Training Log Archive: fletch

Finally back on the bike for a ride to work. Achilles felt tight last night for the first time in a while, so glad to be doing somwthing different. Didn't feel too bad.

Grind home. Didn't actually feel as slow as it was, and had plenty of energy. Quads were pretty seized up for the first 20 minutes, but then they came good.
According to bike computer, the sum total of my riding today was about 10:20, covering a huge 420m. Might be time something was replaced... is that enough to justify a new bike?

C • Sure is! 1

Only managed 1 rep of 5 minutes before lunch. Got through the evening session at a more reasonable time than normal.

Most of my morning rehab set. Was too lazy to do them in the evening. The slippery slope has begun.

No way to disguise this as notrunning. Made a conscious decision to run the cooldown with the group after the 5km tt. More of a shuffle than a run, but wanted to see what if any improvement there has been over the last couple of weeks.
Totally discomfort free at the time. went home and iced and NSAIDed. Still felt OK. Probably a bit more tender to touch than normal the next morning, but everything tends to get sore after any exercise at the moment, as I'm so darn unfit, so hard to tell whether this should be a concern at all.
Still fine walking around, shuffling through PE lessons, so I'll count that as a win. Current thinking is to try a 10-15 minute run broken into 5 minute blocks at the end of the school hols in a couple of weeks (and do some more bike training in the meantime)

The usual. Not sure if it was a good idea after my little jog, but was still discomfort free, so probably OK.

Evening set. Never got round to the morning. It doesn't really feel like it's getting any easier. Maybe coz I'm doing them slower as I improve, maybe I'm just not improving. No pain at least.

Evening set. Nothing special. Feeling a bit healthier now.

Out of bed by 9:30 this morning. Only about a 13 hour sleep. Must be getting healthier.

Obviously feeling pretty healthy after struggling through the week at school. Went to bed at 8:30 last night and P woke me up at 10 this morning. Felt shattered all day. Had a nanna nap through the third quarter of the football (didn't miss much) and spent much of the afternoon lying in front of the TV.

C • sounds familiar 5

This was a really bad version of notrunning, where I sprinted, accelerated, changed direction quickly etc basically everything that the doc told me not to do. All in the name of trying to inspire my class to a victory in a life-changing interschool capture the flag epic. We still lost 5-0 coz my class was crap.

Went to bed too early to do evening rehab (and didn't get round to it in the morning, so not a very achilles-friendly day :( )

During period 1 fitness class. I love multi-tasking.

Morning and afternoon rehab. Too lazy to log separately.

FOr the first time in a few weeks I had a bit of a run around in a couple of lessons. Totally discomfort free at the time. Will have to see how I pull up over the next couple of days.

Followed round the running club while some of them tried to a 9km loop and others walked/jogged around whingeing about feeling sick. Was hoping this might make up for not getting my morning rehab done, but it was so painfully slow I don't think my calves were actually required to do anything strenuous enough.

My 'morning' rehab after taking off early from work. Survived the day but never really had to do much. Might have struggled if I had to do more than a gentle walk along the Yaberoo Budgara trail followed by some volleyball umpiring.
Left not long after lunch to do some marking.

C • Yabba Dabba Doo trail 5

same old...

Event: (LDC) Lover's Lane
 

Too lazy to separate this into two log entries today. But not to lazy to actually do the rehab. Still sick, but probably make it to work tomorrow.

Event: (MDC) Lover's Lane
 

Either doing nothinhg the day after riding when you're not used to riding is bad for you legs, or shivering is an extreme workout. Hardest part of the rehab was convincing my quads that it wasn't hard work standing up for more than 10 seconds.

I am a training machine. Only one day off, and I still feel like rubbish, but back to full training load already. Pity about missing the State O champs. Looks like it was really close for once (not that I would have been)

C • Really close 1

Love the surprise switches from sweating to shivering. No work today. Not much of anything today methinks. Might try rehab tonight.

C • If 3

Started to feel tight in the chest last night but didn't feel to bad this morning, so rode anyway. OK ride in. Still pitifully slow, and not fit enough to risk pushing hard.

Now lunchtime at work and I think the fever has hit. Getting home could be fun.

