William Jenks 2015 micro
Hey Patrick-
To condense a long story, it seems that I developed a fibular stress fracture in late winter / early spring that wasn't definitively diagnosed until today. Not knowing that this is what it was (despite being reasonably responsible about getting medical care...oy...), I trained through it and raced a half-iron June 13. I had been running less than normal, but whatever. The last two weeks before the race, I didn't run much at all, and I took a full two weeks after the race of not running (ran for the first time yesterday)...I still didn't know it was a stress fracture, but I knew it was an ache that was running induced and slow healing.
Anyway, Doc says I should take at least another 4-6 weeks of not running past my current reduced run time. Everything else is ok (cycling, elliptical, swimming, etc). Fortunately, it's almost non-symptomatic now, so I'm optimistic that I will be fine in the long run.
While a little frustrating, I can live with this. I was planning on another 70.3 distance race at the end of September, and I could just not run until early August However, I am coming up on a series of weekends in late July where I normally would run because I am taking Olivia to her multi-day competitions (swimming and triathlon) that take me to suburban hotels.
One opportunity I have to "do cool things" at least is that there is a local 5K open water swim that Olivia wants to compete in (and probably set the course record for women), and I could do some extra swimming and at least survive it with her. :-)
I'm trying to be mellow about this...I was already taking a sort of low key summer to help deal with some psychological issues and support OJ on a big season she's trying for. But I don't want to be starting from scratch when I come back, either.
So my question is twofold:
1) What sort of general regimen do you recommend for the next 5-6 weeks while I don't run at all?
2) What do you recommend for periods of multiple days where I will probably not be able to swim (unless at an open water venue at a triathlon) and will not be able to do long bikes? I can probably bring a bike and trainer with me and do 60-90 minute workouts most days.
Thanks for your help, as always.
Wm
Comments
I'm not a coach person but can tell you that I had a stress fracture in my left fibula that took 9 months to get better. The orthopedist I went to said, 'well, just take it easy'.... so I continued to bike and light jog.... then it didn't get better and looked worse on MRI so I stopped running... then I did this nice long bike ride for charity... dumb! it hurt. So since I had Boston and Couer d'alene on my calendar I continued to do core work, and swim and stopped biking.... dumb again! went to a conference in New York and stayed in cheap hotel in China town.. no elevator... DUMB! .... lots of pain with walking. I used electric stimulators they use for horses, hyperbaric chamber treatments, anti-inflammatories, ice, ace, elevation and an ultrasonic bone stimulator.... Nothing worked.
I was still working out a little bit. I went to the gym to do a core workout which was about all I could do... it hurt to do flip turns!
I was lifting weights and stepping on a Bosu for balance, and fell down breaking my right foot! so that was the end of going to Boston and what was to be my first Ironman, and I finally stopped training.
I finally got put in a boot for the right foot fracture and a boot on the left foot ankle. 8 weeks later, I could walk again. The acute fracture never healed ( I had to work, right!) ... but the stress fracture finally did.
These nasty fractures are from recurrent microfractures in the bone due to the ligaments pulling on that area so if your doctor said rest, REST... every movement that uses the lateral muscles of your ankle will stress it more. don't do what I did, especially the part about the cheap hotel in New York!
get off your feet!
The good news is that he was explicit that the only thing he didn't want me doing was running. He did a thorough physical exam of the area and looked at all the scans (that were done in April...) and showed me what he was looking at...talked about histories of similar patients...what the (lack of) options were for speeding it along, etc. He went down pretty much the whole list you write about and said there's no evidence that any of them helps this kind of injury. Also good news was that it never was as bad as you describe by any means. He's giving me credit, so to speak, for the last few weeks and just wants me to be super symptom free and a minimum of this amount of time off running. He wasn't concerned about rest, per se, and in fact was encouraging me to stay fit during the period. He did discuss the issue that if it starts to hurt again, you have to start the clock over, so I understand that I've got a stake in doing it right.
