Week in review March 19-25: Equal parts knee pain, frustration, and lethargy

Rehab, bike, and more rehab.

It wasn’t a great week in any sense. Monday was a difficult day for my husband managing our side business, so we did the adult thing and went out for burgers and fries while ignoring our problems.

Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday were actually decent days with trainer rides, PT homework, and an in-person physical therapy session. By Friday afternoon, though, my knee wasn’t happy with me. So, again, I did the adult thing by binge-watching the first half of season 1 of Flight of the Conchords, drinking wine, and eating chocolate.

I probably could have rallied Saturday for a trainer ride and/or some weights, but I took a nap and ran errands instead. It ended up being OK, because we stayed in to watch basketball and cook dinner at home Saturday, meaning that we didn’t spend any extra money or stay out late. Plus, I had time to do my PT on Sunday because of the shifting around of errands. I went back and looked, and that Sunday PT was the first time I’ve done any workout on a Sunday since the end of January (also PT). Eeeek! I just get so busy prepping for the week to come I run out of time.

Anyway, my week worked out to:

PT/rehab: Three times, one in-person PT session and two solo homework sessions, for about 3 hours.

Bike: Twice, both on the trainer, for a 23.25 fake trainer miles (I got distracted texting my sister and did some extra, haha) in a bit longer than 2 hours.

Total: Five sessions in a bit longer than 5 hours.

This week, I have Friday off work, but I am expecting it to be a little nutty with Easter on Sunday. We have family coming over and are going out to an Easter buffet, so cleaning and entertaining will take some time out of the weekend. However, I did schedule PT for Thursday this week to try to force myself to a Monday/Wednesday/Friday trainer schedule. We’ll see if I can make it work.

Week in review March 12-18: Back at it

(Relatively) lots of biking, (relatively) lots of PT.

Well, even though I was a Gloomy Gus yesterday, frustrated with the training I couldn’t do, I actually had a decent week this past week for the first time in a while.

It’s been a few weeks since I had a solid 7+ hours of training, so it felt good to add up the numbers. Yeah, it’s nothing compared to my 70.3 training days, but at this point I’m calling an average of at least an hour per day a success. Especially since, and I was legitimately surprised when I realized this, I only worked out four days last week!

I took Monday off as an extra day to recover from travel and to shop and food prep for the week, I was just DONE with everything by Friday (and was ready to let my brain turn to mush watching college basketball), and yesterday (Sunday) I spent all day doing my errands and prepping food for this week. (It’s a never-ending process.) I was a bit bummed I didn’t have time to get outside in yesterday’s beautiful weather, but I did have the window open as I grilled chicken, washed lettuce, and roasted potatoes.

Broken down by sport, it was:

Bike: Three times, all on the trainer, for 38 fake trainer miles in about 3:40. I have been riding for an hour and then until I hit the next mile, and this Saturday I rode for an hour and a half and then until I hit the next mile. I had some twinges in my knee but keeping it at a low resistance doesn’t bother it too much.

PT/rehab: Four times, one in-person therapy session and three homework sessions, for about 3:15. I DEFINITELY felt it this week after not doing anything for almost two weeks. Everything feels tight and mildly painful, and I had some lateral movement pain at PT. I hope I didn’t lose all my core and glute strength while I was on vacation.

Weights: One session of upper body and abs for about 30 minutes. It’s been a month since I last did any lifting and I am still sore from pull-ups two days later.

Total: Eight sessions in a bit less than 7.5 hours. Not terrible, considering.

This week’s goals include three more trainer rides, five days of PT (baby steps), and weights on Saturday again. Plus, I want to do a yoga session and MAYBE make a trip to the pool. I don't know if I can average an hour a day again, but a couple solid days of training will get me on the right path.

Real talk: I've been too sad to blog much

I feel like I've lost three friends: Swimming, biking, and running.

Sure, we didn't always get along, but I made time for them. I got up early for my friends swimming and biking, and most days after work I hung out with my friend running. The more time we spent together, the closer we got, and the more I enjoyed their company.

