Back in January I was gearing up for two separate events, the Kinetic Half Ironman and rowing season. I was pulling consistent double schedules which consisted of a morning workout and an afternoon workout, in between was an eight to nine hour day of office work for the Navy.
Morning workouts typically consisted of a cardio workout, dominated by treadmill runs since running in freezing temperatures is not always the best decision, especially at 5 a.m. The afternoon workout would either be upper body weights and a treadmill speed interval, or an indoor trainer session for cycling.
The speed interval on the treadmill is one of the hardest workouts that I have done. A lady, who won Ironman Canada for her age group of 35-40 years old, explained the workout to me in between some minor coaching for my swimming technique in an Arlington, VA community pool. On the treadmill, run a mile as fast as possible, then take a slow jog for 30 (thirty) seconds, then repeat. My current best for this is 3.5 miles. And if done correctly, this will whoop your butt.
At some point in January, I did something to my left leg that caused mild discomfort when I wasn’t working out, but zero pain when I was working out. As the months progressed the pain got worse and started to affect my workouts. I, being a stupid stubborn athlete, felt that the pain was going to go away and I just needed to keep training to reach my goals. In my mind I was figuring that if I go to a doctor before my events that they would not want/allow me to race for risk of further injury.
Fast forward to my half Ironman distance, I completed the race and then the pain started to get exponentially more painful. Everyone who saw me said that I started to look like a 60 year old man, since I was beginning to have a lean forward because of the pain. My parents were the ones who especially were concerned. I was happy to hear that my dad would have not gone to the doctor because of the same reasons that I didn’t go to the doctor.
Finally after the triathlon, Preakness, and a few weeks, I got to the doctor, this is about five and a half to six months after the initial injury. She decided that I didn’t need an x-ray, MRI, or even medication for inflammation or the pain. I did get a referral to the physical therapist, who said that it was most likely a strain of the hamstring and hip flexor. The best cure for this would be ice, ibuprofen, and time off. The first two were not the problem but after getting the definite answer that the long run it would be best to not row at least for a week.
Currently I am in that rest week and I will be going to the physical therapist to see what the next steps are going to be. A few good things about the week turned out pretty good, a Captain friend of mine said, hey you could still do upper body, so I started lifting so it was nice to be in the gym and do some working out, and I enjoyed a few nights out at some bars which I haven’t been able to do with training, racing, and other events.
This past weekend I was able to go out to a very nice restaurant and have some foods I probably would never have tried if not for going with the group I was with. Also going to one of the nicest clubs in the Washington, D.C. area, “Josephine’s” to celebrate my girlfriend’s birthday.
Hopefully the physical therapist will give me a certain time frame to start getting back into workout out. My guess is at the earliest a week from today, Monday; I’ll be back on the water at 5:20 a.m. training like I always am. If I am really lucky I’ll be healed up enough to go out and enjoy the great weather recently in the area on my bike. At the least, I want to be healed up enough so when I head out to San Diego (59 days stationed there for my job) I can bring my bike. My goal is to ride some of the mountains that were in the Tour of California, more specifically, Palomar Mountain which is 11+ miles long at about a 7.7% gradient.
Lessons learned:
1.) Go to the doctor if there is pain for more than a week.
2.) Time off is not a bad thing, your body does need time to de-train/heal.
3.) ____________________________
Leave your own personal comment for me having read what has happened.
So now you’re up to date, I’ll be loading some recent rowing and triathlon pictures soon.
