ART SUPPLIES

Monday, January 2, 2012

BACK ON THE BIKE

Hope everyone had a great New Year's Day and I hope you all have a great 2012.

The year isn't exactly starting out the way I wanted. I've been suffering from an achilles tendon problem every since the Thanksgiving Day race when I stressed my left tendon/calf area. The race was a 10K with the first half uphill and I ran it harder than I should have and yanked the tendon or muscle or something in there.


(Karen and I wading through a tidal pool by the harbor.)

Anyhow that was what, 6 weeks or so ago and every time I think it's getting better it starts hurting again. OK, I probably push it too hard like this past weekend. I've only run about 2 hours over the past 6 weeks since I hurt it but I had gone a while without it hurting and thought I was ready to run so Karen and I did a 5 mile hilly trail run in our vibrams last Friday. Then Aaron and I did a 30 minute road run (not in vibrams) on Saturday. Then on Sunday Karen and I were doing a slow cross country run (basically flat course over grass, gravel, sand, and a little pavement in our vibrams.

With in a couple of steps after we hit the pavement (about a half-mile into our run) I felt a twinge in my left calf/achilles tendon area. It didn't really hurt but I knew what it was and now if I step wrong (whatever that is) I can feel a significantly more amount of pain. Most of the time though there is no pain.

Anyhow I decided not to run this week until Thursday or Friday and then only on trails. So far I haven't been injured while trail running, probably because I run more flat-footed on my injured side and take shorter strides.

I was supposed to start my triathlon training this week. I have a schedule made out with distances to get me to my long, swim, bike, run goals by June but I guess I'll have to improvise on the running for now.

It's just funny almost that the thing I want to do the most - run - I've been doing the least for the past year.

Now for the good news ...
After being off the bike for 15 months (since the Ironman World Championship 2010) I did my first road ride today. It was only an hourlong but it felt a lot better than I thought it would. No ankle pain at all which plagued me nearly all of my training for Ironman. It felt like I had a broken ankle with every pedal stroke. Just the thought of getting back on the bike over the past year would send waves of nausea thinking of all those hours and hundreds of miles pedaling in pain while training for Ironman. But to my surprise it felt good. I'll try to post a video of my first ride back later. I even passed someone - on an uphill. That's how excited I was to be out there.

Since I can't run this week I decided to try biking every day instead. I'll see how that goes.

Here are some photos of the first sunset of 2012 in Kona. Have a great year everyone.








1 comment:

Born To Endure said...

Love the pics!! Good luck with your ankle.

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