having picked up his pace from earlier. Game on. His pace wasn't much faster than what I'd been running at so it wasn't an effort on my part to keep up and I tucked in just behind him and too his left. After about 50 metres I pulled up even with him just to make sure he knew I was still there and then backed off just a bit. I could hear him breathing a little hard so I decided I would make him work a bit and passed him and picked up the pace. I wasn't sure what he was going to do but he obviously didn't like trailing and passed me again at my increased pace. I repeated the process of running off his shoulder and when I noticed he'd slowed a bit and was breathing hard I picked up the pace and passed again. This cat and mouse game kept up for about 2 km with our pace continuing to increase little by little at which point I was working pretty hard but so was buddy. Something had to give here and I was determined that it wouldn't be me. I could tell by listening to his breathing that he was approaching his limit and I felt I still had more to give. Ok, time to see what this guy had so I started to semi sprint and this guy was doing everything he could to keep up. Just before his lungs exploded he pulled even with me and forced out "Huff ... Puff ... Nice ... Huff ... Puff ... Pace ... Puff ... Bud ... Huff". And I turned to him and determined not to sound tired I took a deep breath and said "Ya, I'm just on my last couple of miles so this is a great push to finish up on". I accelerated for about a 100 metres and then when I knew he'd dropped off I slowed up, a lot, and ran the last half km thinking to myself "Don't you love it when you school a youngster? Old guys rule".

Travel day

Up at 5:30 yesterday morning. And I thought I was tired the day before. We had our flight to San Diego but out of Buffalo, not Toronto. Way cheaper to go that way but man it gets tiring. A 2 hour plus drive and the potential wait and hassling at the border but everything went smooth today. The line we ended up in at customs was very short, only 3 cars ahead of us but moved sooooooo slow. We thought oh great, the customs officer is going to question me as to why I decided to wear a black t-shirt today amongst his 347 other questions. But actually he was a pretty nice guy, he just liked to talk, and talk, and talk some more. Good thing we were early for our flight because it's not like you can tell these guys to "put a sock in it, we got a flight to catch". Not unless you actually enjoy body cavity searches. Everything went real smooth, our Phoenix connection was long enough for Tammy and Cassie to get some lunch and when we got to San Diego our luggage was actually ALL there and waiting for us before we got to baggage claim. By the time we got to Tammy's mom's house though I was starting to develop a headache. By the middle of the night it was a full blown migraine. Man it hurt. I figure I was really dehydrated because I'd only drank about a bottle of water all day compared to the normal 9 or 10 I usually drink. That on top of air travel dehydrating you. Today I put my bike together and went for a quick ride around the block to make sure everything was good and then headed to the beach with the girls. They sure do love the beach. As for me, not so much.

Too busy to train

Too much was going on today to get any real training done but I did try. My plans were haircut, swim, physio, Kona's vet appointment, a work conference call, a run, tear down and pack my bike, show Ryan how to take care of the pool while we were gone and pack my suitcase. Something had to give. Well the swim lasted 500 metres before rain and thunder started and the run never materialized. Maybe I can get a couple in while in San Diego. Man I was busy today. And tired. Almost worse than training. Oh well at least I look good with the haircut.

