May 20, 2009

preface - the 2 weeks leading up to Hawaii

It started out a couple weekends ago (May 9th) I went for a 4 hour hour ride with a group and around 3 hours in my right knee started having sharp pain every time I put any weight on the peddle... or really when I bent my knee. Luckily we were probably only 20 min from my moms house so I told the group I was done for the day and I rode there and called Kyle to pick me up from my moms. I had no clue what the deal was and why it hurt so freaking much but I was pretty upset about it.
After we got home I iced it some and Kyle asked our friend Jake (a PT) if he would look at it. Luckily he said he would so we headed over. Jake checked it out and loosened my hip flexor which seemed to be the main culprit in combination with a very tight back. The simple version is the muscles seemed to be really tight and then pulled on my knee...
The next day I ran and I had no issues, but later in the week when I had to do hill repeats on the bike it flared up again.. Luckily I was now in full injury mending mode - PT, ART massage, deep tissue massage, tons and tons of stretching. All in all not a cool thing to be dealing with a couple weeks before a half ironman (that has hills on the bike course especially). I also started doing more mental training - managing my expectations/goals, my pain threshold, and that sort of thing.

The following weekend (May 16) the weather was perfect and I had my last big training weekend planned (with a few adjustments depending on how my hip issues played out but instead I would up getting the stomach flu. It started on Friday - nothing really sounded good to eat and my stomach was uneasy. Then Saturday morning i had a small breakfast and with in a couple of hours could not stand up with out getting sick. I spent the entire day curled in a ball trying not to trow up with no luck. It was the worst day ever esp since it was sunny and so nice outside. By the end of the day I was able to start drinking/keeping down some gatorade. Sunday I still felt kind of off and did not want to eat anything other than gatorade. out of sheer determination and stubbornness I went for an hour easy ride in the afternoon. I could tell I was on empty - I had no pep at all and just cruised along. But it felt really good to do something.
The fallowing week I still had a hard time eating much - every time I ate something my stomach got upset and bloated. I have been trying to eat yogurt and other super healthy food to try and get my stomach back on track.

so there you go that has been the 2 weeks leading up my trip to Hawaii for the Hawaii 70.3 race. I have a full week and change to get used to the heat and get my myself ready for the race both mentally and physically.

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