Santa Cruz Tri Geek

Learning to Walk

Two important "steps" forward today.

First, I finally got my head to where my Physical Therapy exercises are my run training.  No longer do I feel like I'm falling behind in training when I'm doing my exercises, rather than actually running.  Instead, I'm building my run foundation; I'm just starting a little deeper in the dirt than I might have liked.

Second, I learned to walk again in Physical Therapy today.  At first I was soldiering forward like some robot, but by the end of the session, it looked like I was walking like a normal person.  The hip hurt like hell, but hey, it was that good "muscle working" hurt, so I can't complaint.

Rome wasn't built in a day.  It took me 30 years to screw myself up this bad.  Its gonna take a little while to fix.  But not too long!  :-)

The Weight

As some of you know, when I started this triathlon odyssey, I tipped the scales at 230 and change.  That dipped to a low of 201ish, late last year.  This year's goal was both to complete my first Olympic distance tri (first tri ever, actually) and compete in my age group, not as a Clydesdale.

While the former goal is still within reach, it appears I'll be a Clydesdale for a while yet.  My weight has been hovering between 209 and 213 for the past few weeks.  Although leaner overall, I've definitely added some denser bulk through training.  No complaints here however.  Who doesn't like increased power to weight ratios and better fitting clothing?

Masters Rocks...Posture is Rocky

I managed to join the 6 AM masters crew at the pool again this morning.  My fiance slept in, anticipating a run with our group that evening (I'm still on the running shelf for another 3 weeks...more on that later).  It was endurance day and I knocked out 6x400m, in various permutations.  Just two sessions with Coach Heidi and I can already feel my stock improving.  I may move from the really slow lane to the slow lane if I keep this up.

On the flip side, my PT has me doing a new set of exercises for my hip.  They are postural correction exercises, designed to get the ball of my right femur to rotate correctly back into the socket so its not rubbing the hip bone when I walk/run.  This is the theory of the month for the cause of my various hip/back issues.  He says I can run train again in 3 weeks if I continue doing my therapy.  I'm doing my therapy; if I can run in three weeks w/o pain, he gets a nice bottle (or three) of wine.  The down side of posture stuff is that my back is tired all the time now from sitting and walking how I should have been sitting for the past few years.  I suppose things will adapt; in the meantime, I look like the tin man.

Nutritionally, things are going well. I'm consistently hitting 22-2400 calories a day in intake.  Contrast that with a BMR around 2100, plus somewhere between 500 and 1000 in exercise burn (not counting post exercise metabolism boosts).  With any luck, I'll be able to lean up a bit despite not being able to run right now.  This should make my return to the pavement even more enjoyable.

Things that make you go hmm....

Apparrently the ball of my right femur sits too far forward in my hip socket and this is the root of all the evil that plagues me these days.  So says my new PT.  I don't know if he's right or not, but he uses a tablet PC, so that's instant geek cred in my book.  No running for at least three weeks and lots of goofy exercises to undue the "damage" I've done over the last decade and a half.  We'll see if he knows his stuff or not.  I told him I was doing my Oly race, even if I have to walk the run portion.

Otherwise, morning training went well.  Did 30 min in the pool, working on the new stroke technique.  Its awkward, but I didn't drown, so I consider it a good workout.  2231 cals in yesterday; looking at round 2k today.  Nutrition tracking seems to be working well.  Now if I can just make it to spin tonight, it'll be a good day.

Cortisone is the Best!

Its nice how quickly things can turn around.  On the heels of last nights ride washout, I dragged my ass out of bed at 5:30 a.m. and hit the local masters swim at 6:00 a.m. for the first time.  I never swam in high school like my uber-athlete fiance and her brother, so this was new to me.  Great hour of swimming though.  Aside from open water swims, I can't imagine any of my upcoming swim workouts won't involve these workouts.

The biggest bonus for me was that the coach was able to vastly improve my stroke in like 3 seconds (thanks Heidi).  Apparently I was pulling my forward arm back too quickly, not allowing my recovering arm to get far enough forward before the pulling arm went underneath me.  Result was my head dipped down and created drag every time I completed a breath.  Now, I hold the forward arm out longer, keeping it extended until the recovering arm makes it to about my ear.  Speed up, drag down.  I like it.

Oh yes, and then there's the workout:

WU:  2x100 (100 FS, 100 BS)
Main:  3x200 (short sets of FS, kick and pull)
           16x50 (4x each of FS, kick, pull, other stroke)
           2x250 (100 FS, 50 kick, pull and other stroke).
CD:  2x100 (FS, BS)

At least, I think that was the workout.  We did a total of 2200 meters in just under 60 minutes.  That was a very tough swim workout for me.  But I felt great afterwards.

And there was something else happening today...my shot!  Dr. Quinn hit my nerve with that lovely cocktail of Novocaine and cortisone and I was feeling better almost immediately.  The Novocaine is only masking the pain while the steroid works, I know, but its nice to be relatively pain free again.  The real test will be in a few days time, when the Novocaine has worn off and we see if the cortisone did its work.

That's it for now.  I have to go eat a disappointingly small PB&J snack.  2280 calories yesterday, going to definitely be higher today.  Swimming always jacks up the appetite beyond my ability to control it.

Meralgia Perawhatica?

One of my training partners asked me today, "I knew you tweaked your neck, but what's wrong with your hip?"  Its called  Meralgia Paresthetica, which means entrapment of the lateral cutaneous nerve of the thigh.  The lateral cutaneous nerve of the thigh is a sensory nerve that originates in the nerve roots of the lower back and supplies sensation to the front and outer portion of the thigh.  It passes through and under the inguinal ligament and can sometimes become entrapped under it.  This causes the nerve to malfunction and transmit less sensation (numbness) or distorted sensation (tingling and burning) to the brain.

The syndrome is fairly common, with obesity, pregnancy and heavy leather belts (think firefighters and cops) being frequent contributing factors.  The situation is worsened by certain body positions, including prolonged sitting or standing (so being a lawyer who sits in his office a good 8 hours a day does not help).

Although the syndrome is often benign, in more extreme cases such as mine, the pain can be debilitating and lead to sympathetic muscle spasms in related areas, such as the quads, glutes, periformis and low back.  The treatment for now is cortisone shots in the nerve to relieve the inflamation.  I can get these shots about 4 times a year.  Tomorrow is shot number two.

If the inflamation continues and cannot be treated by the shots, the alternative is to remove/cut the nerve to relieve the symptoms.  The downside to this is numbness in the thigh; the upside to this is numbness in the thigh.  ;-)