Wednesday, March 31, 2010

PMP, Injury, Training

So a lot's been going on the last week or so. I figured I'd write about it during my lunch today.

First, on Monday I passed my PMP exam. Thank God that's over with. Now I don't have to feel guilty every night I don't study...or trained to hard to study effectively. Very good news for me.

My shoulder is still a problem. I took a shot of cortisone in my back and it helped a little bit. The day-to-day pain is basically gone. I never even knew it hurt until the pain was gone. But it didn't help my shoulder specifically. If I work at my desk for extended periods or swim...I get the same burning pain. It is much more specific now however. So instead of the whole back of my shoulder burning I can feel it in my shoulder specifically and mostly in the armpit (sub-scapulara) area. I doubt I spelled that correctly.
So I have an appointment with the surgeon to discuss again tomorrow. I suspect I have a few choices...more cortisone in my back to help with a bulging disc...perhaps higher in my back where the nerve effecting this area is. A shot in my shoulder specifically...or surgery.

I've already resigned myself to the fact that I am going to need surgery on the shoulder. Realistically I've needed it for years. But I don't want to do it until the end of this season unless the doc tells me I will be causing real damage that can't be fixed by continuing to swim. I really doubt that's the case as its not like the swimming motion is that hard like throwing a baseball or football. My hope is that we can load the shoulder with drugs...make it through the season in reasonable shape...and then have surgery as soon is the season is done.

From what I hear, recovery from shoulder surgery isn't as bas as I thought. People are on their bikes (inside) after a week or so. Nothing hard, but still maintaining a little fitness. Swimming after a month or so and running is last because the impact. We'll see what he says.

The other injury was a bit of a surprise to me. My running (up until Saturday) had been going great. I don't think I had missed a single day since January. I was really happy with how things were going. On Saturday I had a 45 minute time trial at a local bike shop. I ran 50min in the morning, nothing hard. I got to the time trial, raced and did pretty well considering my lack of riding the previous 2 weeks...and was feeling great. I hung around for a while, went home and absolutely nothing out of the ordinary occured that I can remember.
I woke up on Sunday and my right foot was hurting...bottom of the foot near the base of the heel. Of course my first thoughts were "shit I have plantar faciitis again". I hate PF. But I seem to remember doing something somewhere...I can't remember any details...where I had my foot in an awkward position and it cramped up. But it never got bad because I can't rememeber it at all.
Anyway I did not run on Sunday. I studied that day and did not rehab it as much as I should...a little ice was all. Monday I took my exam and was gone quite a bit...but I did run 25 minutes. I could feel it the whole time and probably should not have run. But I wanted to try. I iced if immediately after.
Tuesday it wasn't any better...but not really worse. I swam in the morning and did some kicking sets. I like doing that for foot injuries because it really helps increase blood flow to the whole leg. In the afternoon I rode for 1:30 on the trainer and spent the rest of the evening alternating between stretching, icing, heating, contrast baths, and rolling my foot gently on a little ball to loosen things up. I have also been sleeping with the boot.
Thankfully today (Wednesday) I woke up and it was a LOT better. I'd say 95% better. And I can tell right now I got too lax on my calf stretching and trigger point rolling. It is sore from all the rolling I did last night. But the good news is that I must have loosened it up a bit and it is on the mend. I suspect I will simply take this week off from running to make sure it is all better as I don't want to be running with PF all season.
I know how to tape my foot if necessary and I put my orthotics back into my work shoes for the moment. Maybe I'll just have to run with them forever, but I'd like to not need them. So we'll see how things go when I remove them after a couple days. Hopefully this pain really was just caused by a foot cramp or bruise of sorts. I doubt it...but if I can get rid of the PF quickly then its all the same to me.

As for my training...nothing much to speak of the last couple weeks. I had been running well. I had done some harder rides, not too much. Swimming has been minimal at best.
I swam yesterday and today to test the shoulder. Yesterday wasn't bad. Today after a harder swim the shoulder was hurting pretty good. So I need to hear from the doctor on that one.

I have the quarq in the basement. Now that the PMP is over I can install it. But I don't have the garmin yet. I need the Garmin to read the Qauaq...so I am not going to install it until then. Why put miles on the chainring when it isn't serving a purpose.

The next two weeks will be interesting. I had planned to really start hitting it hard so my early June races would be great. In fact that is still my plan with some slight modifications. I plan to bike VERY hard the next two months for sure. I can get outside and will still do some intervals indoors.
If all goes well, and it should, I'll start running again on Saturday or Sunday. I had originally planned to begin increasing mileage this week to 30:60:90. Once there I was going to add some threshold/interval work. Instead I am going to dial it back a notch and do 25:50:60 the first week and see how it goes. If that goes well I'll go back to 25:50:75 and then begin a slow increase to 30:60:90. To be safe I'll stay there for a couple weeks before beginning threshold work or adding longer runs.
I think this will work well for me simply because the added volume I've already done. So far this year I am in much better shape than I have ever been. Even last year with ironman training, I was nowhere near as fast as I am now. Once I start riding outside I'll have a much better idea of how fast I am on the bike.

As for swimming...it is my strenght. Last season my workouts consisted of 1500-2000 yard swims...and almost all were closer to 1500 yards. Doing that I was still one of the top guys out of the water. I can certainly do that and continue to manage the pain I have through the season. I won't be as fast as I could be...but I would still be faster than most triathletes. However I am hopeful we can at least eliminate the pain for the season and fix it in the fall. We'll see.

So thankfully all my injuries at this point are all just minor setbacks. Nothing I can't work through.

Spring is approaching everyone, time to get outside.

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