William, First, good luck to OJ in her upcoming races. I see she qualified for the USAT Elite Jr National Championships again. Unfortunately, I won't be able to come over to West Chester to see her race again. That weekend I travel with our YMCA swim team to our nationals in Indy at IUPUI. I enjoyed seeing her and the other young triathletes racing so hard last year. It was inspiring.
Sorry about your injury. Since you can bike and do the elliptical, I wonder if you can do what I did a lot to protect my knee (arthritis) and low back this winter. I did my "running" on my bike trainer. I just stood up as you would outside going up a hill. I paid attention to my HR, and Watts to a lesser extent, while I "ran" the length of time on my EN training schedule. When the WKO interval was Z3 for example, I tried to hit that HR. As an incidental benefit, I think I got a good bump in my FTP. It really strengthens your quads (and your hands and forearms). The month after IMMT, my FTP went up to 257w outside, which I was happy about. But after I did my standing bike rides over the winter, my FTP on my trainer went up to 276w. BTW, over the winter I was still doing the bike sessions in my training plan as regular bikes. On my "runs" I would warm-up seated just like a regular trainer session. Otherwise, I tend to have pain under my knee cap when I stand. It took a while, but I eventually built up to a 1:45' "run."
(That "run" was 30 miles.
) Generally, I would only sit for a few seconds periodically to drink. Of course, in my training records I would guesstimate what the running distance would have been without the benefit of the gears. Take care and keep us updated on your progress.
Here are my thoughts:
Monday Tuesday Wednesday
Swim as scheduled during the week, following each one with a 15' Aqua Run Session.
Tuesday = Do Wednesday Interval Bike. If you have a Tuesday Swim, do it here.
Wednesday = Elliptical steady state here...nothing sexy, just a good 45' to an hour of aerobic time.
Thursday = Do VO2 Interval bike, as in 3' or 4' intervals, no more than 15' of total VO2, rest = 2x work interval.
Friday = Swim + 30' elliptical (or just one if travel).
Sat / Sun = Race Weekends. I say bring bike/trainer and get in some ride time. Warm Up, 2 x 12' FTP (3') and then the rest steady / upper steady.
Nothing wrong with one of the weekend days off (like Sunday) before you hit the rest of the week...the travel / sherpa / your own recovery is a lot; and since you are recovering I recommend the days off.
Let me know what you think!
~ Patrick
To be fair, I really didn't ignore this. I managed it like any minor thing for a few weeks and then sought medical help. Took a few weeks to get the appt. (Grrr) Then got an X-ray. Nothing, but they wanted to do a bone scan. That ate another week. Misinterpretation ate another week. Then I had another unrelated appt a week or two later and they referred me to the sports orthopedist. Had to wait almost 2 months for that. That's what really pissed me off, since he took care of me in 5 minutes. Oh well. At least I got to racw (which I wouldn't have) and I got a head start on the recovery, sort of.
If it hadn't been gradually been getting better from my amateur management, I probably would have kept hounding the ortho for an emergency appointment, tho.
Time for an update and for a new request.
Over the last few weeks as we described, I had a very hard time using the ellipticals. Nearly every I would use them, I would end up straining my calves....kind of like how you would if you went running with dramatically different heel-toe drop. I think the problem is that I had good enough fitness that using them "mildly" was not very satisfactory and I tried to really get run-type effort out of them...and of course the gait on an elliptical is different from one machine to the next and from my run itself. The long and short of it is that I just couldn't do it as we had hoped without paying the price for 3 days afterward. I gave up after this happened about 3 times.
I have been swimming consistently...about 5 times a week. (Sunday, I am doing that 5K swim with Olivia.)
I have been doing 50-90 minute bike workouts, more or less as outlined.
As a result, I have some decent general fitness, but am not sharp, and I've got some work to do to get back the run while also starting to ride longer again.
The week of Aug 10 I am spending in Rocky Mountain National Park and will be doing extensive hiking/climbing. When I return, my no-running sentence will be over.
