Swim: 8650m
Bike: 204km
Run: 16k
So, what's the situation. Wednesday my left achilles felt weird and stiff after running, which I did not care for, not one little bit. I wouldn't call it exactly painful, but just not right. And it kind of came and went throughout the day, sometimes bothering me, sometimes feeling fine. It was very stiff when I woke up on Thursday, so I didn't run, and again on Friday, although less so. I kept up cycling and swimming, but decided not to run, since it seemed like the smarter option than potentially creating a huge issue running on a possibly injured achilles.
Saturday was second verse, same as the first, so stiff when I woke up, but much less than it had been previously, and as I was driving to meet Christina to do a long bike ride, I also realized I was having some pretty significant sciatic nerve pain, and had been, again off and on, for several days. The sciatic stuff is something that I'm so used to sometimes I don't really process that I'm feeling it for a few days, especially since it comes and goes, and I change my sitting position to adjust for it without even thinking about it.
(Also just last week I was telling Zindine how happy I was that I'd gotten in the run volume I have to this point and my sciatica has been quiet, which OMG way to tempt the universe, there, smart guy. Let me just travel back in time and smack myself for that one).
Once I clued in I was also having sciatic pain, I realized what I was feeling in my ankle really felt more like an extension of the nerve issue, rather than an actual achilles problem (especially since massaging the area didn't find any tender spots or pain). I spent a load of quality time with my foam roller on Saturday afternoon working my usual trigger points, which did indeed seem to make a big difference, and I woke up Sunday morning feeling normal. No stiffness in the ankle, no pain in the hamstring, nothing.
That said, though, I'm feeling pretty skittish about a potential injury here. And paying perhaps too much attention to every little thing I'm feeling in my left leg ("wait, does my shin always feel like that when I sit cross legged at work? Does the outside of my ankle hurt now?! Is my right leg hurting now?!"). I'm feeling like I should be very cautious re-introducing running, since at 4 weeks to race day, well, I'd rather do minimal running and get there healthy than crank the volume back up and risk something going badly.
So, the plan is to do an easy short run tomorrow morning and see what happens. One day at a time, and if anything feels wonky or off, I'll be off to see my physio and get a handle on things. Hopefully this will all just end up with me being Super Dramatic about a minor slightly different than usual sciatic flare up!
With all that, I still got in some solid swimming and biking. This was always supposed to be a bit of recovery week before the last big two weeks; just ended up a little more tipped towards recovery than it should have been.
Monday: 2800m swim
Pretty fond of this Monday night swim time. The pool is empty, generally, other than that one guy who does the splashiest breaststroke of all time, but I figure that's just good open water practice for when I turn my head to breathe and get a face full of water instead.
Tuesday: 7.5k run; TR Rogers+2
Ah, before the week got stressful and weird. Still really like how the clouds look in the reflection in this picture.
Wednesday: 8k run; 2500m swim
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| Oh, you ran at sunrise and took backlit pictures? SHOCKING. Shut up, I get a kick out of these and I think I'm getting better at framing them. |
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| plus after everyone else goes home I can play with my GoPro without weirding anyone out |
Thursday: TR Piute
Little spin. Got pretty sweaty by the end. Days with only one workout are weird.
Friday: TR Petit
Tried to watch Suicide Squad. Good lord that's a terrible movie. And I say this as someone who adores comic book movies and has watched the Captain America movies an embarrassing number of times. It's just really astonishing how very very wrong they got this one.
Saturday: 115k bike
No really, one workout days are WEIRD. But at least this one was super fun! Met up with Christina early and we did about 100k. With Fab away at a training camp I had to do the pulling (what's up with THAT), but we held a solid pace. I tacked on a bit at the end to get my ride time up to 4 hours and overall, really happy with how the bike felt. You know you are deep into Ironman training when a 100k ride isn't really even tiring...
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| Christina badly needed coffee. Always caffeinate before your ride, people! |
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| I'M ADORABLE. Yes I deliberately matched one hair elastic to the jersey and one to the helmet. Shut up. Cycling is 90% style. |
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| "Stop taking selfies and just pull already" |
Saturday afternoon foam roller time, plus the spikey ball of pain.
Finished Suicide Squad. No, seriously, that movie made no sense at all. I now have to go watch Thor Ragnorak or something to cleanse it from my mind.
Sunday: 3350m swim
Really solid swim early at the gym. I debated running after because I was feeling normal but kind of did a risk benefit analysis and decided the benefits of two more days off running probably outweighed the risks of running. Since I would need to keep the run short to be cautious, there wouldn't be that much training benefit to doing, say, 8k. Plus it was pouring rain, so that wasn't super appealing anyway.
I spent the day glued to the Ironman Placid tracker, feeling alternately motivated and terrified, and did a lot of laundry. It was a productive day in its own right!
Now I see what happens when I get up and run tomorrow. Plan is ten minutes at a time, then see how it feels. Fingers crossed everything is back to normal and I'm just being a big drama queen right now...
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