Detour from nutrition to talk about dealing with injuries

I ran today for the first time in over a week! I ran 2 miles. Not very much, but at least I was doing something.

I got the results from my MRI back. I have several things going on in my knee. I have a sprained ACL, petella tendonitis, and a problem with my meniscus, which I don't fully understand yet. I'll be starting physical therapy next week, and have to go back to the doctor on Tuesday to hear what he thinks about me starting to run again. Right now, I was told not to do more than a jog around the block.

I talked to Ben, local running store owner and best runner I know, about his thoughts on me running the marathon in April considering my injury. He advised that he didn't think I should run the marathon. He said possibly I could do the half-marathon. During our conversation, Ben asked if I had been doing any cross-training since I haven't been able to run. My answer was "no." I've been having a hard time focusing and getting motivated with my training, as I've had a lot of other things going on lately and have been frustrated with my injury. Cross-training has been very low on the priority list. As a coach and an athlete, I immediately thought to myself how horrible it was that I have not tried to maintain some of my fitness since I got injured.

I think today may have provided me with the motivation that I've been lacking to continue plugging away at my training. Although the marathon may be out of the picture, I still have a bigger goal ahead for this year, and have decided it's time to look at the big picture and get myself back on track.

It's funny how it would be easy to help one of my clients refocus and continue on with their training, but when it's myself who is injured, I did exactly what I would tell everyone they shouldn't do, I basically gave up.

So if you're out there struggling with some portion of your training or perhaps and injury like I am, I would encourage you to examine your goals, refocus, and get back to work! That is what I hope to do tomorrow.

Race Day Nutrition Part One

Went to the doctor about my knee today. Going for an MRI tomorrow. Hopefully, the MRI won't find anything, and I'll be running again tomorrow.

My first piece of advice regarding race day nutrition is not to try anything new on race day. Often, race day swag bags will contain a sample energy gel or other nutrition product. Save it for after the race. Only use nutritional items on race day that you have practiced with and had success with during your training.

Patience

I did not run yesterday or today. My knee is still hurting. It now hurts when I walk. Going to the doctor on Wednesday. I've now had four days in a row off. It is really hard not to run knowing that I'm missing so much training 5 weeks out from the marathon. I don't want to risk hurting my knee for the entire season though, so I'm going to be patient until Wednesday.

No Pain, No Gain

I went to the Maplewood ride this morning. I was the only one that showed up. Probably a combination of the 30 degree temperature and the Parade Run. I wasn't too upset about it though, because my knee hurt so bad this morning that it was painful to walk. I did not ride. I did not run. I tried to stay off my feet most of the day.

I don't think I'll be running tomorrow either, as my knee seems to be getting worse instead of better. This is very discouraging, but all I can do is hope that with a few rest days, I'll be back running early next week.

R.I.C.E.

I had an easy 20 minute jog today. My knee is still bothering me. I'm hoping is starts feeling better soon. I'll have to admit that I haven't been taking the time to ice it. Going to start tonight!

I don't have any authority to speak on this topic, but often clients ask me what they should do when they experience a minor ache or pain. The best way to treat acute injuries experienced during the course of training is the R.I.C.E. (Rest, Ice, Compress, and Elevate) method. If the injury is so painful that it's causing you to limp or that it hurts all the time, it is best to take a couple of days off. For more chronic conditions heat can be helpful, but should not be applied right after a workout. If things don't start feeling better after a few days off, it's probably time to consider going to see a doctor.

Tomorrow, I'll be heading out on my bike for the first time in a long time for a short easy ride with the Maplewood Multisport Club. I'm very behind on my cycling training.

Shouldn't I be training?

Do you ever feel like you should be training on rest days? It's very normal to feel like this, but rest days or easy recovery days are very important to any training plan. I had another day off today during this low mileage week of my marathon training. I really felt like I should have done a run, but I stuck to my training plan. I have to have faith in the plan!

I had a great session at the pool with Lisa and Alan tonight. As I told them, they are starting to look like swimmers! It's so much fun to watch my clients improve. I'm starting to get really excited about group training which will be starting next month. I have the group training schedule put together. It should be up on my website shortly. The first training group will be for the St. Peter's Rec Plex Triathlon and will start on April 25th.

I also had a lot of fun watching Henry in the pool tonight. He had a great time playing with daddy and trying to swim "laps" I'm looking forward to spending a lot of time with him at the pool this summer.