Very weird day. By lunch I was pretty much collapsed at my desk with a RHR of 98 and I would have gone home except I had no car. Struggled out to my last class and seemed to recover during it.
Then it rained, but it eased off in time for me to contemplate getting home. Decided to cruise home with the bailout option of the train, but felt much better riding. Not overly fast, but I wasn't pushing hard (Time is approx. My bike computer had the trip pegged at 4.57km - stoopid wet roads).

Still felt good when I got home and started dreaming that I might have found my cycling legs, but knew I'd had a fairly healthy tailwind.

Feeling good lasted about another half hour. Now feel like death warmed up (a lot) again. May not be returning to work tomorrow.

Can't..... stand.... the ...... excitement.

C • Stick with it 4

Had planned a windtrainer session (easy) at school, but just couldn't fit it in. Too much work to do (don't laugh). Still haven't worked out how to do these before bedtime.

A couple of 5 minute bursts of not running around like a headless chook trying to get 80-odd kids in the right place at the right time at the start of an athletics carnival.
Fortunately, our team's reserve ACC official wasn't needed, so I had help for most of the day.

And we won. E Division here we come.

I figured this amount of notrunning was probably an equivalent load on my achilles to morning rehab. Almost no discomfort.

Only Andre and Shane for Grass farm loops tonight, and Andrew was too tired to do it properly.

Took the windtrainer to the start of the grassfarm loop so I could spin the legs instead of wandering aimlessly while they ran. Started off super easy, then put a bit of effort for Shane's last 2 laps, starting when he started, and finishing when he came back into view (approx 10 minute efforts)
Last one was only one gear below what I used to do all my intervals in.

Maybe I should use the re-introduction to cycling to work on my cadence. If I gave up on efforts when I droped below 95, I'd never start. Low 80's is fairly normal for me...

Barefoot on hard sand. Cunningly did these whilst 'teaching' a Physical recreation class that were busy either bodyboarding (freezy), throwing a ball around (sweaty) or digging a hole and burying someone in it (sandy).

Must have been sneaky as nobody even asked me what I was doing (which is what I usually get when doing calf raises in the weights room while 'teaching' a fitness class.

Tired to hte point of giving up on going to bed cuase it was too hard to get off the couch. So stayed up an hour later than intended watching random crap on TV. Not a very productive or sensible evening.

Event: Boundless AR - KillaBrook
 

Event: Yetar Spring
 

Took a bit of umming and ahh-ing to actually get out of bed this morning, but glad that I did. Pretty gentle morning ride from home --> coast, up to Mullaloo, across to the freeway and back down to home. Gorgeous day for it. If I was a bit fitter or stupider, I might have gone much further.

Had one roadie come past on Craigie Drive. He was going way faster than me on the flat and I nearly let him get away before deciding that it wouldn't kill me to try for a bit, so I tucked in. Hit a tiny little incline and roadieman started to struggle almost instantly. Up out of his seat and puffing away. When he thought he'd done enough to get rid of me he had a look over his shoulder to see that I was still just sitting there behind him. Can only assume that he'd been out since 3am judging by the ridiculous amount of clothing he was wearing (shoe covers included). Good thing he turned off at the top of the hill, or I might have ruined my relaxed morning by actually having to work hard for a bit.

Must do these earlier. Sleepy.Zzzzzzzz

Ooh yeah. Get excited.

C • Get excited when you have b... 6

Didn't really need another thing to add to the list of "things I don't get around to until I should already be in bed" but this is fast becoming a regular in that category.

Same again.

And again

Rather pedestrian commute in to work. Didn't want to overdo it for the first one of the year. About 5 minutes longer from the new house, but still pretty slow, and I suspect that was with a slight (if it was strong I'm in big trouble) headwind...

No aches or pains yet, but I bet it doesn't take too long.

C • Safe 6

I swear the wind picked up in the 15 minutes before I left work.
Backside sore, but it didn't last. Quads sore. That lasted.

Took it pretty comfortably again, but fell in a pretty big hole in the last half hour. No riding training, and only 3 muesli bars to eat since breakfast (2.5 more than tRicky, I know) combined to leave me feeling pretty spent. Nearly fell off my bike when I got up out of the saddle to push up the last little incline and my legs almost buckled.

