This is my motto right now in my return to running. After I got the ok to run at the beginning of April I have followed the docs instructions. I started with 2km every other day and have been slowly increasing my distance every week. I am at 5km now! :) My pace started off pretty slow and I have slowly been dropping my pace per km. However, I am still no where near my normal pace. I have been attributing this to lack of running fitness and am really just happy that I am back on the road. I was thrilled to be running my 5km under 30min, lol!!! Until I had another follow up with the doc this week. He asked me about my pace times, then told me I was slow! Haha! I know I am relatively slow, but hey! Lol! Seriously though, he was referring to my normal pace times. He wants me to get another PRP injection next week. He told me that it would not be as painful as the first time and it would not set me back that much. I have full intentions of doing the Ironman this year (and I told him this) and I have confirmed my registration for two half Ironmans. I really am not sure what to do but am booked for now for another injection next week. So I have pulled the plug on my first two races I was hoping to do and will make my race debut at the end of June at the Mt. Tremblant 70.3.
I have been feeling like I am returning a little more to normal in the training department. Yesterday I rode my bike outdoors for the first time out of the city for three hours (minus the bike commuting) and then went to yoga all after working six night shifts. The day before I swam, biked, and ran! :) This is more like toddler steps!!! I've got two months to get myself half ironman ready! I can do it! :)
Friday, May 3, 2013
Wednesday, May 1, 2013
Swimming like a fish!
OK...well, maybe not! But I am a Pisces! Lol!
A couple of Saturdays ago I swam in my second ever swim meet! The Downtown swim club hosted the All Out Swim at UofT which was another sanctioned Masters Swimming Ontario event! I really should have been a swimmer growing up because I had a lot of fun!
I decided to go all in for this meet and swim the maximum of 5 events allowed. I decided to swim the 800m, 400, 200, and 100m free and for fun I threw in the 50m breast, all long course!
My first event was the 800m free. I seeded myself pretty generously at 14:00min because I did not know what I can swim this in. Realistically, I wanted to swim it in under 13:45 though. My dive starts are still pretty pathetic but my main goal was to not lose my goggles! Ha! And that I accomplished in all five dives but I did do a bit of a belly flop in a couple of them. The first 100m of the 800 was way too fast, I had way too much adrenaline in me and I just tried to settle into a strong but steady pace after that. I swam the first 100m in 1:29! Lol! After that, I settled into a steady 1:38-40 pace. With all the ironman training, I am definitely a long distance swimmer. I came in at 13:01! Woot! Woot! Not bad, not bad! Would have been fun to come in under 13min but I did place 2nd in my age group in this event. Next was the 200m which was swam right after the 800s were done. This was my worst swam event in my opinion. The first 100 was about a 1:28 and then I completely fell apart and swam the last 100 in 1:37! Oops! That was not well executed. Finished in 3:05 which put me in 5th. I wanted to go under 3min since I swam this in 2:53 at the short course Etobicoke event. Then was the 50m breast! Hehe! I quickly got the how-to for the dive start and the two handed wall touch for the finish which I had no clue about. I gave it my all and happily came to the wall in 49.26! I just wanted about :55! I came 6th here; clearly not a breast-stroker. Final event before the break was the 100m. Another all out sprint which I kind of fell apart in too! Hehe! I swam this one in 1:24 but was actually hoping for under 1:20. This one put me in 4th. My final event was the final event of the day, the 400m free. I swam this one pretty solid as well with pretty even splits and finished it in 6:21 which gave me another 2nd place finish. Yay! I did swim faster than all my seed times for all the events. I also got some valuable tips from fellow swimmers and the swim coach is now going to work on my stroke more with me to become a more efficient swimmer! :) Great day all around!
I am looking forward to the next swim meet! Not sure when that will be though. I would also like to thank the Downtown Swim Club for putting on a great meet!
