Fingers crossed!

Yesterday I got to thinking that my new orthotics should be ready. So I did some math from a letter from my insurance company and thought I should check up. Well, I was right! As soon as I got a call from my ortho's awesome assistant, Katy, I hightailed it over to the office to pick them up.

For some reason, when I looked at them, they weren't what I was expecting. I guess I was expecting some huge pad that would be right under the balls of my feet, but instead there's sort of a wedge that ends just there. I had brought a new pair of running shoes with me to make sure the things would fit inside, and they did. I drove home with some trepidation...I wasn't supposed to run until this coming Monday, but this was close enough to 2 weeks since my last sentence.

Still, I figured I should at least put the shoes on and wear them a bit to see how my feet felt in them. Weird is all I can say! I had some old orthotics, but they were all about arch support, and these new ones are intended to help take pressure off my metatarsal joints as well as support my inordinately high arches. In fact, my feet are quite different--the left one is longer and flatter, and the right one is shorter with an even higher arch. So I expected to feel that each foot was being supported in its appropriate arch spot. And they were. But there was also this weird pressure just before the ball of my foot. Since this was all news to my feet, I figured what the heck, let's just wear them.

After about 3/4 hour, I just HAD to go outside and try and trot a little to see how they felt. I had already tried this in my house with no issues, but that's not a real test. So I ran down my driveway and about 1/4 block. 2 weeks ago, my right foot would have hurt within about 10 steps, but it didn't hurt a bit. Still, I didn't want running on a sidewalk to be my first test, so I relaxed and thought I'd wait until today.

It was quite cold for May (still only 48) and very windy this morning, so I'd already made a plan to head to the Y so I could use the elliptical and the pool for running, and thought I'd use one of their good spin bikes to ride on as long as I was there. I first went to the indoor track, about to give my feet a real test, and I ran into a friend, Eric, that I haven't seen in weeks. He's training for his first Ironman and I have volunteered to be his mentor, and it was great to see him, and he said he'd accompany me on my maiden orthotic voyage. I was paranoid that if things started to hurt that I would break down and cry in front of him, but it turned out to be a good thing for me to run and talk with him so I wasn't always thinking about my foot. You want to know how to guarantee you will think about something? Tell yourself not to and then begin ;) Anyway, while my legs felt predictably heavy, my aerobic system was just fine and my foot felt fine! I could have kept going, but decided to err on the side of prudence and just do 20' today.

Eric and I talked some more and then I was on a schedule so we parted ways. I got on the elliptical, and while I had a little aching in the arch of my right foot, no pain in the toe, so I got 30' done there, and then got on the spin bike.

I think I averaged 105RPM the entire 2:30 on that thing, and felt pretty worked by it, so all good. Then I got in the pool and did 40' water running, and my legs were fried. Back at home, I iced the right foot, and it seems fine, so I hope to give it another short test of 15-20' tomorrow. Now I need to replan my schedule for next week assuming I can do about 20' of actual running per day, but I am happy to do it! I have also decided to fuck my original training plan from now through UMC and just do like I was going to do an IM only a bit more in the swim and bike departments. Not like I can do huge run volume anyway, but I hope to maintain about 5 hours a week. I am also going to move my long run to Wednesdays, because for the last 2 weeks it's been Thurs. long run, Friday huge swim, Sat. long bike 1 and Sun. long bike 2, and that is just stringing too many big workouts in a row. I got used to the long swim/long bike thing, so that's cool, moving the long run back one day should help me to recover a little before Friday rears its ugly head.

So the jury isn't out yet on my foot until I can run pain-free for at least 1.5 hours, but I will work my way back and hopefully if I continue doing the other things like icing and applying these NSAID pads and wearing appropriate footwear, perhaps I will lick this thing.

