Triathlon Training: Week 9 – Saturday Long Run and Knee Feels Good

I made it to Kaminski yesterday to have my knee checked out after having some major issues with it on Tuesday night during a bike ride. I swam Wednesday and had some pain so I took the rest of Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday off to let the knee rest until I was able to go to the doctor.

Dr. Walden worked his magic as usual. He put  me through some Active Release Therapy things that hurt and burned, but I walked out feeling like a million bucks. He said my IT band looked good, no swelling anywhere, and basically said I was free to get back to what I was doing. I had to have some work done on my hip, lower back, knee, and foot and he was able to make things feel back to normal. It was sweet relief to hear those words. I cannot Dr. Walden enough for the work he has done with me the last few weeks as well as my friends and wife for talking sense into me to rest.

Today I got up at 4:30, ate my waffle and coffee and headed over to meet the group for the Saturday long run. Today was an easy day for the Leadville guys. Last weekend they ran two marathons on back to back days so today was just an easy 2.5 hour run. It is weird to type that because anything that lasts 2.5 hours is never easy. I had to laugh when we finished because Byrne discussed how he could easily go do that run again with no problem. Talk about motivation right there. I don’t think all of us felt that way and I know I was not capable of going much further, but to just be in the presence of so many great people this morning really makes me feel lucky to have chance to be part of the group.

At 5:30 am Byrne, Fountain, Johnson, Uhde, Gaffney, and Driscoll set out for our run. It was great to have Driscoll join us. He has been battling some injuries of his own, but he gave the run a try and that alone takes courage to take the step out the door. He had a great strategy to hold himself accountable. I hope to see him continue to make strides to getting better and joining us on these runs because he will be a great addition to group.

We had a great run this morning. I was a little worried how my knee would hold up despite my doctor telling me I was good to go. There is always that little fear in the back of your mind when you have a setback like this. This run was good for me to eliminate that little voice. We ran two 75 minute loops. It is always amazing to watch the world come to life. When I opened my garage door this morning this is how it looked

It was nice and dark, snow, windy, and slightly cold.

Here is the view when I finished

The sun was shining, the weather was warmer and people were out and about. The footsteps are my own that they contain the story of a guy who just ran almost 16 miles with a group of amazing athletes sharing stories, insights, and thoughts to make us all better people while improving our health and achieving our goals.

Loading this picture reminds of a situation last night when I was waiting for my players to have a ride pick them up from school. I was becoming frustrated because I was ready to just get home. These poor kids were embarrassed waiting for their rides because they knew I had to wait. I was down to one player and about 35 minutes later his mother arrived. He opened the door and I waved. The mother did not apologize or anything and I started to think how rude until I heard her say, “What do you expect me to when I just was involved in a car accident?” It was a great reminder that we don’t always know the story or the journeys of other people so we must be careful about being quick to judge. Looking at these footprints of my own reminded that we carve our own paths in life and while we work hard to make our own lasting impressions we cannot forget that others are doing the same. In some cases we don’t know the how some come to be where they are and before we judge we should take time to find out. I felt bad for being frustrated with staying late at school when this mother was just trying to do what she was supposed to do and in the process had a freak accident.

Above is the results from our run. We really picked up the pace at the end. It felt good to get out and push a little bit. My legs were tired at the end. My quads were shot, but my knee held strong. I had some minor pain about 3/4 of the way through the run, but it quickly went away.

I will be doing some major stretching today to keep my legs loose. It felt good to be back training after a few days off. I sure missed the training. I hope to have a great race tomorrow in my first triathlon. I am headed to Muscatine for the Try Melon Indoor Tri. My heat is at 1:30. I am in the slow heat due to my slow swim time, but I have plans to test myself and see how I do. I look forward to doing all three disciplines as I have never done all three in one day before. I look forward to a good day and getting back on track with my training.

Have a great weekend. I hope everyone has a fun filled weekend planned. I am off to be inducted to the Hall of Fame at my college for basketball and then off to watch some more basketball as my Father-in-Law has a game(he is head coach). A day full of basketball is a perfect day for me.