A couple of Saturdays ago I swam in my second ever swim meet! The Downtown swim club hosted the All Out Swim at UofT which was another sanctioned Masters Swimming Ontario event! I really should have been a swimmer growing up because I had a lot of fun!
I decided to go all in for this meet and swim the maximum of 5 events allowed. I decided to swim the 800m, 400, 200, and 100m free and for fun I threw in the 50m breast, all long course!
My first event was the 800m free. I seeded myself pretty generously at 14:00min because I did not know what I can swim this in. Realistically, I wanted to swim it in under 13:45 though. My dive starts are still pretty pathetic but my main goal was to not lose my goggles! Ha! And that I accomplished in all five dives but I did do a bit of a belly flop in a couple of them. The first 100m of the 800 was way too fast, I had way too much adrenaline in me and I just tried to settle into a strong but steady pace after that. I swam the first 100m in 1:29! Lol! After that, I settled into a steady 1:38-40 pace. With all the ironman training, I am definitely a long distance swimmer. I came in at 13:01! Woot! Woot! Not bad, not bad! Would have been fun to come in under 13min but I did place 2nd in my age group in this event. Next was the 200m which was swam right after the 800s were done. This was my worst swam event in my opinion. The first 100 was about a 1:28 and then I completely fell apart and swam the last 100 in 1:37! Oops! That was not well executed. Finished in 3:05 which put me in 5th. I wanted to go under 3min since I swam this in 2:53 at the short course Etobicoke event. Then was the 50m breast! Hehe! I quickly got the how-to for the dive start and the two handed wall touch for the finish which I had no clue about. I gave it my all and happily came to the wall in 49.26! I just wanted about :55! I came 6th here; clearly not a breast-stroker. Final event before the break was the 100m. Another all out sprint which I kind of fell apart in too! Hehe! I swam this one in 1:24 but was actually hoping for under 1:20. This one put me in 4th. My final event was the final event of the day, the 400m free. I swam this one pretty solid as well with pretty even splits and finished it in 6:21 which gave me another 2nd place finish. Yay! I did swim faster than all my seed times for all the events. I also got some valuable tips from fellow swimmers and the swim coach is now going to work on my stroke more with me to become a more efficient swimmer! :) Great day all around!
I am looking forward to the next swim meet! Not sure when that will be though. I would also like to thank the Downtown Swim Club for putting on a great meet!
Sunday, April 28, 2013
Viva Las Vegas!
A couple of weeks ago now, I had the opportunity to go to Las Vegas with a couple of friends for a cycling training trip! And it was awesome! I was scheduled to work some shifts during that week but my awesome co-workers allowed me to make some switches so I was able to escape for 6 days of cycling heaven. I even asked my awesome chiro if it would be ok and he pretty much gave me the go ahead, just to make sure I do not go crazy! I also put the biggest cassette I own on my bike on the docs recommendation to make the hills a little bit easier on my hamstring.
On our first full day there, we headed to Lake Mead National Park for our first ride! It was 2hrs of bliss! We had a long winter and I haven't been out on my bike yet; and it felt soooo good to be outside in the sun! Plus my hammy felt pretty good so I was super happy with that! :) That night we went to Cirque du Soleil's O! Wow! Was that ever a fantastic show!
On the second day we had wind warnings up to 60 mph! It was raining in the morning so we waited it out a bit and decided to try out the riding and see how bad the wind really was. If it's a head or tail wind that would not be much of an issue, I was worried for a cross wind because then I lose control of the bike. Well, the wind was not that bad so we ventured out to Red Rock Canyon. We had a good headwind for most of the ride until we got to Red Rock Canyon. It started raining so we waited that out and the sun came shining brilliantly so we went ahead into the state park. The loop was about 22km and the first half was all climbing. It got pretty warm with the sun but all of a sudden the weather turned for the worst in an instant! First it started to rain and the wind really picked up. Then the rain turned to snow and then HAIL! Yup, hail in Nevada in April! Who would have thought! Since we were not dressed for below freezing temperatures, we were also getting very cold and the hail stones hurt! I was ready to bail on the ride but was fighting the urge as we started the descent. It was so cold and windy I was having trouble controlling the bike. Well, one of my friends bailed first and tried to take shelter under a tree because she could no longer feel her fingers. We were facing hypothermia and thoughts of the Mt. Mitchell fiasco in Ashville, NC came into my mind! After climbing 979m we managed to hail down a pick-up truck who thankfully allowed us to hitch-hike back into Las Vegas. I really wish I could have taken a picture of the three of us in the back of this pick up with our bikes all huddled in a ball trying to get warm while the wind and rain continued to hit us! Oh another story for the books! Haha!
