Long Time no Post

The 3 people who read my blog have asked what's going on, and the 3 people who regularly communicate with me on Facebook, so here goes...

I'm on injured reserve. Some sort of muscle imbalances plus some amount of training a lot for 10 years I guess. Sciatica, which is just a symptom, not a root cause, is the order of the day. I waited too long to do the needful--once I was experiencing symptoms bilaterally, I knew it was time to do something.

Did the doctor and a bit of physical therapy. I don't have the $ to go to a pro sports physician, and I know more about myself than most PT's can tell me, so I excused myself from that 2 weeks ago.

I haven't run in about 4 weeks and just started biking last week. I have kept swimming, but stopped the super long swims on Fridays. No sense in doing them when I'm not officially training! I am not registering for Ultraman Hawaii.

I guess this is the rest I've needed for a long time. Right now I'm just happy that I can bike some, although it's not all on the road bike yet. I've been doing some walking, but it bores the heck out of me. If I lived in the mountains, I'd be hiking a ton, but I don't live in the mountains, sadly, and last time I checked, you can't rent a mountain in Illinois.

Since I figure I have had some sciatic symptoms for about 9 months, it could take awhile to undo this. One thing the PT did tell me was that I have weak abs. Well, I don't think they are truly weak--maybe my back is just a lot stronger. So I have been doing extra abs work, which can never hurt. I have also needed to change up my stretching, because some stretches just weren't working any longer.

At one time I had a few hypotheses about how I got to this point but I really can't put my finger on anything. Not like I can't use the break, though, right?

Yes, it's made me depressed. Not so much taking a break, but not knowing when I will be 100% again. I'm not debilitated--it just hurts if I sit too long (which I try to avoid), and running seems to aggravate it. I'm not in lots of pain--it's just annoying. I want to wake up, get out of bed and not feel ANYTHING in my glutes/hamstrings--then I will know I'm truly good to go.

I recognize that I need to be careful because I could easily overdo something else and make things worse. Someone asked me about water running, and I have no desire to do it. I have lost my drive, and soon I will be OK with it, because I am not fatigued all the time and can do other things. Mostly I just want to be able to go on some long rides!

I think my mega training days are behind me now, and that's OK. But I still want to stay in the triathlon game, and am itching to get back to it, but I am going to take my time with this so I heal up right. Like I said, one of these days I will wake up and nothing will hurt and I will sit down and nothing will hurt and then I will begin thinking about competition again. Until then, I'll keep swimming, lifting, biking as much as tolerated and stay generally active. I will say that going from what I was used to down to 11-12 hours a week makes me feel truly lazy. Plus I need to be more careful about my diet. I don't think I've gained any weight, but I can see how easy it is to overeat if you're not working out much at all. No more constant snacking or eating until I'm completely full at dinner time. Sucks!

I will learn from this as I always do--how to recognize and be even more tuned into things going on in my body. Last year was just so crazy that I can see how I misinterpreted some things. Add to that a built up tolerance to pain and discomfort and there you go.

Well this too shall pass I just hope it's before summer!