Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Week 10: Triathlon Training - Monday Night Knee Pains to Wednesday Swim

Life has jumped in the way of any free minute to blog let alone finding time to do much of anything else. I have found a few minutes and therefore need to get myself updated with my training so far this week.

Monday morning I had a good swim workout following the my first triathlon. Monday night I jumped on the bike for a bike workout while Amanda ran on the treadmill. I had planned on a 85 minute ride with 5 x 3 minute speed intervals in the main part of this ride. I never made it that far as only a mile or two in my right knee started to flare up like it did last week when I experienced the worse pain ever.





I jumped off the bike and stretched, checked my bike for measurements and tried to ride again. After 4 miles I had to call it quits. It just hurt too bad. I am questioning whether I have a knee issue or a bike issue. When I competed in the triathlon I was pain free. I had no issues whatsoever with my knee. The minute I jumped on that bike the pain started. Perhaps it is time for a new bike as my $80 road bike is just not serving the proper purpose. I don't know. I don't have enough knowledge with bikes and this type of training to diagnose the issue at hand. Needless to say the cycling is done for until I solve the issue. I have about 2.5 weeks to find a solution before my Half Ironman Training Plan begins and I need to be ready to rock.

Tuesday morning I woke up with the knee feeling a little tender, but nothing major as I assumed it was just a lasting effect from the bike. I met up with the CRAZIES, but we were not so crazy being 45 degrees outside in January in Iowa. We took off on one of our usual routes. We started off nice and easy around a 9 minute mile pace and gradually picked up the pace. You can see from chart above we kicked it into high gear towards the end. It is weird how when one person starts to go it just takes off. We ended up running the final .6 miles at a 6:50 pace. It was a good run. It really worked me out. I was quite sore starting this run from my Triathlon on Sunday. This run worked out the soreness, but I think gave me a whole new load of lactic acid and soreness after. It felt good to get out and push, but I wonder if it was too much too soon with the push in the race and the push in this run. My body felt worn out the rest of the day. During basketball practice I jumped in and ran some of the drills and scrimmage to show the players how to push hard and aggressive. When I got home my body felt depleted and sore. My knee hurt and I was ready for bed.

This morning I considered having a rest day today, but decided against it and made my way to the pool. I performed a swim workout working a lot of drills and then some swimming build ups during the main set. I mixed some of the workouts from my swim coaches to keep things fresh and to keep me motivated. My workout called for 7 x 200's, but I knew there was no way I would mentally complete this set. I knew from the start I was not in the right mind frame to do this so instead I compiled the following workout.

250 free
250 pull
3 x 100 kick with fins @ 2:00 - This was much harder. I was barely finishing the set in 2:00 and had to turn around and go again. My calves started cramping during the third set.
100 right arm only
100 left arm only

Main Set
100 @ 1:30
200 @ 3:00
300 @ 5:00
400 @ ? I lost track of the time on this one, but I felt good

8 x 25 sprints with 15 second rest. Each one was around 15-16 seconds

100 kick with fins at 2:00

100 pull

Total 2400 yards

I jumped out of the pool and realized I did not pack a towel. Nothing like drying off with your shirt. My knee was killing me by the end of this workout. It hurt all around, sides, front, and back. My body just feels worn out. I am going to put in a rest day or two to get back on track.

I have had a good week of training so far despite no bike workouts. I have about 2.5 weeks of base building before I embark on my Half Ironman. I have been toying with the idea of taking the week off before to just let the body get back to normal and heal before I put it through 20 weeks of good solid training. I hope to finish this week strong, fix my knee and bike issue, and have one more good week before taking a short break as I prepare to truly live the GETTING IT DONE! mantra of my life.

Have a great Wednesday.

2 comments:

Carson Christen said...

Dude, be very careful. This kind of pain can linger. I know it sucks, but if you have to cut out running as well until it alleviates, then so be it. Don't ruin your whole Half-Iron by making it worse! Good luck!

Aaron Maurer said...

Yes, I do plan on being very careful these next two weeks. I have time to rest and heal before my major training begins so I have rest days built in coming up and will take things very easy if need be to start my IM training off on the right foot. Thanks for the support and always providing key reminders.