Two days ago, I raced in the Vineman 70.3 triathlon, and 3 weeks ago, I decided to quit doing triathlon forever. My road forward for the past couple of weeks has been (to say the least) a little bit rocky. To understand where I've come from, it's probably necessary to backfill with a little detail.
For the past several years (and possibly longer), I've dealt with nagging issues with my right hamstring, glute, and lower back. The pain would range from sharp stabbing issues that prevented me from running, biking, or swimming to dull aches and sometimes not be present at all. I've been horribly inflexible, usually unable to touch my toes, and it seemed that no matter what I did, nothing would release my hamstrings. I competed at Ironman Arizona last year while suffering from this dull ache, and happily got through it. Since that time, I've had a couple of flare-ups, that tend to knock me out of training for a couple of days at a time--until a few weeks ago, there was no change in how this long duration injury had been treating me.
That's when my coach convinced me to meet with someone trained in what's called the Egoscue method--which I won't go into here, but feel free to google it. Simply put, there are a number of stretches that I have to hold for set durations of time, and the total time for stretching daily amounts to between 1 and 2 hours, depending on whether I do the extra credit stretching. The results on my right side have been very promising--the pain is diminishing, near to being gone, and my flexibility seems to be increasing for the first time in a decade or two.
So, three weeks ago, I went out on what was, without a doubt, a hard training run--and I handled it reasonably well--nothing stellar. But it was a good effort with decent speed. I woke up the next morning to find that I could barely walk or support my weight while standing on either leg. The plantar fasciitis that has plagued me since about 1999 instantly overcame my left foot and was a more severe, sharp stabbing version of it than I've ever felt. My right side hadn't yet gotten to where it is now in recovery, and I could barely stand up in the shower--I wondered how I would make it from my car to my desk at work. I decided this sport wasn't worth the pain I was going through and made up my mind to end it. My coach talked me down off that cliff later that day.
It turns out that your body traveling back through previous injuries is a common occurrence in the Egoscue method--and (as painful as it is) a positive sign that the postural deficiencies I've accrued over the course of years are being corrected. To sum it up, plantar fasciitis drove me out of the sport in 2000, and as I came back to it in training for my first Ironman, my body compensated for my left foot and created the issues on my right side. Through the exercises I'm doing my posture is traveling back to where it should be naturally, which includes a stop along the way at the posture that exacerbates my plantar fasciitis.
Yesterday, I told a friend of mine (over wine) that I thought racing on Sunday might go down as one of the stupidest things I have ever done in triathlon. I ran a half marathon, while injured, after not having run for 3 weeks due to that injury. Actually, let's just say I hobbled through a half marathon. In reality, this may be one of the most tactical decisions I've ever made in the sport. I know this injury, and I know it's recoverable in a reasonable amount of time--and triathlon is as much about physical issues as it is about mental ones. I simply needed to belong to the sport again and suffering through 13 miles of running I probably shouldn't have done is what it took to get me there.
So I had really good swim and bike splits and then hobbled through a 2:18 half marathon. I think it's a great sign that I view that run split the way I do, because a couple of years ago, it was faster than anything I could have hoped for. Now it's time to continue fixing my injury and see where I go with racing for the rest of the year.
No comments:
Post a Comment