Recent Workouts

So after my bad news in my last post, I'm not running for a while. But here's how my last 2 weeks have looked:

I biked twice the week of the 5th, and once last week. My ankle felt OK on my first ride, but I couldn't turn it enough to clip out very well. On my 2nd ride, I was clipping out much better - it had improved over those 3 days! I did my short 15.5 mile loop for my first ride, and I did that with a bit more for my second ride (covering 23 miles). I busted my rear tube trying to inflate my tire before that 2nd ride, and my old tires left a lot a rubber chunks all over the basement floor:

Yeah, this is probably a sign to get some new tires.

My 15.5 miler was average speed, but my 23 miler was slow. It was between rain storms (remember that wet week 10 days ago?) and the roads were wet. Also, because it was a stormy day, the wind was strong at out of an "unusual" direction. That threw everything off. (If you're a local, you probably know of Ramsey Hill. Well, I usually climb that hill with about 4 miles to go near the end of my ride. My average always goes to hell on that climb. But this was the first time EVER that I actually ROSE my average from where it was before the hill to where it was when I got home! So riding the hill and the final 4 miles actually helped my overall pace. Weird.)

Then this past Saturday, I went for a quick ride when my sister-in-law was visiting. I did my normal loop but added in lots of hills: I went across the Mississippi River on the 35E Bridge, went up the looping hill from the Yacht Club in Lilidale, up Ohio, and up Ramsey. There's a chance I'll be doing the Trinona Time Trail like I did last year, but that's coming up SOON. Gotta see if I can be ready for that.

Swimming was depressing at first after my sprain. I first swam on Saturday May 3rd (just over 3 weeks after my sprain). My ankle was a little achy, but not bad as long as I wasn't "sloppy" on the walls or with my kick. It was my slowest swim in a long time, and I felt like my endurance was gone. It was a "consistent" slow swim - if I'm feeling crappy in the pool, I'll often have some crappy 100 splits in there, but the MAJORITY of my 100s in the middle of this swim were 1:49 (10-15 secs slower than anything I've been swimming lately). Crappy and consistent. And depressing.

I know that my swimming will "come back." I've swam 4 times over these last 2 weeks, and they were all between classes in the Hamline pool. I did 2 swims the week of the 5th (2x500 in 8:22 and 8:24, and 1600 moderately with a 1:42.5 average). And I did 2 swims last week (1700 moderate [1:42.7 ave] with some drills at the end, and then that all-out "No Minds" workout that I like to do now and again). My ankle felt fine swimming all-out on Thursday. My all-out 100s averaged 1:21.34. Back in November (the last time I did this workout), they were over 2 seconds faster: 1:19.18. For being a little cautious kicking and pushing off, that's not too bad. Still, I would have liked to have been about a second faster. Click this link if you want to see the full workout details. (I usually do it with just a 500 WU.)

I've seen a chiropractor twice recently who's used the "Graston Technique" on my ankle to promote healing. (It's basically a gentle massage with a hard medal butter knife.) It INSTANTLY felt better the first time! (And it helped [but maybe not as much] the second.) He taped me with Kinesio tape after I first visited him 10 days ago...

... but I really don't think that did anything to help. The Graston Technique seems to help a lot though!

Oh, one final thing: it's funny to compare my recent training calendar knowing that Charlie was born on the 10th...

... with my training calendar from 3 years ago when Henry was born on the 12th (and Mama labored all day the 11th at the hospital):

With Charlie's birth, Pharmie had a quicker, easier birth, and we had a toddler to try to keep on a somewhat normal schedule. (Parents, you know what I mean about the schedule.) With Henry, we were in the hospital for 4 days and 3 nights, and we were adapting to having this new human being in our life.