Week 15 Update - My Busselton 70.3 Training Log

Monday, Apr 30, 2012 at 16:13

TriathlonOz - Michelle

After a very solid Peak week, Week 15 started with some weariness but that's great as it's also week 1 of my 2 week taper. It started with 2 days of rest although that meant baking as this is birthday week for Chardae who turned 8 on Tuesday 24th April.


I made things fairly easy for this birthday by booking a party at Extreme Ice Skating so all I had to do was bring the cake! I had no real plan for how to do an ice-skating themed cake so went off on Monday in search of a plastic skater-girl figurine to put on the cake and came home 4 hours later with no figure, but some funky edible glitter "paint" and fondant icing which I'd never used before.

Back home, Chardae and I baked the cake and started experimenting with the icing. It turned out pretty good we thought!

Chardae's birthday went off well but the kids get upset if we go training early in the morning on their birthdays so we have to miss out on rides. We all slept in to 7 o'clock instead! I think we are all on the edge of getting a cold.

We had a lovely day celebrating her birthday, but all our family is interstate so she enjoyed her party with just a few friends. David and I were too precious about hurting ourselves so didn't skate - we felt the cold sitting on the sidelines.



I felt so guilty after eating cake and missing my ride that made sure I got to the pool for my night swim and put in a big effort.

The next day was Anzac Day and we had a lazy morning - we are all really needing so much sleep at the moment we are taking every opportunity. But then David decided it was time to start extending Leah's bedroom - one of two major house renovation plans we want to do this year. He started knocking off a layer of render, and preparing for footings and slab outside her room whilst I went for a run in the afternoon, and the kids played together with Chardae's new birthday presents. Unfortunatley the run didn't go so well - I wanted to do 10k but at the 5k mark I felt so dehydrated that I stood under the beach shower. The temp had risen to 30 degrees and I think I was a bit dehydrated before I headed out. Knees were ok at that point which was the shame. Problem was today I just couldn't find the energy to run. David said his last run was the same - so I think we are a bit unwell. It was a strange feeling I've never hard where I was fatigued without reason - the only way I can describe is "sluggish". So it was a bit of a muddle of a walk/jog for the last 5k but I didn't allow myself to feel depressed. It was a lovely public holiday the sun was shining, people were out, and I was outside enjoying it, so I just walked happily when I needed to and jogged a bit when I felt like it. Sometimes you just need to do it like that.

The next day however, David and I did our early morning multibrick session in our gym - treadmill 10 minutes, bike on windtrainer 10 mins x 6 repeats. Imagine my surprise to find I felt relieved in the running sets and fatigued and sluggish on the bike!! What's going on? I had to release the brake down a notch and spin and just hold my usual 35km/hr pace on the trainer - struggled around 27km/hr !! Argh, not good!! What's wrong with my groin? I felt like I had lost half my strength as I couldn't get any "lift" on my upstroke.... not happy ... ummmm....

So I figure its time to pull out that business card Bill gave me... Warwick Massage & Injury Management Clinic". Yep I'll book in for a remedial massage and see what's going on. My quads are aching which is unusual and this weakness in my goin is not hurting but offers me no power. I am breaking down :(

Thursday I get to the massage and I extend the 1 hour session to a 2 hour session its sooooo good. So pleased I've found this clinic - they worked wonders. I'm booked again for Wednesday - 4 days out from the race and they advised me to get a 15min massage on stretch on Friday, day before the race. Right - I like this plan.

So - the verdict from the therapist is that I have muscle weaknesses in all my "errectus" muscles, which she said is what keeps me upright. So that's all my glute muscles (gluteus maximus, gluteus medius, and tensor fascia latae), plus I had strains in my quads, and the tibia anterior tendon in my lower legs (which I couldn't feel until she touched them, ouch) and all this is pulling on my knees. She says these muscles have weakened due to "hormonal" changes and that I have to work these muscles groups in the gym over the offseason. All those floor exercises the physio gave me were fine but apparently I need a more intense weight resistance workout to really build back my muscle strength. Sounds great to me! So much better than some cartidge breakdown or other biomechanic issue.

The therapist also found my right hip sits signficantly higher than my left, not a leg length discrepancy but pulled wrong by my muscles being of unbalanced strength. I can feel this strength imbalance so that makes sense.

So, I was advised that rest, gentle stretching and more massage is what is going to help my final preparation. She tried to talk me out of doing my last long ride the following day but I did it - and loved it. Had a very solid 70k ride followed by a long afternoon swim. And with that, I promptly fatigued very quickly to end off the day and went to bed about 8pm.



Bring on my last week of real taper. The plan is to do very little. Just a short 5km run on Monday (maybe). Plus I am having a video analysis done of my swim with Swim Smooth on Tuesday, and then I'll put my race wheels on the bike on Wednesday and test it all out for leaving to drive to Busselton on Thursday.

So the next time you'll hear from me will be a blog update from Busselton done from my mobile phone.

I just want to send a shout-out to all my friends doing the 70.3 next week and to wish them well for their final preps. I'll see you all there on Friday at registration and briefing. Special thanks also to the North Coast tri club and coaches - for bringing us all together, for organising a wide range of group training opportunities, and for support and information. I couldn't be doing this without the support of the club and the dedicated people in it.

And thanks so much to my family for supporting me through this. Mum and Dad for not telling me to quit, to my kids for being so self-sufficient and trustworthy when I leave you at home when I go out training and for not complaining when the fridge was empty because I was too tired to go shopping, and to David for believing in me and letting me work through my issues this season without too much criticism ;-).

You all know its not about the race. Triathlon is not a game or a sport, it's a mindset and some of us just like it there.
Some wish for it, others work for it!
Lifetime Member:My Profile  My Blog  Send Message
BlogID: 3874
Views: 5179

Comments & Reviews

Post a Comment
Loading...
Blog Index