After that little blip in the weather department, the rest of the week was great! On our third day we found an awesome outdoor 50m pool and did a swim workout before heading out on our bikes for a long ride on the 70.3 World Championship bike course. It was another very windy day and that made the bike course difficult. There are rollers in the desert but no one real difficult climb, but with the wind howling you are essentially climbing the whole time. We climbed 1110m in total. We went back to Lake Mead on our fourth day and rode our bikes to the Hoover Dam and crossed the Nevada state border into Arizona climbing a total of 987m. On our fifth day we headed to the Valley of Fire state park. That was a great ride! Another difficult one with the climbing but just beautiful! There we climbed a total of 1220m and then we went to the pool for another outdoor swim! On our final day of riding we went back to Lake Mead NP and did part of the Vegas 70.3 course for a total climbing of 988m! Six solid days of riding and climbing! Spectacular and so much fun! Plus, I got an awesome tan! We did head down to the Vegas strip, Freemont street, some outlet shopping, and even tried out our luck on the slots. I had a great time! My hamstring held up alright as well! :) By the third day I was feeling it a little so I backed off when I felt like I was going too hard. Having that extra gear on my cassette did make me a climbing rockstar that week! lol!
The week after, I did a 20min TT test on the bike while on the trainer, first for the year and first since just before IM NY. I hit an average of 200W! Woot! Woot! That was my highest EVER! But I did remind myself this was the first power test on my Quarq, last year I was using the Powertap....so it may be a bit skewed but it was still a solid test! Hopefully I can gain some more strength on the bike and can at least be a strong cyclist if my running is not up to par when my race season starts!
On our first full day there, we headed to Lake Mead National Park for our first ride! It was 2hrs of bliss! We had a long winter and I haven't been out on my bike yet; and it felt soooo good to be outside in the sun! Plus my hammy felt pretty good so I was super happy with that! :) That night we went to Cirque du Soleil's O! Wow! Was that ever a fantastic show!
On the second day we had wind warnings up to 60 mph! It was raining in the morning so we waited it out a bit and decided to try out the riding and see how bad the wind really was. If it's a head or tail wind that would not be much of an issue, I was worried for a cross wind because then I lose control of the bike. Well, the wind was not that bad so we ventured out to Red Rock Canyon. We had a good headwind for most of the ride until we got to Red Rock Canyon. It started raining so we waited that out and the sun came shining brilliantly so we went ahead into the state park. The loop was about 22km and the first half was all climbing. It got pretty warm with the sun but all of a sudden the weather turned for the worst in an instant! First it started to rain and the wind really picked up. Then the rain turned to snow and then HAIL! Yup, hail in Nevada in April! Who would have thought! Since we were not dressed for below freezing temperatures, we were also getting very cold and the hail stones hurt! I was ready to bail on the ride but was fighting the urge as we started the descent. It was so cold and windy I was having trouble controlling the bike. Well, one of my friends bailed first and tried to take shelter under a tree because she could no longer feel her fingers. We were facing hypothermia and thoughts of the Mt. Mitchell fiasco in Ashville, NC came into my mind! After climbing 979m we managed to hail down a pick-up truck who thankfully allowed us to hitch-hike back into Las Vegas. I really wish I could have taken a picture of the three of us in the back of this pick up with our bikes all huddled in a ball trying to get warm while the wind and rain continued to hit us! Oh another story for the books! Haha!
