I found my limits.

It has been a difficult week.

You know that saying about only finding your limits by pushing past them? Well, I think I found mine.

It actually started with the end of last week. Sunday, I rode longer than I should have (jumped from 47 miles the previous week to 62 miles last week), and with more intensity at times. If I had done anything else stupid that day, it would've been the Dumb Ass Trifecta. (I'm sure there was something else, I'm just too tired to remember it.) That combo culminated in the worst knee pain yet. This, after the prior week being completely pain-free, really threw me for a loop.

Monday was a rest day. Had it not been, I would've taken the day off from workouts to let the knee rest. I was in a lot of pain, and I started to lose my confidence that I'll be able to complete the training (and thus, the race). All the "what-if" questions filled my head: What if I can't work out this week? What if it gets worse when I try to run or ride again? What if Dr Awesome can't fix this? What if it hurts that badly during the race?

Okay, for that last question, my answer is "HTFU." I don't want to cause injury to my body during training, but when the big day is here, I suppose I will suffer through anything to finish that race, unless it's a life-threatening problem.

But let's not get ahead of ourselves. I'm only in Week 9, and I have a long way to go. Half of me is scared I may not even make it to the start line.

Tuesday, my knee began to feel somewhat better, but I began feeling sensations in the soles of my feet, particularly the left one. Sometimes it felt tight, sometimes I felt pins-and-needles, and the most disconcerting of all: sometimes it felt cold. My brilliant, supportive husband suggested that maybe my feet were just... cold. I gave that some consideration, then decided I had a compressed nerve, plantar fasciitis and some sort of weird foot affliction nobody has even heard of yet.

I may have freaked out a little. Yeah, a little. Okay, a lot. I would compare it to Taper Madness in intensity of fear. UGH!

I wasn't sure which of my workouts this week, IF ANY, I would be able to do. So, what do I do when faced with uncertainty? I make a plan. I would try swimming. If it hurt my knee to kick in the pool, I would swim with the pull buoy (a hard styrofoam floaty device you put between your legs to make your lower half float while you swim with just your arms). I'm pleased to report that I had NO pain swimming, so swim workouts were off the chopping block.

Next: Biking. I had an hour-long trainer ride planned for Tuesday evening. I told myself I'd start easy and just see how I felt. I'd increase speed/resistance very slowly, and at the first hint of pain, I would stop and stretch. If it still hurt when I started again, I would quit the workout. One trainer ride does not mean much in the grand scheme of things; I'm not going to risk injury for one ride.

Luckily, the bike ride went much better than I had anticipated. I had no pain, just some slight discomfort. I was aware of my knee, but it didn't hurt. I was able to complete the workout.

Finally: Running. Wednesday is my weekly long run. Despite not having any knee pain at all during the day, I was not optimistic that I'd be able to complete the run pain-free. I had 10.6 miles scheduled, and with bad weather blowing in, I did it on the treadmill. Again, I told myself that if I had any pain, I would stop. I STILL cannot believe that I had NOT ONE IOTA of pain or discomfort in that knee. Sure, other things ached, as you would expect on a two-hour slow run on a treadmill, but otherwise, I felt great. I stopped often to do my Dr Awesome stretches. Sometimes it's frustrating to have to take the time to stretch that often; it makes an hour and forty-five minute run last over two hours. But I'd rather take that time to stretch than be injured and not get to run at all.

Thursday's trainer ride was pain-free, discomfort-free, and downright unremarkable. I started to relax and believe the crazy was over. But then - DUHN DUHN DUHNNNNNN..... I had my Dr Awesome appointment Friday morning.

He worked on the usual gang of suspects (knee/ITB/adductors/hip flexors). Then he spent some time on my feet. Guess what? I got some MORE stretches to do! Yee-haaaw! He agrees that we are ahead of any "injury" right now, but I need to stay on top of it before it turns into plantar fasciitis.

So, that's where I am right now: physically on the edge, and mentally (sometimes) over the edge. I oscillate between relaxed/confident and scared shitless/crazy. I've made a slight amendment to my mantra:

I will stick to the plan but adjust when necessary.
I will do the work.
I will be patient.
The results will come.

