Hello, head--here's a brick wall. Look familiar?

About a month ago, I had what I believed at the time was a recurrence of an injury I'd gotten from falling down a set of stairs sometime during 1999. The result of drinking too much at a party that my roommate and had I thrown (a trailer-trash them party), it was far from my finest hour.

The injury was something that my doctor had previously classified as a "butt-sprain," since it was a spasm of one of the muscles that attaches the butt to the lower back--which muscle to be specific, I don't know--but at least my doctor had a sense of humor about the whole thing. I'd written off the recurrence of that injury as a random, every-once-in-a-while event that happens every few years. It knocked me completely out of training for a week, and then took the better part of 2 weeks for me to return to full force.

So, fast forward to yesterday, and it's back again. Truth be told, it started coming back on me on Thursday, and I blindly and stubbornly ignored it, and went ahead training anyway. I've been having a string of good workouts, and I could not believe that this was going to sideline me--history dictated that the recurrence of this thing was once every few years, not a couple of weeks.

The reality is that I now believe this injury is caused (or at least mostly caused) by my phenomenal inflexibility. I can't touch my toes. OK, I can touch my toes, I just have to bend my knees (a lot) to make it happen. I need to use a strap to be able to pull on my toes when doing a typical hurdle stretch. When I went to my bike fitting, my bike fitter evaluated my flexibility as "low," and I think it's only because he didn't have a lower category to put it into. If you're looking for a bike fitter--call Jim Manton at Final Fit in Fountain Valley--he's awesome.

So, I'm going to stop causing myself insanity. Specifically, I'm going to stop expecting my body just to take care of this because I don't like it even though I really don't do anything about it. I'm going to adopt a nightly stretching routine, and get back to the level of flexibility I had when I was a kid. OK--I may never be able to do the splits again (I was a gymnast as a child), but I should be able to touch my toes.

It's less severe than it was a month ago--I'm hopeful that today's massage, some rest, and a good whopping amount of ibuprofen will allow me to get back to some level of training tomorrow. But even if I can't, I'm not going to let this repeat again.

Napa Half Iron Recap

On Saturday, I completed my first triathlon of the season.   The race was the Napa Valley Vintage triathlon, which is a half iron distance course.  To sum it up--it was a hard day for more than a couple of reasons, but I'm very happy I did it and pleased with my performance.

My day started as I expected--I woke up, drank a cup of coffee, microwaved a breakfast sandwich, and got ready to put my stuff in the car.  It was about a 30 minute drive to the race site and we got there about 6:45 for an 8am race start--a little close for my tastes, but it's a small race and getting set up for a half iron is really no different than for a sprint.  I pulled my bike off the car and went to top off the air pressure in my tires, and my rear tube blew out.  The valve just fell apart on me, with the screw portion of it blasting out of the tube.  I've had this happen on a couple tubes recently so if anyone knows that I'm doing something wrong to cause it--please tell me!

I switched out my tube, pumped up the tire and reseated my rear wheel.  It was rubbing against the frame and I couldn't figure out why.  I decided to walk to the transition area (about a mile) and get set up and then figure it out.   Got in at 7:20 and was very conscious that I had precious little time left.  I got my bike set up, ran to check-in and then returned to finish getting ready.   At this point, I hurriedly finished setting up my transition area and then took a look at my rear wheel.  The break from fiddling with my wheel gave me the fresh perspective I needed--I saw that I had a bulge. The tire hadn't seated correctly when I pumped up the tube.  I deflated the tire and then pumped it back up.  Problem solved.  Thankfully, this was the only technical issue I had all day.

I sunscreened--got Brian to do my back (Thanks Brian!), and got my wetsuit on.  I headed to the start line and got in the water just about when they called us all back to start the race.  I wound up at the front of the line and decided to stay there.  Prior to the race start, they had us all sing "America, the Beautiful" and--well--let's just stay that triathletes, as a rule, are not singers.  The gun went off and I found myself in the lead for about four minutes before I decided to pull back and let the guy drafting off me take over.  I remained in his draft zone out to the first buoy where we turned into a set of waves that rivaled anything I've swum in before including ocean swims--this was a lake swim, and I'd prepared myself mentally for a nice, smooth-as-glass one-point-two miler.   This would be the first time that day that I would need to rapidly adjust my expectations.  The long arm of the triangular swim was all into the waves and it didn't matter which direction you breathed--I swallowed water on both the right and left side when I was ill-timed with the random, wind-driven crests and troughs of the lake surf.  I understood completely during this swim why triathlons often cancel lake swims due to high winds.    I finally rounded the seconded buoy and headed back to shore--at least where I thought the finish line was.  I couldn't see a finish buoy and was told later that it was repeatedly getting blown out of place.  I exited the water and looked at my watch to see 33-something which was a disappointing time, but I knew the conditions had been rough. I would later find out that I was 3rd out of the water and the fastest time was a 31--two pieces of data that changed my perception of my own performance to something dramatically better than I had first thought.

Brian saw me at T1, and he said that my coach would tell me I need to work on my transitions--and I remember thinking "and she would be right" but what I said was "I don't care." In my rush to get ready prior to the swim, I had a pile of stuff to put on (note to self--buy a Tri-singlet and wear it for the next race).  I got on the bike and started off on my ride.  There's not much to say about the ride--it was hard. There was a lot of up and down, and I was constantly slamming from my highest gear to my lowest gear. Rapid change of expectations #2--I would not be having a sub 3 hour bike split.   I had to stand on some of the climbs because they were too steep to handle from a seated position.  A flatter portion of the course existed somewhere after the 30 mile mark. My aero position felt really good there.  The bike finished out with a fairly hilly final 8 miles but it was the final three and a quarter that really stood out to me.