After that little blip in the weather department, the rest of the week was great! On our third day we found an awesome outdoor 50m pool and did a swim workout before heading out on our bikes for a long ride on the 70.3 World Championship bike course. It was another very windy day and that made the bike course difficult. There are rollers in the desert but no one real difficult climb, but with the wind howling you are essentially climbing the whole time. We climbed 1110m in total. We went back to Lake Mead on our fourth day and rode our bikes to the Hoover Dam and crossed the Nevada state border into Arizona climbing a total of 987m. On our fifth day we headed to the Valley of Fire state park. That was a great ride! Another difficult one with the climbing but just beautiful! There we climbed a total of 1220m and then we went to the pool for another outdoor swim! On our final day of riding we went back to Lake Mead NP and did part of the Vegas 70.3 course for a total climbing of 988m! Six solid days of riding and climbing! Spectacular and so much fun! Plus, I got an awesome tan! We did head down to the Vegas strip, Freemont street, some outlet shopping, and even tried out our luck on the slots. I had a great time! My hamstring held up alright as well! :) By the third day I was feeling it a little so I backed off when I felt like I was going too hard. Having that extra gear on my cassette did make me a climbing rockstar that week! lol!
The week after, I did a 20min TT test on the bike while on the trainer, first for the year and first since just before IM NY. I hit an average of 200W! Woot! Woot! That was my highest EVER! But I did remind myself this was the first power test on my Quarq, last year I was using the Powertap....so it may be a bit skewed but it was still a solid test! Hopefully I can gain some more strength on the bike and can at least be a strong cyclist if my running is not up to par when my race season starts!
Thursday, April 18, 2013
Running
For the past six months I have been sidelined from running due to injury. But things definitely go into perspective in light of what happened in Boston. I had many friends and teammates running the marathon and when I first heard about what happened, a moment of fear set in. Luckily, no one I knew was hurt but that does not change the disgusting and unimaginable of what happened to the victims and their families at a world class sporting event. It just breaks my heart and brings me to near tears when I think how these people's lives have changed forever. Sports usually are exempt from the awful stuff happening in the world. Has this changed? I really hope not! So as I slowly restart my running (I did 2km yesterday!), my mind and heart and prayers are with the families and friends of Boston. I will continue to run and hope that somehow sports can still unite the world and be a symbol of peace and harmony. I am a runner. I will run.
Thursday, April 4, 2013
Good News!
I just received the best news I could have gotten all week! I had my follow up with the sports doc today post PRP. I was going into it a bit bummed because I honestly cannot say that my poor hammy feels better. It still hurts walking, doing my rehab exercises, and even standing. I can bike but it hurts afterwards. I told him all this and after some poking and prodding and testing my strength he told me I may actually be doing better than I realize. I really hope that is the case. He said there is no muscle atrophy and my strength is good. So he gave me the ok to start some easy running and to go back to yoga! :) Super happy about that! The plan is to start running 2km every other day and to increase it half a km every week until I get to 20km a week. I am to see him at the end of the month for another follow up! I also just got orthotics and hopefully they will help with the PF I am still dealing with. Oh ya...and along the way I managed to develop peroneal tendonosis in my right foot! Ha! Armed with this news, I am going to give running a whirl! Not today though...too tired and sleep deprived! I will start tomorrow and am looking forward to it! :)
Tuesday, April 2, 2013
Being optimistic!
I decided to post my tentative race schedule for 2013. Initially, I was just planning for the Calgary 70.3 and Ironman Mont Tremblant. But my ol' self is creeping in and is planning a couple more races. I will keep it very tame though since I am pretty sure my tendon will not be completely healed and I will be disrupting the healing process by planning on racing and training. I hope to run the Sporting Life 10km as my return to racing although I will not be holding my breath for that one. I will be taking a charity spot for Mont Tremblant 70.3 (more info on that in the near future) and adding in the TO Women's Half marathon, and the Toronto Triathlon festival as well. And that will be it! I swear! ;) I see the doc this week for my post PRP follow up! I will see what he has to say! Keeping my fingers crossed!!!