Meanwhile, I managed 7 hours of "running" this week, which isn't as much as I'd planned (8 hours), but still it's a lot, and if all goes well, I think I can be back to "pure" running in 3 weeks. I will say it now that down the road I may look back on all this and view it as a godsend, as I tend to think things happen for a reason. Perhaps if I had been full-out running now, I would have trashed myself into oblivion, but because I've been doing water running and elliptical (and I don't hold onto the machine), maybe just maybe, my aerobic run conditioning is there. Who knows?

It is funny to me that just a few days ago someone asked me if I was a marathoner, and I said yes (I didn't go into the whole triathlon thing), and she said I had that physique. Today someone told me I have a swimmer's physique . Now if I can just get someone to say I look like a hardcore cyclist, I'll be all set! Just some bright spots in an otherwise stressful week, I guess. Now if I can just get my new tri bike, I'll be all set!

Happy Mother's Day to all Moms and to your Moms.

Quick Update

I continue to be pressed for time!

Last week I got in about 22.5 hours of training, including 5 hours of combined water running/elliptical, a 9,000 yard swim on Friday and a 92-mile ride on Sunday that had 6700 feet of climbing. I am still tired!

On Saturday, I wanted to ride 3 hours, and started on my MTB. About 3 miles from home I got a flat, and the tire was toast, meaning walk 3 miles home. I am not supposed to walk unnecessarily due to my injury, but what am I to do? Luckily, I was rescued about 1.5 miles later by a fellow cyclist who lived on my route home. She drove me and bike home, and I got back out on LGL and ended up getting in about 2.5 hours of riding. Eat, hydrate, finish packing and drive about 3 hours to Dodgeville, Wisconsin for my ride on Sunday.

I ended up getting some cheap frozen Chinese from Walmart ($4 total!) for my dinner, and I watched most of "Encino Man" which was so stupid I couldn't look away.

Sunday I was on the road by 7:50 to ride and it was a beautiful day for it. All the hills were still there, too! I had intended to ride all 100 (or 103 whatever it was) miles, but since I added on some group lostness at the beginning of the ride, and I had a long drive home and I wanted to be coherent on Monday, I decided to skip the extra loop for the 100-miler. Still, 92 was plenty!

I had big training plans for this week, but predictably (or not), I was absolutely trashed on Monday, and so I did nothing.

Since now I need to do my "running" along with my swimming, that means early wakeup calls to get the pool time in, which sucks. Plus, doing swims and runs back to back makes me a whole lot more tired than when I split them up by 3 or 4 hours. Oh well, hopefully this is temporary.

Today I find myself very fatigued, cranky, and with a sense of doom. Next Monday I try and run again, and if I can't without pain, I am not sure what I am going to do. Cry first, probably. My mood has become foul due to the lack of daily sunshine and fresh air and extra pool time with extra dry skin. I cannot hobble 52.4 miles in UMC. I may ask if I can convert to a relay. I may just drop altogether. I have followed Doctor's orders in terms of not trying to run again until then, but I am just not in a good place right now.

On the other hand, if I CAN run, then it's 12 more weeks of hell...I tend to forget how the final build even just for IM sucks, only it sucks even more for me now, since I am extra paranoid.

But I'm just stating how I feel, which is why I write this blog, after all.

Next week I have a rest week which is sorely needed, since this week makes FIVE weeks since my last full rest week, although obviously I have rested my run legs and my swimming partially along the way. Still, stack up 20, 17, 21, 22 and this week should be another 17 hours, and I guess one would be tired and cranky.

From here on out, assuming I continue moving forward, I will be making up my training volume as I go. The stuff I originally planned is ludicrous with a fulltime job, even WITHOUT a life beyond that! But there are a few humongous weekends planned that I will still try and execute on, and then just need to be careful on the recovery end.

As I have learned to date, training for this beast is all about doing as much as you possibly can with the time you have available. Which is how I thought of IM training, only back then, I had more "free" time compared to now. Even with what I am doing, if I get to the start line, I will only finish by sheer will and my overall aerobic capacity. Which I think is tremendous. I think my heart rate lately is like 5. At least sometimes it feels that way!

Anyway, that's all I have time to write about now...must go and get some food in me!