I would like to race a local half-iron on Sept 27. I am realistic that it will not be my best by any means, but I just want to have a second "race" for the season.
So the question is/are
What general plan do you think I should use to get as ready as is reasonable for the HIM?
How do I safely ramp up the run again? (I am thinking about minimizing true speed work and focusing more on race pace work to lessen the risk of the inevitable distance ramp up.) What do you think are some realistic strategies for the remainder of August?
Same for the run...before you can run fast / hard, you have to just run. Before you can just run, we need to get you up to that level of running. Given we have 5 (?) weeks there's no real room for running speed (save it for the OS) but we can build things back up to a good basic level.
Our goals are simple -- we want to keep you healthy, and we want you running consistently and we want to build you up to a 13 mile run. The not so simple part is the 5 (?) week part. You are healthy and fit, but your biggest issue will be running at a speed or pace you expect from the past vs the speed you SHOULD run. There, I said it.
With 5 weeks of running, you should plan on a few weeks where you are running frequently to get you time in. You also should brick 15 to 20' off every bike. A week overview would be:
Wk 1 = 5 runs of 3 to 5 miles each (you can double up on long run Thursday AM/PM, but no run Friday).
Wk 2 = 6 runs (two are bricks of 3 miles), other four are 4 to 5 miles each.
Wk 3 = 6 runs, same as above but double up on long run day 4+4 or 5+5.
Wk 4 = 5 runs, two are bricks of 4 miles, 2 are 5 miles, 1 is like 8 miles (your "long" run).
Wk 5 = taper it down, just stay consistent...
Lemmno what you think! And we'll want pictures from your trip!!!
Just got through the 5k swim. They had it set up so you got out of the water after 1.2 and 2.4 miles so I got my splits.
My 2.4 split was as good as my best IM swim despite wearing no wetsuit and having no one to draft or anything. So I'm not completely coming off the couch... But you're totally right about the running.
Oh, and of course OJ won the race. :-)
Talk again soon.
Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
OK, here we are... Yesterday (Sunday) I did my first run of 3 miles. While in the heat of the day and after a 2 hour bike, it went ok. Slow, but OK. I totally get the "you are just doing this to do this" thing for this race. Not out to beat my record on the course...just getting in good enough shape again to be viable next year.
Counting this week, I've got 6 weeks. I'm a little concerned about not doing anything "long" at all, though I realize the time is limited. Is 8 mi in week 4 (as you've noted) and 10 mi in week 5, reasonable? I realize that would normally be a taper week, rather than a build week, but I kind of think of it as a confidence issue, and of course week 6 is taper.
Second question... do you think the effort level should be more or less as prescribed in the plans (TP, MP, etc) or are we at the "just run and don't worry about it" stage for this whole time? I realize the actual paces would be slower than normal, but I'm pretty decent about SWAGging an RPE-based effort level when I am in various levels of shape. Either works. I'm ok with "just running" if that's what's best for someone in my position, but I may as well do the best I can under the circumstances if you think some semi-speed work is safe.
We took so many pictures at RAW that my computer is still struggling with cloud upload and facial recognition. I'll shortly post a "highlights" link for sure. :-)
Thanks.
Besides, you might be pleasantly surprised by what you can do on race day -- but it must come as a surprise, not as part of a measured, intentional program designed to build run fitness (aka normal training).
First off, oh my goodness....I'm never intentionally taking 2 months from running again. :-) My easy pace based on RPE didn't change substantially, but going fast or long was a serious challenge. Followed your basic suggestions, tossing one 4-day running break in to just clear up some soft tissue discomfort I didn't want to grow. The other thing — against your advice, I will admit — was that after splitting my long run once, I went ahead and ran them in one session. My one from last Thursday (16 days out) was 10 miles and very comfortable. I knew (or at least thought) I could go longer just fine, but went ahead and put the brakes on instead of taking the risk. I have done a LITTLE bit of MP type running, but pretty much otherwise, I've just run at generic comfortable pace between 8:00 and 8:30.