Saturday, March 23, 2013
What is happening?
Well, besides trying to deal with my injury, nothing really! Lol! Hence my lack of posting! Well, also cuz I really do not have much good news to write about so it can get kind of depressing writing about me not being able to do stuff! Hehe! But I am still in good spirits and hoping for a positive outcome!
I did manage to run away for 11 days to paradise, also known as Costa Rica, in February! It was an amazing trip and I had so much fun! My friend and I mixed in an adventure with a nature discovery trip! We did zip-lining in the cloud forest, canopy tour in the rain forest, rappelling down waterfalls and canyons, surfing, natural hot springs, snorkeling, nature watching tours, and various hikes! It was spectacular! Pura Vida!!! :)
Two days after I came back I had another appointment with the sports doc and I went ahead with the PRP injection. What exactly is PRP? Well here is a little info about it: PRP is platelet rich plasma injection. Blood was taken from me and was sent to be spun down to a high concentration of platelets. This was then injected into my proximal hamstring under ultrasound guidance. I asked the U/S tech if he could see the tear that the MRI picked up and he could not. But he could see the whole injured area which was inflammed and showed as a black area on the U/S. The platelets are a bioactive component of blood and when activated in the body they release growth factors and morphologic hormones that stimulate healing and tissue regeneration. The belief is that these bioactive proteins stimulate stem cells to recruit repairing cells. It also reduces the inflammatory response to inhibit scar tissue and enable the tendon to heal with proper cell structure. Apparently PRP works really well for tendon injuries so I am really hoping for the best. And the healing phase takes 8-12 weeks from the time of injection. I am currently into my fourth week right now. It almost sounds like a Lance Armstrong thing, haha! From some internet research, football and soccer players often take this route, even including Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez, and Kobe Bryant with success.
The injection itself was not painful. I was told I would have a "full" feeling for a few days. Ok, it was more an intensely painful feeling instead of "full"! Lol! The minute I stood up I was in a world of pain! I did not expect to be in that much pain. I could barely put weight on my leg and walking was sooo painful. I was limping for about 5 days and then the pain subsided. I am still in pain walking but at least I am not limping. I am not allowed to take any anti-inflammatories for several weeks. Right now I am back into a rehab program doing exercises everyday and seeing my good ol' chiro weekly for treatments to continue breaking down the scar tissue. Right now I cannot tell if this worked. I am in not as much pain since the injection but I am not better than before! I am doing my rehab exercises pretty intensely and maybe pushing myself a little much in desperation to get better! I am back on the trainer and I am up to 2hr rides!!! :) I was always able to continue swimming but I got the hook for yoga which I am immensely missing! :( I haven't been to yoga since mid February. Boo! I have a follow up with the doc in two weeks to see if I will need another injection. And to tell you the truth, I do not know what I want to do. If I do another injection, it is another 8-12 weeks of recovery and probably no running. I am still setting my eyes on Ironman in August. So I do not want to throw away a 2nd injection if I plan on training/racing the IM since each shot is $600. I would have to do this properly since it is a lot of money!
In the meantime, I signed up for another Masters swim meet on Apr 20th so I have something to work hard towards and I can get back into good swim shape. Since I am not practicing yoga which I used as my core and strengthening workout, I found a pretty good core routine that I am set on doing everyday! It is: 50 sit-ups, 15 push-ups, 1min plank, 30sec plank on each side, 1min bridge, 15 push-ups, 1min plank, 30sec plank on each side, 50 sit-ups, 1min high plank, 2min bridge, 50 sit-ups. Hopefully this daily routine will get my core back into tip-top shape! Hehe! I am on day five and so far so good! I throw in variations here and there to make in interesting. This way, hopefully when I get the ok to start running I will already be in pretty good shape and closer to race weight since I let myself go a little bit!
