Back on the road again... again

Well, another "back again" post. I've been dealing with various injuries basically since last November. It started with my left shoulder, then in March became my left glute/achilles, and then at the end of June became my right glute. While I've learned a lot about injury recovery over the years, I haven't been able to quite get it right.

For the left shoulder, I finally started physio in January, and I found that it helped. My left shoulder took about 6 months to feel mostly normal in the pool. I think this time I was doing a lot of the right exercises whereas before I was just kinda rushing to get back into the pool. This year, without any races in the plan, it has been easier to just "swim" and give myself the time to recover properly. The one thing I've learned is that I need to rotator cuff exercises probably 2-3 times per week for the rest of my life, as long as I'm still swimming.

For my left glute and achilles, I've had these injuries before. Again, earlier in the year I was doing too many long runs without enough base mileage. I had done a half-iron in September and a Half-Marathon in November, so I figured my running legs were strong. But with the business of the winter and trying to squeeze in around the bay training, it took a toll on the body. I recovered very slowly. I also held onto the hope of some late season races, which probably led to me increasing my mileage faster than my body was ready, leading to the re-injury at the end of June. Now we are in September, and my body is finally starting to feel good again.

This is the 4th time in my "endurance" life that I've missed an entire season due to injuries - 2006, 2009, 2013 and now 2018. Every time I've learned something. This time, with my body getting into the late 30s, I've really learned that I need to keep my mileage low and keep my strength work consistent. Ever since 2013 I've kept up a regular strength routine, but for a few years I was more into the high-weight, low rep sets to build up my power. I think the problem is that my body wasn't ready for that load on top of the other body stress. Now I'm focused on lower weight (10+ reps) exercises that help keep my body in balance, trying to mix up the exercises with every workout.

With the fall coming up, I really plan on giving myself at least 6 months to fully recover and get back into "racing shape". I don't see myself doing another race before May 2019, and that is only if I feel like I can get enough speed work in. I plan on also maxing out at Olympic distance in 2019. With the potential move for residency on the horizon, my time for any long training will be gone, so I will need to keep things short and fun. I also need to give myself plenty of time to build up to half-IM and longer base - there is potential for a half in 2020 if I'm feeling healthy.

Back on the road again

First post since the Road 2 Hope in November. I've had a trifecta of injuries that have been slow to recover:

I was training for the Around the Bay race in March when I re-injured my Achilles (hurt it last 2 weeks before the Ottawa Marathon in 2015). This time my recovery has been much slower. I kept trying to rush it back, but ended up taking most of April and the first half of May off running entirely. I was doing regular physio as well.

I've also had a nagging left shoulder injury going back to early 2016. I had physio at the time and it mostly recovered, but I remember it started to hurt again in late 2016, and then again in summer 2017. Finally in late 2017 it bothered me enough that I took December and January off of swimming before slowly getting back into it in February.

My left glute and hip flexor were also bothering me while biking, so I took most of March and April off cycling as well. Finally started on my cross bike (less aggressive) in late May and then onto my Tri bike in June.

So, at this point I've decided to take most of the summer off of racing and focus on my injury rehab, as well as the generally business of life and medical school. Even if I was healthy I wouldn't have much time to train right now. I think if things go well I may do a sprint Tri sometime in August for fun, but if that doesn't happen then I'll aim for a fall race (something shorter).

Right now I'm up to about 6K of running, which includes walk breaks. Today I ran about 2.6k/13min straight which is the longest since March. I can still feel my achilles, but it's getting better. My run pace is down to about 5 min/K after 15-20 min of warm-up. I have to do a good warm-up before I get the pace up.

I'm swimmng 2x per week now for 30-35 min. Getting anywhere around 1500-1700m. My shoulder is probably 90% in the sense that I'm able to swim fairly hard before it starts to bother me. I've been adding some tempo work in lately to help with conditioning and my shoulder has been tolerating it.

Cycling is up to an hour on my tri bike. I have a fairly aggressive set-up so it's been taking a while for my hip flexors to adjust, but my last ride on Sunday (30K) went fairly well and I was able to hold 220W for the middle 10K.

I'm also trying to maintain some good cross-training: climbing, weights, yoga, even went canoeing with the girls on the weekend. Will try to maintain this extra stuff as it gives me some good balance.

So, overall I'm pleased with my progress. I will continue to take things slow and hopefully I'll feel stronger as the summer progresses.