I was a little disappointed that my running comeback affected the biking I was doing, but it wasn't too shocking. I probably lost 10 W FTP. If I pushed to do the high FTP, it did show up on subsequent runs...and I felt like getting the run going had to be higher priority.
So, this weekend, I did a 60 mi RR ride, and while it wasn't at a wattage I'd like to see in a good strong build up season, it was clearly successful and I could hold about 10-15 W higher than I feared I might have dropped down to....so it sort of feels like my medium-intensity has dropped less than my high intensity.
I am going to do a standard 2 week taper on the plan now, though I will try to put in a 5th short run.... then race week will be my usual one.
I still don't expect to do great at this race by any means, but I do appreciate your reality-check suggestions, and I think it's pretty cool that I'm feeling pretty good about doing a half ironman with only 6 weeks prep off of only moderate biking and decent swimming for a couple months. With luck, stronger days will come again.
In your case, neither of those factors applied...but onwards.
Excited to see how your race goes. Don't slack on the race plan; you'd be surprised at how much time you can make up through logistics and good execution that otherwise would have been the job of your fitness!
I'm still having trouble being all that excited about the absolute time, which is among my slowest ever... but I do have to say that it didn't take me very long to feel really good about the *effort* and how I managed things. In retrospect, a decline in my run pace was inevitable. I literally have trouble going out and running 9 minute miles (unless I'm really tired)... and with only a couple slowish of 9-10 mile runs under my belt, counting on doing 13 at the end of a HIM at my normal pace is/was not realistic. So I started out at my normal simple run pace/effort and kept that effort up until it got hard...which it did. :-)
I have to say, though, that this sort of pathetic 9+ minute run pace is where my race was made. It's ironic — hearing you guys talk over and over again about how IM races "start" with about 8 miles left...and for once that's how my race was, but it was a HIM that "started" with 5-6 miles left. The part before that was just painful warmup and getting a dozen of us or so in relative starting positions.
Being able to mentally hold on and be strong enough to just keep going no matter what it felt like during the last 5-6 miles separated me from a whole lot of the field. On a course like that with 4 3.x mile loops, you become very aware of the people you're fairly near, and there wasn't one I didn't make great progress on or pass during that time. Funny how you can "race" at 7 minute miles and at 9:30's too. :-)
Anyway, thanks for the advice on getting through this.
I'm taking a week more or less off to recover and visit my mom, who is in town (and came from CA in part to see the race). I'll ask you then what you think I should be doing from now through the end of the calendar year. No "big" races on my agenda.
I let this go another week or so after I figured out that my timeline corresponded with Kona. Oops. Wasn't sensible to ask you to think hard about anyone else for a little bit. :-)
Reflecting a bit more on my race from a few weeks ago, I've decided it ranks up there with my most satisfying ones ever. What were the other real standouts? Last year's IM WI, for other obvious reasons. Boston 2010, shortly after we started corresponding and you encouraged me to really think hard and plan my race. Grandmas marathon 2014, where you coached me to a marathon PR 13 days after a HIM and to my best last 5K of a marathon ever. The common theme of these races is less the absolute success of the times or placements and more the satisfaction about having done the races and completed them on my terms...not the race's terms... and having really made the best of the day. That's a really hard thing to sell to people who only think about times and placement (or that somehow they will magically be a New Person if they do an ironman), but it's something I've come to start to tell people when they ask me about long races — that of course I really like fast times and getting some recognition by placement, but what is truly satisfying is knowing you really nailed it, regardless of the absolutes.
But to the matter at hand...please feel free to refer me to Macro thread if you want....
I'm probably not going to do an A race until June next year again, so I'm having trouble thinking that the Nov OS is the right place for me to start. I had to do it last year to give me discipline and something external to focus on, but I'm feeling a bit more Zen now (going with the flow).