So that is pretty much what is happening now. Hoping for my hammy to recover!
Thanks for reading! Here is a pic of my new fav sport, if running fails maybe I can become a surfer girl! ;)
I did manage to run away for 11 days to paradise, also known as Costa Rica, in February! It was an amazing trip and I had so much fun! My friend and I mixed in an adventure with a nature discovery trip! We did zip-lining in the cloud forest, canopy tour in the rain forest, rappelling down waterfalls and canyons, surfing, natural hot springs, snorkeling, nature watching tours, and various hikes! It was spectacular! Pura Vida!!! :)
Two days after I came back I had another appointment with the sports doc and I went ahead with the PRP injection. What exactly is PRP? Well here is a little info about it: PRP is platelet rich plasma injection. Blood was taken from me and was sent to be spun down to a high concentration of platelets. This was then injected into my proximal hamstring under ultrasound guidance. I asked the U/S tech if he could see the tear that the MRI picked up and he could not. But he could see the whole injured area which was inflammed and showed as a black area on the U/S. The platelets are a bioactive component of blood and when activated in the body they release growth factors and morphologic hormones that stimulate healing and tissue regeneration. The belief is that these bioactive proteins stimulate stem cells to recruit repairing cells. It also reduces the inflammatory response to inhibit scar tissue and enable the tendon to heal with proper cell structure. Apparently PRP works really well for tendon injuries so I am really hoping for the best. And the healing phase takes 8-12 weeks from the time of injection. I am currently into my fourth week right now. It almost sounds like a Lance Armstrong thing, haha! From some internet research, football and soccer players often take this route, even including Tiger Woods, Alex Rodriguez, and Kobe Bryant with success.
The injection itself was not painful. I was told I would have a "full" feeling for a few days. Ok, it was more an intensely painful feeling instead of "full"! Lol! The minute I stood up I was in a world of pain! I did not expect to be in that much pain. I could barely put weight on my leg and walking was sooo painful. I was limping for about 5 days and then the pain subsided. I am still in pain walking but at least I am not limping. I am not allowed to take any anti-inflammatories for several weeks. Right now I am back into a rehab program doing exercises everyday and seeing my good ol' chiro weekly for treatments to continue breaking down the scar tissue. Right now I cannot tell if this worked. I am in not as much pain since the injection but I am not better than before! I am doing my rehab exercises pretty intensely and maybe pushing myself a little much in desperation to get better! I am back on the trainer and I am up to 2hr rides!!! :) I was always able to continue swimming but I got the hook for yoga which I am immensely missing! :( I haven't been to yoga since mid February. Boo! I have a follow up with the doc in two weeks to see if I will need another injection. And to tell you the truth, I do not know what I want to do. If I do another injection, it is another 8-12 weeks of recovery and probably no running. I am still setting my eyes on Ironman in August. So I do not want to throw away a 2nd injection if I plan on training/racing the IM since each shot is $600. I would have to do this properly since it is a lot of money!
In the meantime, I signed up for another Masters swim meet on Apr 20th so I have something to work hard towards and I can get back into good swim shape. Since I am not practicing yoga which I used as my core and strengthening workout, I found a pretty good core routine that I am set on doing everyday! It is: 50 sit-ups, 15 push-ups, 1min plank, 30sec plank on each side, 1min bridge, 15 push-ups, 1min plank, 30sec plank on each side, 50 sit-ups, 1min high plank, 2min bridge, 50 sit-ups. Hopefully this daily routine will get my core back into tip-top shape! Hehe! I am on day five and so far so good! I throw in variations here and there to make in interesting. This way, hopefully when I get the ok to start running I will already be in pretty good shape and closer to race weight since I let myself go a little bit!
So that is pretty much what is happening now. Hoping for my hammy to recover!
Thanks for reading! Here is a pic of my new fav sport, if running fails maybe I can become a surfer girl! ;)
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