9 Months to Tri

Yesterday was weigh-in. I missed 2 in a row. I’ve also been somewhat active, but out of the gym for 2 weeks, really. In truth, it seems that I’ve been out of training for almost a month. Checking my logs, it looks like I’ve worked out a little over half a dozen times in the last 30 or more days. Its just been a constant struggle. So, when I weighed in yesterday at 264lbs, it was really no surprise. I’ve JUST been maintaining. It feels like barely.

Since it was the first time in the gym for more than 2 weeks, I decided not to over do it, and I went 2 sets of my standard Wednesday workout. I really expected to feel it today, but the soreness didn’t really kick in until this evening. I’m feeling it now, but was pretty good all day.

In case I hadn’t said it before, we’re easing off the gym now that its running season. I’ll be hitting the gym twice a week, and pool twice a week, and probably the road, either running or biking, twice a week. As per doctor’s orders, we’re staying away from exercises that cause my knee to click regularly. So, no treadmill, no reverse eliptical. We’re also staying away from a lot of the jumping/hopping exercises, so my favorite Monday workout is pretty much out. For now, we’re not stopping all running, but we’re easing off of it. I’ve also got a regimen of stretches that I’m doing, ideally twice a day. The clicking in my knee may never go away without an operation, but we’re seeing if we can reduce the inflammation by easing up on the amount of stress and by stretching and strengthening the muscles around the knee.

So, today I ran with some of the TriTeam for the first time. Erik and Mandy were going for a 5k run and I decided to go with them. It was a beautiful New England spring day. Roughly 55 farenheit. A bit chilly, but it wore off in the first half mile. I wasn’t sure what to expect, since I hadn’t been really into the training for a month now and I was remembering the exhaustion from the race 10 days earlier which had ONLY been 2 miles, but I ran it strong, if not more slowly than the two of them. They were immediately ahead of me, and by the time they turned the corner about a mile into it, I never saw them again. Anyway, since I wasn’t going all out, I was able to stay aerobic the entire
run, and never hit that point where I was facing exhaustion. In fact, with the sun out, my legs warmed, and Steve Runner running beside me in my headphones (http://SteveRunner.com) I felt like I could easily do a couple more miles. I’ll have to find out this weekend or next week. Next time out I’ll try to step it up a bit and see if I can’t improve my pace.

One thing I did notice is that, even though I may not be extending my knees the same way I do when I walk that causes the clicking, the sheer pounding of the run causes my knee to click, extended or not. I think I also noticed a decrease in the clicking when I was running on dirt as opposed to pavement, which really shouldn’t be too much of a surprise.

I didn’t think of it, or I would have used it, but my iPod has a stopwatch function on it. I would have liked to have used it to time my run. I’ll do that moving forward.

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