Got my first little reminder of the joys of cycling only 2km from work, when a cra load of wankers deliberately cut across Marmion Ave right in front of me. Had to brake hard not to run straight into the side of them. Lucky for them I wasn't on my mountain bike. I dodn't think I would have bothered to brake. Could do with a new mountain bike.

Going to be sore tomorrow, but happily although my calves felt stiff a couple of times whilst riding, no complaining from my achilles, so there's more riding ahead.

A random question for the few Canadian people that have stalked my log...

What are the eligibility criteria for the Canadian JWOC team? I briefly considered looking into it back in 1997, as I was born in Canada (but never applied for citizenship) and thought the team may have been than the Australian one... but then I was injured in the leadup to the Oz JWOC trilas, got smashed and decided that if I was getting smashed by Aussies there was no point in being there anyway.

Just curious. That's enough work time wasted... better get back to doing something useful.

C • Canucks 4

Same as last night, but last 2 sets were in shoes, as I was getting ready for work in the recoveries between sets.

Have decided that logging this crap is annoying and will lead my to bulk-time wasting, but that is a lesser evil than not logging it, not doing it, and not recovering.

Achilles were a little sore(er than normal) when I got out of bed this morning. Will have to monitor this and make sure I'm not making that shift from discomfort--> pain. I guess last night was the first rehab of any kind for several weeks.

So. I've seen the sports doctor. No magic bullets :( He seemed to think that any benefit from cortisone injections / blood injections etc was more than likely from the needle rather than whatever is in it, and seeing as my achilles have improved somewhat on their own, in the short term needling the achilles to "re-injure" in order to promote healing and realignment of collagen fibres is not worth the slight risk of tendon rupture at this point. Will be re-visited if my achilles worsen.

So.. what do I do?

Not what everything I've read has been suggesting. Apparently all that is out of date now. No apparent benefit to regimen of lowering with one foot, raising with 2, as studies have now found that the concentric contractions don't affect the benefits of the eccentric phase. Also no point in going past a neutral position, can cause too much re-injury and doesn't add to the benefit of doing raising and lowering on a flat floor. Important change seems to be to do the calf stuff as slowly and as controlled as possible.

So, rather than 3 sets of x reps on a step, I've been given 3 x 5 minutes on a flat floor using both feet for up and down as a starting point. To be adjusted (Up or down) as necessary.

Exercising that places some (but not too much load) on achilles necessary to promote healing twice per day, so either rehab exercises as above, or cycling. (which obviously doesn't involve the sudden achilles loading of foot-plant in running) Think I may be on the bike a lot. Will have to see how my knee copes. Bike fit may be coming sooner rather than later.

Need to be more strict on myself avoiding sprinting, jumping activities (no more beating the kids at basketball or demonstrating high jump and hurdles), as well as hills and interval work (no return to running in the Toomsless group any time soon and State Champs is a definite no-no :( ) which is going to make work awfully dull. These activities will more than likely re-injure past the capacity of the body to repair.

Main issue is not an inflammation response, but anti-inflammatories OK if they help maintain the rehab. Activity generally to be guided by the principle of discomfort is OK, pain is bad. Apparently this is meant to be an easy distinction to make and most people underestimate how much they can do. I'm not so sure about myself. I'll hazard a guess that the annoying discomfort that I had when my achilles started to play up that went away after a couple of minutes is OK and the "I can't even jog up a hill unless I've slowly shuffled around for at least 10 minutes becuase it hurts too much" that I was at by the end of the Easter carnival is probably taking it a bit too far.

Have decided in the interests of not pushing too hard too soon to stop all running (well, as much as possible) and to bite the bullet and get back on the bike and the ski. Need to keep some fitness up / get some back.

Will not commit to any racing in the short term, but am already thinking about possibilities for the second half of next year.

C • References? 17

First set of new rehab. 3 x 5 minutes 2 footed calf raises on flat floor, done as slowly as possible. Cycling is looking more and more enticing.

Hooray - visit to the doctor tomorrow. Hopefully won't feel like I'm getting nowhere with the achilles after that...

C • Are you fat yet? 13

Event: The Boomer at Spice Brook