One thought I've had is to use these last couple months of the year to try to dig myself out of the current fitness hole and back into ship shape for beginning of a Jan OS. I thought focusing on some consistency and a gradual re-build of run volume might be a good focus for the remainder of the year so I was strong and ready to go. That's what I've been doing the last couple weeks. Running more often than biking. Nothing super hard yet, but a couple hill and tempo runs. Nothing over 10 miles. A few swims because I like to and I can.
Asking here what your advice is. Is there a "plan" you advise me to work from until Jan OS? Or do you think the new OS structure lends itself better to someone who won't be racing in April than it used to and I should start now? Or do you think I should just come up with a standard repeatable week from now to the end of the year that doesn't really conform to most of the plans?
I think you are a candidate for free-spirit "off plan" training...no pressure to be on it right now, and you'll be fine keeping yourself accountable. To that end, I recommend that you put out some targets / goals for the fall, and then work on hitting them. Some ground rules for you.
1. Embrace the run...it's a great 2016 (even 2017!) investment.
2. Let go of the intensity...just 1x per week to stay sharp, otherwise just run. Track time and distance.
3. Swim as you want...not hard, just swim. Try to get 2 per week.
4. Yoga if you can...if you can do 1x / week through Jan, that's 12 sessions and an entire quarter of your season.
5. Bike 1x a week, again not hard. Maybe some Big Ring work, but otherwise nothing sexy.
All of ^that^ will change come the OS, of course, but by then you'll be ready for some hard work.
Target Options:
+ 30 runs in 3o days for by Dec?
+ A 50 mile week by Dec?
+ 40 hours of sleep average each week?
What say you?
Sleep is still an interesting issue for me. It's a common symptom of depression to require gobs of sleep. While I'm coping and moving on with life and all those things pretty well, I am still requiring huge amounts of sleep. I used to be totally fine on 6 - 7 hours/night, and now, getting 6 hours for several days in a row would trash me. I often have one day a week when I sleep 9-10.
There are two reasons I'm not planning to do an IM next year. The first is that Olivia is at kind of a critical age for some of her summer activities. She has started to hear from colleges about swimming and she's starting to hear from the elite side of youth triathlon. Supporting her next summer means some travel and a reasonable number of weekends spent in discount hotels somewhere several hours from home. Not the easiest way to train for IM. The other reason is sleep. Until I can kick this need for lots and lots of sleep, I have to work that much harder to squeeze in workouts. I can manage 3-4 hour weekend workouts, but if getting going every day of the week by 6 am just isn't an option, it's harder to get in those super-long days...and even that medium-long Sunday starts taking most of the day if you're not up early. Just so you know, I'm getting talk and medical therapy, and I'm in a decent place....just haven't beaten this particular obstacle yet. It's frustrating, but I'm trying to learn it's all just part of a process like if you injured a hip or had knee surgery or something.
I spent the better part of the first four years of building Endurance Nation living out of those same hotels. Make sure you enjoy the coffee!
OJ just got home from the OTC yesterday from a triathlon camp this past weekend. I'm hoping she has some good pictures. :-)
Best thing that she said she learned from the experience: Going to bed early, missing parties, etc etc etc.... not a sacrifice, but an investment. :-)
Sleep has continued to be a strange issue, but I did manage to keep up that consistent effort. For most of the time, it was pretty much as you suggested: a couple of swims, a bike, maybe 2, 1 hill run, and the rest "just runs", with a total of 8-9 workouts (maybe 10 hours total) a week. But I also made it Priority Family Time and if I had to take a day or two off for them, this was the time to do it to Make Their Life Good. The last couple of weeks during Xmas break I was taking OJ to a bike camp most days...took 4 hours all told each day because it was 45 min drive each way. But at least the team let me use one of their computrainers with them...so it was different, but all good.
OS has started well and I'm finally feeling ready. I tested at 230 W on the bike, which is well within the range of what I normally start the OS at. Similarly, I just ran one of my best executed 5Ks in a long time, ending up at 20:30...again right where my good OS's have started. I was especially pleased with the 5K because I've done so little speed work during this past time....so it looks like you were wise to set me up this way.
Again, thanks!