Ironman Austria training week 2 - Taking the positives

So another week has passed. Only 28 weeks to go until my date with Klagenfurt.

Has it been a good week with regards training. It's been a bit up and down to be honest but I'll get to that in a minute.

I started the week thinking I would have an enforced two weeks of no running as when I got up on Monday I couldn't walk. I has a severe stabbing pain on the outside of my foot and thought my old friend perineal tendinitis had decided to pay me a visit again. I couldn't bare this pain so booked an appointment with a physio at my new favourite place, Blizard Physio.

After some diagnosis of where the pain was (it was alternating between the outside of my foot and my arch), the physio said it was a problem with a nerve in my back. Hang on the pain is in my foot, how can it be a problem in my back?

This made no sense to me but after it had been explained, it started to. I had a problem with my sciatic nerve which links to my sural and my tibial nerves so the root of the pain was my sciatic nerve. After half an hour of massage and some nerve mobilisation stretches I could walk again. I was blown away.

According to "bible", I should have completed the following training this week 

Monday - Rest day

Tuesday - Track session and swim set number 3

Wednesday - 30 minute bike followed by a 15 minute run

Thursday - GI Tri swim set and 30 minute high cadence spin on the bike

Friday - 45 minute zone 2 run

Saturday - 90 minute bike ride

Sunday - 1 hour zone 1 - 2 run

When I got up on Monday I did think running would be out of the question so any training I managed would be good. I really was in that much pain.

On Monday I had the prescribed rest day apart from the physio appointment.

On Tuesday I went along to the track session with a slight sense of trepidation as I didn't know if I was able to run following my issue from Monday. The set was 1 lot of 1600m followed by 10 lots of 600m. I set off on the 1600m but after 700m my shoe lace came undone. I stopped to tie it and was annoyed that I hadn't managed to complete the first part of the set. I set off again but only complete 3 of the 4 laps. I then started the 600's and was holding a good pace through the first two reps but my back felt really tight. I missed the third rep as a result. I completed another two reps before my back troubled me again. After another two reps, the quicker runners had completed their prescribed set so it was time for a cool down.

I was a little disheartened with my performance at track but taking the positives form it, I didn't think I'd be running at all so that fact I ran over 10km including the warm up and cool down is a massive result.

On Wednesday I went to the GI Tri swim set as exercising on Thursday was out of the question as it was my 3rd wedding anniversary. This was the first time I had swum since my rotator cuff injury so another positive was I could swim again. I even attempted one armed swimming and managed two lengths of right arm swimming without incident. In total I swam over 1.2 miles and felt really relaxed. It really is good to be back swimming.

Thursday was a rest day.

On Friday I had the day off work and after completing some necessary "life admin" I managed to have 40 minutes on the turbo followed by a 30 minute zone 2 run. During the 40 turbo session, I was tinkering with my saddle position on #Rinnie and think I have finally cracked this. After moving the saddle back about 40mm and making sure the saddle is nearly level I am almost comfortable. This is another huge relief as I could not get comfy before. I can't wait for some good weather so I can take #Rinnie out for her maiden ride.

On Saturday I went to a timed 5km run with the aim of setting a new PB, I blogged about this here. http://smoker2triathlete.blogspot.co.uk/2013/12/nearly-serious-runner.html I successfully set a new PB for 5km which I was over the moon with.

Today I went for the prescribed 1 hour zone 1-2 run but my HR seemed fixed in zone 1 today. I completed 5.7 miles in the one hour but my HR rarely left zone 1 which was a novelty as it usually spikes. I felt really strong but there was some pain in my legs from yesterdays efforts. I could have gone further but decided to stick to my plan. No point risking injury on week 2.

My HR graph from todays run

Like I said it's been a bit up and down but taking the positives. I didn't think I would manage any running so to have completed 21 miles in a week was a real confidence boost. And I set a new PB for 5km so despite the setbacks it has been a really good week.

So far December is proving to be a good month for mileage completed on my feet and is already my third best total mileage in 2013 and I still have another 16 days to go. In fact this weeks mileage of 21 miles is my 4th best total weekly run milage of 2013 and it is only week 2 of my training plan. Who knows maybe I am a runner. In fact AM A RUNNER.

Also this week I finally got my hands on some Jack Oatbars after seeing a lot about them on Twitter and I can confirm they are really tasty. They are a really nice consistency as well and quite filling. In fact I had one for my breakfast on Saturday before my PB run. I don't know if the two are connected but I'm sure the folks at jackoatbar would claim they are.

Thanks for reading,

Michael

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