The Winds of Change?

Lo and behold, the body has responded favorably to 1 1/2 months of leg-related rest. I've passed the time by reverting to my college workout routine (i.e. "i lift things up and i put them down!") and eating waayyy too much. The last two weeks have also been met with an increased swim-effort and reduced knee pain whilst water-slapping. This confidence naturally led me toward the incorporation of knee-related exercises such as squats + lunges. And ahhh, how I've missed the agony that are sore quads. Progress in the form of pain is met with the same amount of welcoming as cutting yourself while shaving - hey, at least I can grow hair on my face/legs, right? Anyway, if you were to quantify my confidence-level and add that to my current weight, you'd be met with a very high number that I can only translate into "IS-READY-TO-GET-BACK-TO-WORK."

Dare I say I even started window-shopping for CompuTrainers on ebay? Yikes. That ended quickly. Never-the-less, I look forward to badgering my local library to purchase more spinnerval DVDs and swearing that I'm not getting my wife to reserve them just so we can have them in our household for double the amount of time a person is normally allowed.

Having my birthday fall less than a week prior to Thanksgiving sets me up for a solid week of gluttony. I also like to pretend that any "off-season" slacking magically occurred within this time-frame, as opposed to it slowly materializing over the course of the previous 1-2 months. Whatever the case may be, my seemingly strongest form of reaction is to weight-gain / weight-loss-desire. PR-ing a race is wonderful, as are training goals, but I can't hit the highway if I never get out of first gear. And parlaying around the houses of my relatives as a fat-ass (or being known to them as being perpetually hungry and awkwardly thanking them for stocking their houses with the same Mountain Dew I am always trying to stop drinking) seems to put me in the self-loathing state-of-mind that leads to obsessive athletic planning. 

[insert outrageous workout aspirations]

::think about what you just said::

::scale back workout aspirations to something more sustainable::

I want to get back into morning workouts. I've proven to myself and my wife that I am not one to sit on a bike-trainer clad in spandex gracing our apartment with the smell of burnt rubber. And, according to her, lighting a spruce-scented candle to mask the smell only makes it smell like somebody has lit a tire on fire in the forest. But, I had a great run last winter with morning trainer-rides. Sure, it's a bit harder to get the HR up to snuff in the AM, but I'll be in ultimate base-building mode for a couple of months and I really only need to hit a benchmark and hold it there. So... I think this is very doable. A long weekend ride is also a great excuse to watch football unbadgered.

Swimming will have to remain an evening activity because I'll be damned if the worst feeling in the world isn't jumping into a cold pool in the middle of winter. That shit sucks. Although, completing a morning swim-workout in the middle of the winter feels pretty damn good. Either way, swimming 2-3x week will be great. I'm sustaining that already and working on bringing back my endurance. However, since I'm no longer in a 50m pool, but now in a 25 yd. pool, I should probably re-learn how to do a flip-turn.

Running might happen later on in December, hopefully a week prior to Christmas so that I can start to do it more once I'm home for the holidays. No rush here, but I'd like to consider signing up for the Cherry Blossom 10-miler in DC, and working backwards on the training schedule would have me get-going right around this time (at the latest). We'll see.

Strength training will commence b/c, well, it's good for me and forces me to also address my abs and stay true to the same knee-strengthening exercises that served me so well last year (save for when I abandoned them during marathon training... doh!). I'm proud of the fact that I have not been stupid with this to-date by maxing out with weight, but instead working on high-reps with lesser weight.

::pats self on back::

Oh, and GO BLUE!!!! [Michigan 40 - Akron State Golden Bobcats 34]

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Being Injured is Haaaaaaaaaard

Dark are the days spent injured, and negative the thoughts.

Have you ever seen those joke-cards that say "How do you keep an idiot busy? (turn over)," and then on the other side it reads the same thing? In this scenario I'm holding the card and my execution of marathon training plays the part of the idiot. I didn't do it right the first time so I flipped the card over and proceeded to do it all wrong the second time.

I ran across what I consider to be an apt description of my situation. Derek Sivers writes, "To me, ideas are worth nothing unless executed. They are just a multiplier. Execution is worth millions." 

My idea far outweighed any currency I had to bargain with. Thus, when it came time to pay the piper I turned out empty pockets. Instead, what he took from me was what little motivation I had left, along with the courage I would need to pull the plug. What followed was a sloshing symphony that featured a booming crescendo of injuries + excuses.

Ultimately, I was no longer motivated and vastly under-prepared. Yet, I still gambled, despite taking necessary precautions such as not bringing any race-gear (to Berlin), not even my running shoes! A pre-registered race t-shirt, a pair of pajama shorts and my nike frees (which I had never run in) would ultimately pave the way for instant pleasure followed by 1 1/2 months (and counting) of disaster.

I ran the first 13.1 miles of the marathon (with my friends). I jumped out (knee already hurting) and planned to rejoin after they had looped back around. At mile 23 I hopped back in and finished the the last 3.2 miles of the race with them. The knee hurt, considerably, but I was so happy that I could run at least some of it. That day (and the rest of the trip) was FANTASTIC.

Oh, the rest of the trip? Yes, I recall it now... walking around 8 miles a day on a bum knee + ankle. The ankle got weirdly swollen and made this funny noise when I walked that I can only compared to the sound your body makes as it slides around on one of those inflatable sit-up balls. It was a kind of intermittent resistance, as if you were rubbing rubber on rubber, but some parts were dry and other parts were wet... so it skipped, like a record. That eventually went away, but the knee stuck with me. Hell, I even got "the hobble" down really damn well by the end of the trip.

Once we got home? Not good. We're talking Sean having to stop and take a break every 1/2 block on the way to get in his car 3 blocks away to drive to work b/c that damn knee hurt so much. Doctors were visited, R.I.C.E. was used... blah blah blah. When the fuck will I learn? Heh. 

* * * * * * * *

Anyway, the knee has shown signs of improvement as of late in the tiniest ways and that has me very excited for the winter. I can now swim without using the pull-buoy (to keep my legs from kicking) and I even performed a few sets of pain-free lunges. There are no plans in the schedule to go for a test-run anytime soon. 

If I can take away anything from the last knee injury, it's that cycling in the winter does my body VERY good. It will help me build muscle back around my knee and get those tendons happy again. Between that and swimming, I'll be in good shape a couple of months down the line enough so that I can begin to build the running base back up.

That's the plan. 

What else is in the plan? More triathlons, capped running distances (13.1) and a quest to locate the source of my will-power.

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