More Hours, A Near-Bonk & the Longest Post Ever

Week 7 is in the books. I had two doubles this week, and will follow that schedule for the next few weeks before adding a third double and making the Saturday long rides bricks. [Translation: Double means two workouts in one day, separated by at least a few hours. So I might swim and bike on Tuesday - swim in the morning, bike in the evening. A brick is when you do two disciplines back-to-back, usually a bike ride followed immediately by a run.]

The week went well. Wednesday's 8.8 mile run accidentally turned into 9.25 miles because I had my watch on the wrong setting at the beginning. I did really well staying in the right heartrate zone, and my knee/IT band issue is still improving.

Thursday morning's trainer ride will be a recovery spin from here on out (fast cadence, low resistance), which is good because it's only 12 hours after my long run and my legs are a little tired.

Friday's swim included a 1,000 yard time trial. I'll use the results to plan proper training paces for swim workouts. That swim had some short, hard segments as part of the warm-up, and I reached another Swolf score PR: 34 and 35! Again, these were for just 25 yards at a time, but I believe that ANY progress should be celebrated. YEEEEEHAW!!!

I had my bi-weekly ART appointment with Dr Awesome, and he agreed the knee/ITB/adductor/hip flexor gang is coming along nicely.

Yesterday I was supposed to ride 40 miles in Zone 2. For the first time in many weeks, I rode alone. I feel like I need to ride alone every once in a while to mentally prep for the long, lonely bike ride in Texas. I mapped out my route and emailed it to my mom and my sister (JC was out of town) and texted them when I was about to start. This gave me a little peace of mind that if anything were to happen, someone would have an idea where to look for me.

One of the roads I had planned to ride turned out to be a dirt road, so I took a detour and discovered Caney Branch Road. I had never been down there, and it looked nice and curvy with a smooth surface, so of course I had to go explore. I'd come around  a curve and see another one and think, "I'll turn back after I see what's around the next curve." But then after the next curve, I would tell myself the same thing. It was just so alluring! My curiosity added 7 miles to my route, so I ended up with 47 miles.

I kept in touch with my mom via text during my ride so she had a pretty good idea of where I was, even when my route changed. With just a few miles left, I saw her drive by me on Hwy. 1 - she just came out to find me and make sure I was okay. How sweet is that? Thanks for loving me and caring about me, Mom. <3 <3 <3

Lots of the houses on this route have loose dogs (this is out in the country) but I think the dogs are used to seeing cyclists, so they don't give chase. However, I rode a part of Lewie Road (between Windmill and Hwy. 378) that I hadn't been on before, and there were two very large dogs who were NOT happy to see me whiz by. They barked menacingly and took off after me. I grabbed my water bottle and was ready to squirt if they got too close. Fortunately, that was at the top of a hill, and I dropped them on the downhill. They were fast but couldn't run very far. Here's hoping they don't start training to increase their endurance! I won't be riding past that house again.

Overall, I felt really good on the ride. I found the "sweet spot" on the saddle and had minimal discomfort. My hip flexors felt stronger - I think the drills on the trainer are helping. I tried to stay in Zone 2, but I failed miserably as far as my heartrate monitor was concerned. My RPE on the bike (Rate of Perceived Exertion) often doesn't match what my heartrate monitor is telling. I decided to take that into account and let my heartrate creep up. Overall, the average for the ride was at the borderline of Zone 2/Zone 3, but my RPE was low most of the ride. And my heartrate was much lower than many previous long rides since starting IM training. I also did a good job of staying in the small ring and keeping my cadence up and effort down when climbing hills. My average pace has picked up about .3mph at Zone 2 effort. Yay!

Another thing I like about riding alone is that stopping is reduced to a minimum. I believe that part of endurance training is getting used to going for a loooooong time without stopping. I'm not going to stop and chat at every intersection during a race, am I? So I need to have some rides where I don't stop, or minimize the amount of time stopped, at least. Unfortunately, this means I miss a lot of great photo ops. I passed so many beautiful sights - lazy cows, weathered chimneys standing alone in the woods, hawks circling above me, charming farmhouses atop rolling hills... But I won't let myself stop for every single thing that tickles my fancy. (Too bad, because I would love to put these pictures in this blog! Maybe I need a photographer to accompany me.)