Get ready to ride Bob

Today was my last ride with Justin till next week so I wanted to make it memorable. Tammy and I are heading to San Diego for some R&R and I'll be doing a really short race while there. I emailed Justin his training schedule for while I'm away and told him to download his data to his Garmin Connect account so I could analyze it and give him hell if he doesn't follow my instructions. He better or it'll hurt when I get back. So today I scheduled 50 km on the bike and a 6 km run afterwards. Chris joined us even though he has Lake Placid coming up this weekend and my buddy Bob was tagging along too doing his first ride with us. Bob's not a triathlete but we figured we'd make an exception and let him ride with some real athletes as compared to those peloton and drafting roadies he usually goes out with. I told Justin to lead, Bob to chase and Chris and I would follow up since we were tapering for races. Ok, ok my race is barely a race but I figured I'd keep Chris company. But I know Chris and I half expected him to bolt and ride hard from the get go. Man he's competitive. I've seen him chase down riders a kilometre ahead of us just because they're there. But then so do I. Justin set a good pace and Bob settled in to roadie mode and sat on his rear wheel the whole way. If nothing else Bob has learned how to conserve energy while riding with his roadie group. At one point we passed some of the guys he rides with and some jaws dropped seeing him with 3 triathletes on aero bikes. Yes we're trying to convert him but somehow I don't think Bob will take up running. We finished up with a 29.5 km/hr average speed and Justin should be happy with that, it's about a km/hr faster then what he's been riding and for Bob I think it's 3-4 km/hr faster. Amazing what you can do with a little drafting eh Bob? Chris and Bob went their ways after the ride and Justin and I set out to run. Well maybe Justin called it a run but come on, really Justin? Boy we have a lot of work to do. Better not miss any training while I'm away buddy.

How do I run?

I had another physio treatment today, nothing unusual. My groin I'd coming along really well but I also had my video run analysis with Dr. Definney. It was very interesting seeing myself run and having someone who knows how to run commenting on what I'm doing right or wrong and how to make corrections to help become more efficient. I also wanted to know if I was doing anything that may have caused my re-occurring groin injury. Apparently I was. Its related to my right foot and the fact that my right big toe is pretty much inflexible and that causes me to compensate in my stride with my left leg which puts stress on my left groin. He showed me how to change my stride to relieve that and some other things to change to hopefully make me a better runner. But then it may be hard to teach this old dog new tricks.

