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.