What I failed at yesterday was nutrition on the bike. I brought plenty of fuel and liquid, but I didn't eat enough calories while I rode. I remember thinking to myself around mile 38 (right around when the dogs chased me), "I haven't eaten enough. But I feel really good." Famous last words, right? A mile later, I stopped at an intersection, and I felt a little woozy. It was the beginning of a bonk. I quickly downed some gel from my flask and prayed I could make it back to my car without having to call my mom to come pick me up from the side of the road. All the way up Pineville, I kept my head down and pedaled in the small ring and channeled my inner Swim Bike Mom and told myself to Just. Keep. Moving. I thought about the race and what I will do if/when I bonk. Better to learn now than in Texas. (Yup, another learning experience.) I made it back and looked at all the fuel I still had left. Shame on me! I brought it with me and didn't eat it. Dumb. I think I took in only about 125 calories per hour. Not enough.

Today I had a 40 minute recovery run. It was Zone 1, and I wanted to see if I could do it without even touching Zone 2. I drove to the dam and started very slowly, and my heartrate was solid Zone 1. Then all of a sudden it jumped to Zone 3. WTF? Mark Allen says that early in your base phase "you have very little ability to burn fat as a source of fuel for exercise and your heart rate will jump up very high at a relatively slow pace in an attempt to kick your metabolism into carbohydrate burning." I wondered if this was what was happening. Just to be sure, I took my heartrate manually. It was 20 beats lower per minute than my monitor was telling me! So something was interfering with my monitor/watch connection: power lines, static electricity from my shirt rubbing the monitor, who knows. But this gives me a little more confidence that I need to trust my body's signals and RPE, and not be a complete slave to the heartrate monitor.

So, Week 7 is in the books. I didn't experience much fatigue with the increase in hours, but I understand it's only been one week, and compared to the number of training hours coming up in the next couple of months, this is a drop in the bucket. I did take a mini-nap after supper Thursday, though. Appetite has increased slightly.

Speaking of food, I had made a New Year's Resolution to increase the number of home-cooked lunches and decrease the number of Lean Cuisine lunches I eat at work each week. I normally eat a frozen meal for lunch every day (or, depending on the training load, two lunches in one day). For the past three weeks, I've had home-cooked leftovers for lunch one day a week. Baby steps! I'll give it a few more weeks at this level before I commit to switching out a second day. I don't think I'll ever quit the Lean Cuisines entirely, but limiting the processed food will certainly be a good thing.

Having said that, I'm ordering pizza right now!

Dr Awesome

I had an appointment with Dr Awesome this week (not his real name) to begin working on my knees. (To review, the right one never quite recovered from a fall I took while running in Augusta last August, and the left one has been a pissy little bitch off and on since the Augusta Half Ironman.) Dr Awesome does great A.R.T.

Dr Awesome watched me run so he could check my gait and immediately saw that my left knee was being pulled inward. This would account for the pain on the outside of my knee. (In retrospect, it makes perfect sense - I now remember my knees rubbing together when I ran last week.) He worked on that leg, un-gummed the right knee, and gave me a refresher on the stretches I need to do daily and during my runs. I left his office feeling very optimistic.

So optimistic, in fact, that I plunked down $200 for the 24-week David Glover training plan. The deed is done: I will officially begin training for Ironman Texas on December 2nd.

Let us pause to rejoice that The Plan Decision has been made.

Fast forward to that evening, when I hopped on the trainer for an easy 30 minute spin. I had more pain in my left knee than I've ever had during a ride. I was scared. Did I just waste my money on a training plan that I won't be able to do because my knee is screwed up for life?

Luckily, I have a level-headed husband and good friends who have experience with injury and recovery. They talked me down. They reminded me that my over-use injury didn't occur in one day, and it wouldn't be fixed in one day. That's why we go for a series of treatments, not just one-and-done.

The next day, I noticed a very strange feeling in my knees: upon rising from or sitting down in a chair, my knees didn't hurt. I hadn't even realized they were hurting so much until they weren't hurting any more. It's funny the things you get used to and accept as normal.

Today I ran about four and half miles and had no knee pain at all. My legs felt nice and loose. I stopped every 10 minutes during my run to stretch, as prescribed by Dr Awesome. Tomorrow I'll hop on the bike and see what happens.

And no matter what, I won't freak out.*

*I reserve the right to freak out.