Wednesday, April 22, 2009

Accumulating Fatigue

Yesterday Angela posted a picture of her bloody heel caused by her running shoes. My comment to her was something about how I never get blood like that. Seriously, I never had before.

Um, spoke too soon. I guess I forgot to knock on wood or something, because this is what my foot looked like today.

In my defense, my bloody feet are due to the No Sock Situation I had goin' on at that sprint triathlon on Sunday. They're still all ripped up and raw. I had to tape them up with mole skin to get my 10 mile progression run in yesterday. Which, by the way, was hard. I think the instructions from Jen said something about wanting to puke at the end.

I didn't actually puke, but believe me, I wanted to. I worked that run.

It's 5 weeks out from Hawaii 70.3 and everyone I know is in a big phase of training right now. This is a hard week for me, filled with lots of specific workouts. I knew that I was going to need legs to get through the next few days, and since mine were shot, I figured I'd give that ice bath thing a go. Couldn't hurt, right?

Wrong. Holy moly that hurt. Maybe worse than the run itself?! Seriously, I stayed in for 3 minutes before I just had to get out... I sat there staring at the icy water in the tub, and somehow managed to convince myself to get back in. The second time it wasn't quite as bad, and I forced myself to sit there for 9 more minutes before draining the tub in favor of the hottest shower I could stand.

The cool thing about this week is that my mom is visiting... and you know how grammy just loves loves loves to play with Moana... :) so I've totally taken advantage of the free time to put in some good miles! I didn't have to rush back from the pool this morning because she was watching Moana for me. The swim workout was 4500 hard longcourse meters (ok, I exaggerate, only 4000 of them were hard). Toward the end, after we were already exhausted from a lot of very solid 500's, I told Nalani that it was time to make our feet go numb. And she was game. That was one of the hardest swims I've done in a while. But we nailed it.

I followed that up with a great bike ride with Bob. Most of it was solid steady state riding, although he did take me off the beaten path a bit and showed me some nice climbs toward the end. It was awesome- we were riding through what felt like Old Style Hawaiian Living... by plantation houses built in the 50's on these quiet roads at the foothills of the mountains... papaya trees everywhere... doesn't get much better than that. Nice of Bob to show me his 'Sanctuary' as he called it.

So now I'm doing everything I know (sans ice bath) to help myself recover again before tomorrow.

9 comments:

Molly said...

Wow, that looks like it hurts!

Nice job on the heavy training! I'm still 7.5 weeks from Boise 70.3 so I guess my biggest work is coming soon. I am not hoping for instructions about wanting to puke at the end though...

Angela said...

I've thought about the ice baths...good to know. I absolutely love your new photo...great pic of the two of you with a great back drop.

I've done bloody heels by running in the rain without socks (it wasn't raining when I started)and it took me almost 4 months to heal them properly so that they wouldn't brake open every time I ran. I was so tired of Vaseline on my feet.

Marit C-L said...

Ah yes...ALWAYS knock on wood! :) Great job on the workouts - keep up the fantastic work! You know...there are some pretty good things you can do to distract yourself from the pain of an ice bath. Books, hot tea (or something of the sort), animals NEXT to the tub to keep you company...and keep those socks on. Always...

Enjoy the training! AWESOME about the swim - that's great!

Sara said...

Good job with all of your HARD training :-) Enjoy your mom while she's here!

Angela and David said...

I must have jinxed you. I haven't done an ice bath since college when I swore them off. Although I'm sure if Jen tells me to do it I will because I tend to do whatever I'm told. Enjoy the training this week. Sounds like you are getting some great work in.

Ordinarylife said...

Ouch!!!

X-Country2 said...

I LOVE the new photo. Just adorable.

The only way I can do an ice bath is to keep my feet out of the water for about half the time. My legs can handle it, but my feet just get too chilly.

Beth said...

The first 5 minutes of the ice bath are the worst. And then everything goes numb so you are good to go! Drink something hot like Marit said and you'll be fine!

Anyway - is "making your feet go numb" in the pool swimmer speak for going "all-out-crazy?" You crazy swimmers!! ;)

Great job with all your training!

N.D. said...

You are going to do so well in this ironman 1/2, you are training so hard!