Having the Strength and Knowledge on When to Stop

Injuries... They are tough for everyone. Things that all athletes hope to never get but eventually always will.  Injuries are an inevitable fact in the life of endurance athletes.  We push the limits of our bodies day in and day out.  Sometimes we go a bit too far and the body breaks down.

The auto accident I got in last year caused a massive amount of scar tissue in my calf and ankle.  This tightened ligaments in the foot which caused an eventual tear.  I did not take care of my body as much as I should have with the amount of training.  It eventually decided to give out and I tore a ligament in my foot.  It is not a major ligament and with rest I hope to be back racing and training in the fall.

The constant foot pain started in May after the Cary Du.  I was in a pretty serious training block that tore my body apart.  I fought through the pain for a couple weeks until I finally crumbled and saw a local podiatrist.  He recommended taking a full two weeks off to recover.  He thought that there was a torn ligament at this point.  So, I begrudgingly listened to the doctor and took two full weeks off from training.  The pain subsided but did not fully go away.  The two weeks ended so I picked training back up... even with the pain.

The training started to pick back up in preparation for the National Championship.  I battled through tough workouts leaving me hunched over in pain.  I mentioned stuff to my coach here and there but figured it would get better.  I went to a second doctor for his opinion.  He thought it was just some scar tissue build up.  He gave me some mobility work and said he would see me in a couple weeks.  I followed the mobility plan to a 'T' but alas it did not solve my problem...  I returned to the doctor after my win at Sylvania because of no improvement.  He took some pictures of my bones and determined that it was most likely a torn ligament.  Two doctors and one diagnosis.  He prescribed me a carbon insole and to continue training if I could.  Well... it took awhile to get the insole and in the mean time I taped my foot up for training.  The tape only holds for a couple miles though.  After that it is just consistent damage to the injured foot.  This past weekend I had a big training block which destroyed my foot to a point of no return.  My coach, Scott Proscia of IREP Athletics, and I made the tough decision to remove the aggravation and try to recover. This means that there will most likely not be a National Championship for me this year.  I need to focus on recovery so I can come back strong next year.  

This will definitely not be my last blog post for the year though! I will continue to update everybody on my recovery and training plan.  I still hope for exciting things to come! 

Remember to stay positive and roll with the punches.

Until next time

Stay Strong, Stay Determined

Number 1 Ranking in the Nation

This is only the beginning.  Road to the national championship.  Thanks to IREP athletics, USMES, and of course my family!

Long Travels and Long Standing Races

This past weekend I decided to travel 9.5 hours to a race and to visit some great friends.  The journey began on Friday where I drove 6 hours from Asheville to Cincy to stay with a good friend.  We ended up hanging out that night, not ideal for a couple nights before a race, but sometimes you need to live a little.  I have had an injured foot for the past couple of months so I was going into the race knowing I wasn't 100%.  I have just been running base miles without speed work and cycling a lot.

The foot injury is related to my first metatarsal area.  I have seen two doctors about it without much movement towards 100%.  I am positive it is related to the accident but not directly related (if I wasn't an athlete it probably wouldn't bother me).  The second doctor did provide me some improvement which was promising.  I will see him again this week to see what else we can do.  It is important as an athlete to understand how your body operates.  At least in a basic movement pattern way.  There are certain movements that humans should be able to perform without difficulty.  The long journey home from the race provided me opportunity to listen to my favorite podcasts.  Kelly Starrett was on one of them discussing human movement and flexibility.  For those who do not know, Kelly is the creator of mobilitywod.com.  This website is an informative website on flexibility, movement, and recovery techniques related to life.  I would highly recommend checking it out, at least for a couple minutes.  But one of the things he was talking about was an overhead squat.  Overhead squat is not that complicated of a movement but pulls together so many aspects of endurance athletics. The most important lesson it can teach is hip stability and shoulder mobility.  Kelly describes some important information about the overhead squat below.

I am making a goal to increase my mobility drills for the day.  It only takes a couple minutes a day to increase mobility which increases efficiency.  Efficiency is an overlooked aspect in most athletes training plan.  There are a few coaches out there, like Scott P. of IREP, that focus on form and efficiency because they realize how important it is to running, swimming, and cycling faster.  A couple of minutes a day can be more beneficial then running 2 extra miles on an easy day.  This was basically a long winded way of saying do some mobility work everyday.  Look to mobilitywod.com if you need some ideas.

Sylvania International Distance Duathlon:

Sylvania Triathlon/Duathlon has been going on for over 30 years!  30 years for a smaler triahtlon is very impressive.  Events like these cannot survive without the local community support and they definitely get it.  The organization of the event and the support on the course is phenominal.  I haven't experienced such friendly volunteers and determined organizers.  I commend them on such a great event.

Like I described earlier, I came into this event with a foot injury.  I didn't expect strong runs and it was kind of just seen as a good workout.  The bike was a different story.  I got on the bike and really wanted to test myself in the TT position.  I did a very crappy standing mount because of my tender foot.  After that, the first couple of miles were extremely rough road.  It was flat but had a lot of bumps.  My two gels fell out of the compartment on the in between arms aero bottle within the first couple of minutes.  I was pissed but didn't get too worried.  My main goal was to destroy myself on the bike, get the fastest bike split on the day (triathlon/duathlon).  The fact that it was super flat and few turns made that pretty easy.  I ended up getting the fastest bike split by over 5 minutes.  This was a huge boost to my confidence.  The second run (10km) was brutal though.  I cramped extremely hard in my upper abdominal around mile 2.  I even had to do a walk/run for a half mile until I got the cramps under control.  After that my foot started to bother me so I kept it on the tempo side and didn't want to push it too hard.  I ended up with the win by a long shot.

After the race I remembered to check the USAT rankings and even though this race hasn't been added to the total I was still 2nd in the nation for all duathletes.  2nd in the nation is an amazing accomplishment and I am excited to continue to improve on that placing.

Stay healthy out there!