Thursday, November 4, 2010

Durable

This week has just flown by! I can't believe tomorrow is Friday already. I feel like I've been quite productive this week and theres some good stuff going on with work, so it's all good.

My in-laws are here visiting this week (from Northern Cal). It's good for Moana to get to spend time with them and of course they just love her. I have so many observations and thoughts from the last few days that are best not written on a public blog, so, sorry... Though I will say that I am just flat out amazed at those of you who have families of five. Five people go through A LOT of food. And dishes. Holy cow. With 5 people for dinner each night, I have to hand wash dishes or run the dishwasher every day if we want clean plates the next day. I guess I am spoiled with normally only having 2 people (Scott and Moana) to cook for each night.

This week would be a good week for me to be running a lot, but I am not able to do that yet. In good news, my calf is getting better and I am optimistic that it will be 100% better soon. The acute strain (torn muscle?) part was pretty minor and feels fine now. It's been feeling better and better every day and this morning I woke up and decided to head out for a 10 minute jog to test it out. I promised myself I would not get greedy and do more than 10 minutes no matter what (being greedy with my training is what always gets me in trouble)... And though I can say I did not feel pain this morning, my soleus  muscle did get super tight right away, especially on a slight incline. It was reminiscent of the way it felt at mile 5 of that 30K last week when I kept running (but should have stopped). I kept my promise to keep it short and easy, so I did not re-injure myself or anything, though I'm pretty sure that had I run faster and/or longer I would have hurt myself again.

But I am optimistic at this point because I feel pretty confident that there is just something in or around that soleus muscle that needs to be released and then the tightness will disappear and I'll be okay. To that end, I have an ART appointment on Monday, a massage on Wednesday, and an acupuncture appt on Sunday next week. If I'm not better after that, well, then I'll be seriously bummed. I actually think I'm gonna be better after the ART on Monday. That was magic for me last time I had a calf strain. Here's hoping for a Magic Monday.

I am feeling pretty bummed that I won't be able to race the half marathon on Sunday. I was seriously looking forward to this one. Now I will have to live vicariously through Nalani. And I'll have to find another half marathon in the spring to run...

In good news, turns out that when I'm not running I can fit in an extra swim session each week... and swimming 5x/week for a total of nearly 20,000 meters when I'm not tired from running is a recipe for strong swimming for me. I've had a couple of stellar workouts in the pool this week so that has been somewhat satisfying. I actually went ahead and entered a 2000M swim race for next Saturday. Haven't done this one since 2005 b/c I'm just not normally in the kind of shape to race 1.2 miles in November, but I think it'll be fun this year. I'll actually be there for the purpose of brewing coffee and serving it to the swimmers before and after the race (Coffees of Hawaii is sponsoring the Turkey Swim this year) so I figured if I'm gonna be there I might as well race!

I've also spent a bit of time on my bike. I managed to get out today during the only 2 hours it wasn't raining, though holy cow the wind was howling. It was actually sort of scary at times. But I'm a firm believer that you train in whatever conditions you are presented with that day (I can say that because I live where it never gets below maybe 65 degrees, lol) so I skipped the trainer and opted for the wet roads. Each time I go out on my bike lately I've been further clarifying my goals for 2011. Today the word on my mind was Durable. This spring I'm going to focus on making myself durable enough to run a solid marathon after biking 112 miles. You have to be pretty freakin' durable to do that. But it's possible. People do it. Just because I have not done it yet doesn't mean I can't train myself to do it, right? There are multiple areas of training I'll need to focus on to make that happen, but Durable is the goal!

6 comments:

Running and living said...

Glad things are moving into the right direction with the calf, and you are keeping your spirits up. What a great idea to do the swim race! Perfect! Hoping that magic will happen on Monday for you:)

Kim said...

I hope all that TLC works wonders on the calf next week and you can get back to slowly running and building up! Swimming 5 x per week - oh..how I have wanted to do that but with everything else in training its so hard to find the time! That's great you'll be all ready to kill that 1.2 mile swim! I'm sure it will be fun! What IM are you doing next year??

Regina said...

I'm not sure I know anyone more durable than you. Although, dinner and dishes for 5 will challenge that durability! (It would me!)

My neighbors across the hall have three kids and the ones downstairs have 5! In a NYC apartment! Needless to say they have $$$, but have they retained their sanity, I'd like to know. I like our nice little unit of three, thank you!

hope your calf continues to heal.

Big Daddy Diesel said...

I am going to send you an email this weekend about coaching to see if we are a fit, hopefully I can have it all typed up by tomorrow

Teresa said...

5x a week you are going to be one fast fish! Glad yup are being smart and letting the calf heal. Hang in there!

Anonymous said...

I like it the theme for 2011. I'm right there with you, my goal for 2011 is to be durable :)