Lake Jakab Tri

Ok so it wasn't a real triathlon but it was a great simulated race for us to do. We had arranged to get up to Justin's folk's cottage about a month ago and run a race type scenario as part of getting ready for Miami. We got online with Google Maps and Google Earth and mapped out a swim course and a cycling and running route. I wanted to get distances that were longer than the Welland sprint we'd done and close to the Olympic distance race we're going to do next month but was aware of the very hilly terrain we'd be on and din't want to overdo it. It was more important to successfully complete what we'd set out to do rather then worry about specific distances. We decided on a 1200 m swim, a 35-40 km ride and a 5-7 km run. I arrived around 10:30 am and was promptly met by the official greeter, Shadow, a beautilful friendly black Lab who'd just had a swim in the lake and was drippng wet. Right behind her was my buddy Justin who may have secretly been hoping I got lost or had changed my mind about coming. Right behind him was his mom whom he introduced me to and then we made our way down to the dock where I met his dad. A quick tour of the cottage (ummm, let's call it a lake house), change into tri gear, grab the wetsuit and down to the dock. I brought my shorty instead of the full wetsuit figuring the water wouldn't be very cold because of the warm weather lately and also to compare my stroke between the sleeveless and full sleeve suits. I'd noticed during the last race that my arms fatigued in the swim and that's not something I want to happen in Miami. Justin's mom and dad will follow us in the kayaks and we pick out a point to head to. Into the lake and off we go. I try to hang with Justin and am doing ok for about 100 m but then I think we veered away from each other and I lost where he was so I just swam and sighted every few strokes to keep going in the right direction. Then at about 250-300 m I started feeling tired. Really? What's up? Did I head out to fast? I may have so I slow up a bit. No difference. In fact I am feeling even more tired. What the heck? I stop swimming so I can recover some but nothing doing. Then I realise I can't catch my breath, my chest feels compressed and it hits me, my wetsuit is too tight. I call Justin's dad over in the kayak and hang onto the side and ask him to unzip the suit. I strip it off which was no easy task in the water and whew, I can breath again. So I begin swimming again and several minutes later I meet up with Justin out by the point where I explain what happened. We ask how far we've swam and it was 640 m, turn around and head back towards the dock. I'm finally swimming in a good rhythm and not getting tired and even though I'm crawling and Justin is kicking my butt I don't care. I finally get back to the dock and Justin's been there for what seems like a half hour and my first instinct is to push his head under water. Then I think naaaa, we got the real torture coming up. Thankfully this wasn't a real race because it was the longest transition I've ever had, roughly 15 minutes but we're not practising transitions today right? On to the bikes and the first thing we face is what looks like a wall. In addition to that we've come out of the protection of all the trees surrounding the property and realize that the wind is whipping. More on the wind later, but first thoughts through my head are "This is going to hurt". Well the first 7 km we do are probably the toughest, slowest kms I've ever done and the other 33 weren't much fun either. The hills were so deceptive. What looked like level ground was slightly uphill. I couldn't understand why it was such an effort to pedal. It couldn't be my wetsuit, I wasn't wearing it. And what looked like an easy grade had me out of the saddle and grinding. Now I never ride in anything but my big ring but today I had to drop into my small ring AND into my granny gear in the rear ........ 3 TIMES! At one point on the ride Justin who was in front of me yelled "Did you see the bear?" which instantly brought back memories of my Grizzly encounter a few years back while I was biking in Canmore. I wasn't too concerned though because I was safe. I didn't need to be faster than the bear if it decided to re-appear, only faster than Justin. The ride ended with no more encounters and I have to say Justin did exceptionally well today. I know I found it challenging and am sure Justin did too but he was never too far behind me. Now we only had a hilly run left to contend with. No specific distance was set, we just ran and played it by ear. We had a couple of climbs to face but got them both done. There were no wild animal encounters but I did notice a pretty big pile of poop which I assumed was courtesy of a bear. I know horse poop and it wasn't that. Couldn't have been from a dog unless it was dogzilla and it certainly wasn't a cat unless someone in the area owned a cougar and I don't mean a 40 year old woman. So I kept my head on a swivel and made sure I kept ahead of Justin ... which wasn't that difficult. Sorry Justin I had to get that in. Justin finished up at 5 km and I ran a little further attacking that wall we started the bike on. Just because it was there. So I finished up at 6 km and was happy that the day was done and my groin survived unscathed. Now more about that wind I mentioned earlier. Justin and his folks took me out in the boat on a tour of the lake. Everything was fine until we left the protection of the inlet. And then there were waves. Big waves. With whitecaps. Wow, the wind was creating swells bigger then I've seen in the Pacific. At one pont the waves were so big I swear they had waves of their own but we made it around the lake and back to the safety of the inlet in one piece. A great day and a great training race. Thanks to Justin for having me up and many thanks to his parents for being such gracious hosts.

Hockey? Really?

So I get a call from Ryan this afternoon telling me that his hockey team is way short of players for their game tonight. He asks me to play. Its been 3 years since I've been on skates, I sort of gave the game up when I started into triathlons. Yikes. Do I play? Will I even be able to stand up after not skating for 3 years? On top of that the team's goalie can't make it so I've been asked to see if I can fish one up somewhere. Well I manage to find one and I agree to play and my only goal is to not hurt my groin, stay upright and not embarrass myself. Anyway I still have training before playing so I do my swim, keeping it shorter at 1500 m and then go for a run. I had no expectations and didn't know if I would end up doing 3 km, 5 km, 8 km or more. I haven't run in a few days and I feel pretty good starting out and my pace is faster than normally. I run a pretty good first km and haven't felt any pain so I continue to quicken my pace to see what effect it has. Firstly I wanted to see how my groin reacted and secondly to see how my run fitness has been affected by all this off and on running. By 3 km I'm running at a 4:35 pace which pleases me to no end but by 4 km I've gotten a bit of groin pain. Its not bad and the doctor told my that I could continue to run through it but I slow down a bit regardless. I figure I'm not going to push it and settle into a 4:50 pace the rest of the way home. The groin wasn't too bad and all in all I'm happy with its progress and moreso with my running. So, now hockey. I find all my gear and am surprised that its in great shape. Nothing has deteriorated and there's no rust on my skates so I'm good to go. When I step onto the ice, holy cow, I can still skate. Whereas my timing is off somewhat I can still skate and the bonus is that I'm not experiencing any tredness due to all of my tri training. I almost get a goal, I set up Ryan who almost scores but that's the extent of any heroics. My groin actually feels great and I welcome the end of the game feeling very successful that I've accomplished all of the goals I stated earlier. Whew.