Plan it and log it

I haven't gotten to blog for a few days, because I've been trying to get ready to move. Monday, I had a day off. Yesterday, I did 4 miles on the treadmill, and today, I did another 4 miles on the treadmill. I have a very light week with my training this week, which is good, because my knee is bothering me a little. Also good, because I am starting to feel the time crunch to get ready for our upcoming move on March 27th.

As a coach, one of my duties is creating training plans for my clients. I know a lot of people out there train without a coach (myself being one of them). I have two big pieces of advice for my fellow self-coached athletes out there. First, have a plan and second, log your workouts.

Any plan is better then no plan! Training without having a plan is one of the biggest errors a person can make when training for endurance sports. If you don't feel comfortable designing your own plan. There are a lot of great training plans for all disciplines available online. For beginner triatheletes, beginnertriathelete.com has some great free plans available. Also, don't be afraid to ask your more experienced friends for help when designing your plan. They may also be able to give you some of their old plans to follow.

Log your workouts! This can be done on a fancy online training log, in a spreadsheet, or simply in a notebook, but the bottom line is that you need to keep a log of what you've done. This is important, because it will allow you to go back and see the things in your training that helped to make you better and the things that might have made you slower, caused an injury, or resulted in over training. Also, it's fun to see how many miles you logged during the course of your training segment. I use Training Peaks with all of my clients. They have a nice version of their program that is available to anyone for free. Beginnertriathlete.com also offers a free online log. In additional to logging your workouts, it's also a good idea to log which running shoes you wore for your workout (they typically last 300-500 miles) and which tires you had on your bike (they typically last 1500-2000 miles).

Have fun planning and logging!

Twister!

Well, not really a twister, but I got a call from my husband today while I was running saying that hail and tornadoes were headed my way. I wondered if I should continue my run or pack it in next time I ran by my car. I was running with the Big River Training Team, and the folks I was running with urged me to keep going, so I did. Turns out we just got sprinkled on a little bit, but husband's phone call sparked interesting conversation about tornadoes and bad weather for the rest of the run. I told my exciting story of being in a tornado when I was in college at Mizzou. I won't go into it here today, but maybe some other time.

Today, I had an 18 mile run with my last 4 miles at marathon pace. We pushed the first 14 a little faster then I would have liked averaging 9:45. I was concerned that this would make it difficult for me to hit race pace on the last 4 miles, but I ended up averaging 8:19 for the last 4, so that made me pretty happy.

Yes, swimming workouts are long compared to your race distance

I had an easy 6 miles on my schedule for today. Didn't get it in.

I gave a swim lesson to a new client tonight and also discussed this at my intro to tri clinic last week . . . your swimming workouts should generally be quite a bit longer then your race distance. This is one aspect that swimming training differs quite a bit from cycling and running training. For example if you are a beginner triathlete training for an Olympic distance triathlon, which includes a 1500 meter swim, in my opinion, you should consistently be swimming more than 2000 yards/meters during your swim workouts. On the other hand, your run workouts for the 6.2 mile run segment of the race would most likely consist of a lot of 6 mile and under runs and the occasional longer run over 6 miles.

More of the same

Yesterday, I did an easy 4 miles. Today, I did 10X1 minute hard. This workout was much easier then when I did it earlier this week. Felt good and very light on my feet tonight.

Looking forward to getting back in the pool tomorrow!

Spring is getting close!

This morning I ran 10X1 minute hard with 1 minute jog between intervals. This afternoon, I ran 8 miles easy on my treadmill. When the weather starts getting nice like it was today, that's when running on the treadmill starts to get hard for me. I hope to get outside the next couple of days for my runs to enjoy the nice weather. Total mileage for today was 12.

Thanks for a great clinic last night!

I want to thank everyone who attended my "Intro to Triathlon" clinic last night at Big River. I know we went over a lot of information last night. I hope to work on condesing this information for my next clinic of this sort. If you were at the clinic, please don't hesitate to email me with your questions

Yesterday was a day off from training for me. Today was a 4 mile threshold run. Today's run was tough. I had trouble getting into the groove. I think I was still tired from Sunday's marathon pace run.

My totals from last week were: Swim: 0 yards, Bike: 0 Miles, Run 33 Miles. Not happy with my mileage for last week. I missed one run workout, and with the house selling and buying chaos, just didn't have time to get on the bike.

First Marathon Pace Run

I did my first marathon pace run today. 10 miles in Forest Park. I ran 8:13 pace, which was a little fast, but I felt good. Next marathon pace run, I hope to hit my pace right on.

We sold our house last week and bought a new one too! We're moving on March 27th, so if I miss a few days of blogging over the next month, I'm probably busy packing and getting ready to move. Fitting my training in around moving will be challenging, but I hope I can do it!