Weekly Recap 06/23/08 - 06/29/08

Monday: Rest.

Tuesday: Ran 3 miles. New post-injury distance. Went well.

Wednesday: Rest.

Thursday: Ran 3 miles again, just to make sure the distance is safe.

Friday: Rest.

Saturday: Ran 4 miles. It felt freaking hot outside, but I was also dumb and didn't bring anything to drink. Four miles is definitely the threshold of when I need to worry about hydration. Knee felt fine, but this run kicked my butt.

Sunday: Okay, it's not Sunday yet, but it'll be a rest day.

Total: 10.4 miles

Resting HR: 66 bpm


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Okay, Bill. You're right. I'm back. I've run every other day for the past two weeks with very little noise from my knee. I'm still being --very-- cautious about stretching, icing, and what not. I don't even dare run without my knee brace, either. In a week or two I might try a mile or two without it, but no promises there.

Next week I'm going to try and go swimming some time, although I'm going to avoid any TNT or Master's practice because I really don't want the "Holy crap! Doug's back!" response when I'm just jumping in to swim (read: thrash around for) a couple laps.

I still don't trust my bike. I just have a gut feeling biking would be a bad idea. If I find out swimming works again, I'll try giving the bike a shot. Until then, though, the bike will have to simply do it's job leaning against the wall in the other room.

I hope all is well in your worlds, mine is definitely starting to shape up again.

Weekly Recap 06/16/08 - 06/22/08

Prelude, Sunday night: I called home and was talking to my old man. He suggested going for a run since everything seemed to stop changing with my knee. His philosophy: If it hurts and you run, or it hurts if you don't run, you might as well run! So... I cautiously gave it a shot!

Monday: One mile. It was raining, but I still kept it to one mile. Pace: 7:58, heart rate: 174

Tuesday: Rest, duh!

Wednesday: One mile again. Still feeling pretty good! Pace: 8:03, heart rate: 172

Thursday: Takin' it easy

Friday: Two miles. Hooooeyyyy, progress! Pace: 7:48, heart rate: 177

Saturday: Being a bum.

Sunday: Two miles and change. Pace: 7:47, heart rate 176

Total: 6.4 miles

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Hey, look at that! Doug's running!

So as usual (is it bad I have a "usual" for coming off of injuries?), my speed sorta stuck around while I was getting out of shape, but I have ZERO endurance. At the end of two miles on Friday, my quads were already starting to ache. Also, my heart rate is simply out of control. I guess thats what I get for doing nothing at all for a couple months, huh?

Regardless of what shape I'm in, it's GREAT to be running again.

By the way, the triathlon I was supposed to do with TNT is today. Good luck to everybody out there!

Hawaii Pictures

Hey look, its me again! As promised, here are Hawaii pictures. The jet ski story will wait until next time, whenever that is. Sorry Nic, there wasn't a monster crash, but the story might be on par with one.

Without further delay, here are some pictures in no particular order.

Not pictured: our luggage.

View from our balcony

Perty.Sister, Dad, & Me

TURTLE! Know why he's tired? He just freaking swam thousands of miles.

They're very strict at Pearl Harbor

Admit it, you're jealous of our SWEET hats!

Hungry?

From the top of diamondhead. Fog is from the volcano on a neighboring island.

For the ladies.

The Beach (Featuring: pasty tourists)

We're a special bunch.

Leaving to go jet skiing. Look carefully and you'll notice I shaved my beard; that didn't last long because I looked like I was 14.

Now, I'm not going to tell the jetskiing story today. I gotta keep you in suspense. Sorry, thems the rules, people. But, I will give you one hint, in picture form of course. It involved waves like these, but bigger:

Update

Oh, hello there. I didn't see you.

I've been a bad blogger, but that's probably not going to change for the next month or two. But I thought I at least owed a few people an update as to what's been up, and show you all that I am still alive.

The semester ended. I got my A's and headed to Hawaii after a week off. Hawaii was amazing. We went on tours, to a luau, went jet skiing, and ate a couple truck loads of amazing food. My only complaint is the 12 hours of flying both ways, and our luggage getting lost both ways!

Training? Ha. Whats that? I've swam once since my last post, and it was the worst swim ever. Calf cramp => knee started hurting again => shoulder started hurting again. As a result, I haven't done any training in about a month.

I have, however, started physical therapy. My PT thinks he has my issue figured out, so here's whats up with the piece of junk. If you bend your knee, towards the outside theres a bone that sticks out a little bit, its at the end of the femur. Mine sticks out a lot and is sorta sharp (translation: I have boney knees). Normally, not a problem. However, my IT band is tight too, so its pulling my knee cap over the sharp part. Pain!

He gave me a bunch of exercises which hopefully get me on the right track. So far I can't tell much difference but its been less than a week.

There you have it. My life the past month in a nutshell.

If anybody still reads this, let me know and I'll post up some pictures from Hawaii and I'll tell you a super-fun jet skiing story.

Endorphins!

I finally got my fix. Oh yes, I got my fix!

After about two weeks off (not counting last Sunday's 1/4 mile swim), going back at it felt AMAZING! After being pretty much shut down for that long, nothing can quite describe how pumped up I am right now, so I'm not even going to try.

Since I've been a bad blogger lately, here's a summary:

• Finals are DONE!
• Exercises for my knee are a go
  
• Swimming works again
• I don't have a care in the world
• I'M GOING TO HAWAII IN SIX DAYS!

I thought I could make a full post about how pumped I am right now, but nope, not quite. Just know that I am. This thing is turning around.

Life is good.

Weekly Recap 04/21/08-04/27/08

Monday: Bike 10 miles, water run, swim 0.25 miles
Tuesday: Bike 10 miles. Chased by dog. Relapse. Swim 0.25
Wednesday: Rest
Thursday: Rest
Friday: Rest
Saturday: Rest
Sunday: Swim 0.25 miles

Total bike: 20 miles
Total swim: 0.75 miles

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Knee hurts worse today than it has in the past two months. Anything else I say would not fit the theme for this blog so we'll just leave it at that.

Okay, now that I'm less sour about being injured I want to update again. This morning was frustrating. My knee was killing me just walking from my car to the pool; this is the first time my knee has interrupted me from every day activities and it really got under my skin.

Swimming went okay. I busted out the pull buoy again and swam maybe 1/4 to 1/2 of a mile. I wasn't counting. I didn't go any further for fear of hurting my shoulder again from pulling an obscene amount.

After looking at the situation from more of a non-pissed-off point of view, I can see my mistake. A month or so I got some exercises to do from my friend Tracy. I started doing them and after a week or two I could bike & swim again. For some crazy reason, I didn't put the two events together. I stopped doing the exercises.

WHAMO! Relapse!

So the goal for this week is to do those exercises a few times a day to strengthen my knee again. Gotta break out the foam roller again too. No more moping. No more feeling bad for my lame self. I'm getting on top of this NOW! With all these people behind me for Team in Training, I can't afford to screw around and let them all down; people are counting on me this time.

To recap:

• Foam roller my IT band like crazy
  
• Strengthen my knee
• Ace my finals
• Then... go brain dead for a week
• Then... GO TO HAWAII!

Relapse

Tuesday it was 70 degrees, sunny, class got canceled, and I just got my Garmin back. A million reasons to go ride 10 miles, so I did, just like several times before.

Got out there, kept it easy.

An unfriendly dog started chasing me.

Sprinted to get away.

Now my knee hurts.

See you homies in a while...