First physio treatment

Today was my first treatment for my groin. Encouraging news from the doctor was good to hear. The groin strain isn't that bad, not nearly like last year and the strain is in an area with good blood flow which will help healing happen quicker. So I got treatment, typical stuff, laser therapy then current inducement then some deep tissue massage. The doctor suggested that the groin injuries may be related to my running gait so I booked a gait analysis with my next treatment on Thursday. I've wanted to get my running form analyzed so now I'll be able to see what I'm doing wrong. I'm hoping this will not only help prevent future recurrances but also help me run more efficiently and improve my times.

Physio booked

I made an appointment to get physio on my groin today. I'm not feeling any pain but I need to get this thing resolved so it doesn't re-occur or at least lessen the chance that it will. In th meantime I'll be limiting the amount of running I do till I hear what the doctor says. I got into the pool this afternoon and did 2000 m. Everything felt good and I called it a day. I'm still concerned how my run fitness is being affected by this inconsistency in my training.

I just can't figure this out

A brick today. Come hell or high water I was doing a brick today even if it meant crawling the run. Yesterday after geting home from my aborted run the rest of the day went great. No pain, no irritation, no nothing. Brendan, Danielle, the babies, Ryan and Erin all came over and we had a great time in the pool and steaks and potato salad and cake and not a once, not a single time of going up and down the stairs from the backyard to the deck did my groin even flinch. I can't figure it out. I iced again this morning while waiting for Justin to show up. Chris had just gotten back from 10 days in PEI and called me to see what I was up to so I told him to join us at least for the ride. He's 2 weeks out from Ironman Lake Placid and just beginning his taper so Justin's pace would be a good ride for him. We were looking at doing 70 km and a run afterwards. Chris had done a ton of riding out in PEI. 180 km and at least a couple of 90 km rides of all hills and wind so this was going to be easy for him. The wind was at our backs outbound so it was a fairly easy go of it. We rode up York-Durham Rd. to Bloomington/Hwy 47 and followed it into Uxbridge. Once again we let Justin lead so that he'd feel a bit of pressure with us behind and not dog it. Once in Uxbridge I stopped us and told Justin to get a Clif bar into him and rest a bit before starting back. We took a different route back and it started with a hefty climb out of Uxbridge going into the wind. I took the lead wanting to work my legs a bit and test my groin and went hard up the hill and stopped at the crest at a set of lights. So far so good, no pain, but I've read this story before. I had a feeling my groin could deteriorate at any moment. Justin and Chris caught up with me and I let Justin head off in the lead again but man he was moving slow. After about 5 km I pulled up beside him and said "you're hurting aren't you?". Yup, his legs had given out leaving Uxbridge and we were still about 30 km from home facing rollers and a headwind. Poor Justin. Give the guy credit though, he gutted it out and we got back into my neighbourhood where he asked me what our distance was. I told him we'd be at about 68 km when we got to my pace at which point he said lets do that extra 1 km out and back to round it off to 70 km. I think I may be rubibg off on him. We weren't finished though and he knew it and was dreading it. I told him even if we crawl we're doing a run which I guess wouldn't be a run if we crawled but you know what I mean. His legs were sore and he also mentioned he felt a little nauseous. Uh oh, didn't drink enough on the bike and he'd just downed a lot of water. I wasn't going to push him. We only did 3 km but it was important to do something even for just the mental aspect of it. I think he surprised himself and did the whole 3 km non-stop and that alone was a huge confidence booster. As for me, my groin held up but I won't be happy till I can get a long run in unhindered.

Oh crap!