I'd gone through the bike ride with a focus on it being the hardest part of the course.  The run elevation profile led me to believe that it would be pancake flat and that belief came crashing down around me when I biked past the runners that were ahead of me.   The single flat part of this whole triathlon was the transition area.   Luckily, the run course was at least "rolling" and not aggressive.  It would merely take intelligent pace management--which is something that I have rare instances of accomplishing well in my past.  I ran up the hills as conservatively as I could and then recovered on the downs as much as I needed too.  Rapid change of expectations #3: my planned goal of 2:05-2:10 on the run would need to fall away.  I spent the first 10 miles of the run preparing for a good effort on the final three.  I split 1:09 for the first loop and 1:08 for the second.  Pacing was well accomplished--and it turns out that I had my fastest run split for a half iron.

My day was much harder than I expected. I'd gone out to the race thinking a sub-6 hour effort should be possible, and for many reasons, wound up not making that.   But my perception of this race remains intact.  In speaking with my coach after the race, she asked me if I accomplished what I wanted to and I said something like "I'm not sure why I specifically did this race."  But the reality is that I do know why--it's why I do triathlon in general, and it's why I do a lot of the hard stuff I do in life--it's about the challenge.  It just turned out on this race day, the challenge was a little harder than I had foreseen it. I adjusted and rose to the occasion.  And I'm happy.

Overtrained and recovery

A little over a month ago, I ran the best marathon of my life, and more to the point I ran what was probably the biggest test of will that I've had in a long time. To put things in perspective, I ran a 4:21 marathon, which is a far cry from anything marathoners would consider as fast--but it was an hour and 10 minutes faster than anything I've done previously (we'll just bypass the discussion that would ensue from knowing that my 5:32 previous best marathon was done at the end of Ironman St. George).

The reality is that I'd never run through "the wall" before--having walked substantial portions of the three previous marathons I've done. The best word I can use to describe this experience is "exquisite." The effort level required here paralleled that of hitting the wall at the 130 meter mark of a 200 fly but knowing that you have over an hour left to run instead of 70 meters to swim. Each step from mile 20-26.2 was like lifting weights. I approached the finish time knowing that I would miss my goal of 4:20 by a trivial amount and I didn't care--I'd just blasted the hell out of my previous personal best and that was all that mattered. I met my friends at the finish line and sat down and they helped me get up afterwards.

The days that followed revealed soreness in my legs that has been unrivaled by any other race in my past. It hurt more after surgery I had for a hernia, but I was strung out on oxycodone for that--Aleve is no oxycodone.

A week later, I was jazzed. My legs felt better and I was ready to get back to training for a triathlon I'd registered for that would be a month after the marathon. Cranking at 200 watts on the bike felt different, but I told myself it was nothing--I could still blast my previous efforts at VO2max pace so I was probably imagining being uncomfortable on the bike. I started having problems sleeping and decided to take melatonin to fight it, and that seemed to marginally do the job. Some nights I would sleep well, and some nights I would pop wide awake at 2am and take more than an hour to get back to sleep. I'd drug myself with Benadryl and deal with the Benadryl hangover the next day. It was all part of the package--I told myself that my being tired was simply the effect of getting back to training and some mild stress at work.

A week prior to my race in Palm Springs, I began an easy training week, and had the worst week of sleep I've had in a long time. 3 nights that week were less than 4 hours and the other nights had mid-way awakenings lasting an hour or two. I got a massage the weekend before and my calves seemed like they didn't care. Any attempt at easy efforts of speed were greeted with legs running like they were buried in a vat of chocolate pudding.

I drove to Palm Springs anyway--and set up shop at the hotel. The plan was to get a good night's sleep and then hit packet pickup the next day. Brian and I grabbed dinner and then stopped by the grocery store for some necessities--including my standard comfort food of cookies and milk. I first tried to go to sleep about 10pm, and finally gave up about 1am when I ran out to get some benadryl to knock myself out. I was greeted by a tweaker in the grocery store buying pringles--and a group of women who had a grocery cart full of every pre-packaged gallon container of koolaid in the store. Nobody buys health food at 1am in Palm Springs.

After taking some benadryl, I came to terms with myself for what I'd done for the past month--and scribbled out an email to my coach--essentially saying the race was a mistake and admitting that I'd pushed too hard and thought I was overtrained. Beyond the sleep issues, I was cranky and depressed. I felt a sense of calm once I hit send, and finally fell asleep. Maybe the benadryl kicked in then.

I awoke the next morning in a bit of a fog--Joanna had emailed me back with an email that was clear in point--don't race. I was shocked. The rationale was clear--I was overtrained and this happens all the time in triathlon.

Coming to terms with what I have done to myself over the past month has taken some serious soul searching. I'm not an elite triathlete--I am, in fact, nowhere near that level, and would be lucky to call myself a middle of the packer. The idea that I could train hard enough to put myself in a position to have to bail out of a race was foreign to me, but not completely unheard of--I at least had my former life as a swimmer to draw on experience from. Conceptually, the physiology of exercise is related to effort levels in comparison to an individual's ability--training above your own capacity results in the same consequence whether you're the best in the world or just the best in a section of square footage in your own home. If I tell that to myself enough, it might sink in.

So, since that weekend, I've been recovering with some easy workouts--I did not race. I'm sleeping erratically. I tend to hit a good night and then toss and turn the next. Workouts,easy as they are, feel forced. I dug a hole deeper than I imagined, and now I have to rest to get out of it.

Triathlon is a lifestyle choice for me--it gives me an opportunity to strive for something--to dream a dream of getting better at times, but mostly just to enjoy the opportunity of a day of long training, a day at the races, and a day of relishing in the accomplishment of the races. I was my own worst enemy in the month that followed my marathon PR--but I am only human.