Taking Time Off From Running
by Derek Dalzell
While your mind may be strong and willing, your body still has to be physically capable of the task at hand.
This past week was the roughest I’ve gone through since I started training back in June. I made a training mistake which all experienced fitness guru’s will warn you about. I simply over-trained. My drive to push my limits and prove that impossible is nothing, got the best of me on Monday night. Monday was an off day from work so I woke up early and put a good 39.8 miles on the bike. It was a nice easy ride that wasn’t to difficult, but I should have kept it at only that for the day. However, because I’ve become so passionate, and some people would say addicted, I went out for an 11 mile run. At about mile 7 my knee had sharp pains running through it. I continued to run. I think it should be noted that I’ve been doing athletics for my whole life and am very accustomed to pain while doing activities. However, when it comes to your knees, I now know that its best to just call it a day and walk the rest of the way home. Anyways, I finished the run and could barely walk the next day.
I’ve declared that I have either knee tendentious or ITBS. Either of these injuries can take 3-6 weeks to fully treat. If you come back from them to soon they may become chronic and hamper you for quite some time. Therefore, I have taken the rest of the week off and purchased myself a foam roller. If you’ve never tried a foam roller, I’d highly suggest it. I’ve been using it since Thursday when I first purchased it, and it seems to have worked wonders. I have been able to get out on my long-board as my knee has been feeling better. However, I’m still nervous about running on it. I can still feel a small pain in it every now and then and I’m nervous it will just come back. This puts me in a tough position.
I have a 10 mile trail run I’ve already signed up for this upcoming Saturday. Judging off of several past years results, I could place in the top 10 overall for this race. I’ve had my eyes set on this race for the past month. If I feel good by Thursday, I think I’m going to go for it. The risk I run with this is that I may knock myself out of my marathon on Feb 26th, or worse yet, be put on rest for the next 2 months while I rehab and lose valuable Ironman training time. Like I said, some people may say I have an addiction.
Exercise is funny like that though. The less you do, the less likely you are to do any. However, once you start exercising, seeing results and making it an intricate part of your day, you become an exercise junkie. The past 6 days have been pure torture for me. Its awful having that strong urge to fulfill your need and not being able to physically do it. Next week I plan on doing much more cross training and bringing weight lifting back into my routine (Took 2 months off from weights). I plan quite a bit of light spinning, swimming, and probably some elliptical work to mimic running without the impact on the knee.
So until next week, Just Keep Livin!
Training Totals for the week of January 16th-22nd
Bike: 39.81 miles
Run: 11.03 miles
Swim: 1.00 miles
04:32:00 total hours
“Your world is only limited by your imagination”
-To catch up on what Derek has been doing since he started his Ironman triathlon training and to see his daily workout logs and daily blogs, visit his personal blog at ironmanlivin.blogspot.com.
-Also, follow Derek on Twitter at @ironmanlivin
Check out last weeks column by Derek: The Iron Man
What’s this column all about? Check out what The Road to Ironman is all about HERE.
Taking Time Off From Running
hmm for me an 11 mile run is just a reg run, guess there is a fine line between training and addiction.