Well I've been icing 2-3 times a day since Sunday and it seems to have helped as my groin is feeling much better. I've also been taking anti-inflammatories that have probably helped too. Weird thing though, I've gained 7 pounds in the past 5 days. WTF? I figure it must have something to do with the medication so I check the side effects on the web and what do you know, possible weight gain. It's water retention though and I realize that I haven't been going to the bathroom as often even though I've been drinking just as much water daily. Anyway, I decided to test my groin and do a run of about 10 km. Usually I'd be doing a brick today and a run tomorrow but I've arranged with Justin to do our brick tomorrow instead. So everything is going good on the run, no pain or irritation and I'm hoping that the week off, the icing and anti-inflammatory have done their jobs. Not so. I hit the 5 km point and I feel a slight tightness/irritaion. Now I'm concerned. All kinds of stuff is going through my head, down for a month, all my gains to this point are over, I'll have to start over, will I have enough time to rebuild before Miami. I walk the rest of the way home thinking Oh Crap.

Just a ride, no brick

I was all set to get a brick in tonight but thought the better of it and settled for just riding. Justin was able to make it so I let him set the pace again thinking the bit slower pace would save my groin. We got 40 km in and when we got back to my place I told Justin he was on his own for the run. Good on him that he decided to get his run in and not settle for just the ride. He did just over 5 km and I know he pushed it a bit because he came back pretty gassed and took a few minutes to recover. This is exactly what he needs as part of his training to get ready for Miami.

Feeling better

Enough sitting around. I've been icing religiously and doing some massaging while waiting to get into physio and my groin is feeling better. Enough so that I decided to get into the pool and do some laps. I was a bit concerned because my kicking always put some strain on my groin but it was feeling good and I was prepared to stop if I felt anything. It went surprisingly well and I ended up doing 1900 metres without any effect. Actualy the biggest pain was all the turns I had to do it being only my 10 metre pool. It felt good to get back into it and hopefully tomorrow I can get a brick in.

To the doctor today

I went to the doctor today. Not necessarily for treatment but to get a referral for a sports injury specialist. Ive been icing my groin religiously for the last 2 days and I'm encouraged that it's feeling way better than I'd expected it would. I also got the doctor to give me a prescription for an anti-inflammatory so I'm pulling out all the stops to minimize this down time. Next stop physio. 

Happy Independance Day for Tammy, Ouch for Niko

Well here we go again. After going for a nice long stretch ith no injury problems it feels like my body is starting to break down. Today was supposed to be my long run, 15 km or longer. I usually don't set a specific distance when I start out but run depending on how I feel. Anyway, today I was hoping to get in 16-18 km. Everything started well enough. I ran west along Bur Oak out and up to Vern's place then down and turned back towards home and swung by Ryan's place. He and Erin were out washing the car so I stopped for a couple of minutes to talk before heading on. Mistake? Not sure. But about 2 km later at the 10 km point I started to feel some irritation in my groin. Nothing right? Just an annoyance. Till about 11 km. The irritation started becoming a pain. No! Damn it, not again. I stopped running and walked for a bit and it felt ok so I started to jog, very slowly. Ok for a few hundred metres then pain again. That was it. I was about 3 km from home and walked the rest of the way. I was now totally frustrated, pissed and worried about my training. So now I had a sore back, tender heel and a re-injured groin to go with my chronic patellar tendonitis, mucked up big toe that doesn't bend, what I think is a bunion and a heel spur. Someone tell me why I put myself through this. I begin icing my groin immediately, and then again that evening. I can't have this happen again.

Back at it

So after a few days off I decided that my back and heal were feeling pretty good so I should get back at it. Justin couldn't make it up till the afternoon so I flipped the brick and did my run first. I ran 10 km with no ill effects on my back or heal and felt good about getting my training back on track. When Justin got here we decided on a 2 hour ride. 60 km would have been a 30 kph average speed which would have been an excellent pace for him but we fell a bit short. The ride north was pretty good because we had a tailwind but the return trip sucked Justin's legs dry. The terrain was a little rolling with one have decent climb and that combined with the new headwind taxed Justin. I think he was happy though because 2 hours was well beyond what he'd biked in the past. Little does he now though, the worst is yet to come (insert evil laugh here).