Then, this past November, I managed to run a fissure right into my knee's articular cartilage. Womp womp.

After a week in Costa Rica and almost two weeks not doing any training or PT, I officially canceled my Trainer Road subscription. Cycling in too high a gear still hurts, more than four months later, so there's no point.

I have now been doing PT at home and paying a huge amount out of pocket at a clinic for almost three solid months and I still have pain occasionally when I do something involving a lateral movement.

I can't swim without a pull buoy, because the force of kicking the water aggravates my knee.

And I haven't even tried running. My last run, the one that sidelined me with severe knee pain, was Nov. 3.

So if I don't come here very often, it's one of two reasons: I don't have much to report, and writing about not training makes me sad. Every time I see a runner outside it makes me sad. Admitting to myself that there was no sense in paying for a cycling training program made me sad. Having to swim with a pull buoy makes me sad. Feeling pain in my knee at the end of a long food prep day makes me sad.

In the meantime, I will work on being happy for what I can do. And I will work on getting my butt to the pool because swimming with a pull buoy is better than nothing!

A post-vacation wrap-up of the last week, month, and whatever else

I didn't fall off the planet. I was on vacation last week in COSTA RICA! It was my first time there and I hope not my last, because it was so beautiful and there was so much to see. We stayed in San Jose for a few days and on the beach in the jungle (literally — we were woken up at an ungodly hour by howler monkeys every day) for a few days. I speak a bit of Spanish so I could get around, order food, and follow along, but I was glad to have a native speaker with me on my travels.

We visited the sloth rescue, of course.

As you can imagine, I had a LOT to do the week before an international vacation, and I only got two days of training in as a result. I got my hair cut Monday after work, and did bike and PT both Tuesday and Wednesday, so at least I did something. I dedicated Thursday after work to errands and after working late Friday (barf) I still had to take the dogs to my parents'  house, pack, clean, and do all the other oddball things you don't want to worry about while you're gone. It all got done, we made it to the airport butt-early, I only forgot a few things, and we had a great time.

I left off summing up the week of February 19-25 so let's pick up from there.

Week of Feb. 26 through March 4:

I only worked out four times, PT and bike each Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday I did a trainer ride and my PT homework, and Wednesday I did a PT session and a few trainer miles afterward to make 112 for the month (Ironman distance). It was a total of almost exactly 3 hours working out.

Week of March 5-11:

I didn't do a thing except 12-ounce curls =) and some walking around. Unless you count an honest-to-God Home Alone-style sprint through the Charlotte airport to barely make our flight — we had a 55-minute layover during which we had to go through customs and immigration, re-check our luggage (?) and go through security again (?). My husband didn't even have time to put his belt back on until we were on the plane, lol!

Month of February:

February wasn't bad overall. The largest portion of my training time went to PT and rehab, with 18 sessions in about 12 hours. Next was biking, with 12 sessions on the trainer for 107 fake trainer miles, plus a 1-mile warmup at the start of my five PT sessions of the month for a total of 112 miles. It was nice having an actual goal to work toward again.

I also swam twice to make 4000 meters (also the Ironman distance), did upper body weights and abs three times, and did a random online ballet class when I was snowed in earlier in the month. Overall, it was 36 sessions in about 28 hours. I really can't complain at an average of an hour per day.

Not terrible, and a decent amount of PT/rehab and biking.

Compared to January, I did a little less PT and rehab in February, but I dropped down my in-person sessions to once per week, too. I did 13 PT homework sessions both months, so that's good. I also swam and lifted weights the same number of sessions, but I did much more biking in February. The extra biking made up for most of the additional sessions and hours spent doing some kind of training.

Since I did this for January, let's also take a look at my loose goals for 2018 for February:

Work through my health issues and re-start a training schedule that gets me back to racing. Still working on this, but I feel I'm getting closer. I can do things like bend my knee! And walking (usually) doesn't hurt!

Run some cool places, maybe another marathon. Still working on this one, too. The jury's still out on when I can get back to running. A 5K might be my stretch goal for the year.

Work on whole-body health, incorporating things like yoga and pre-hab. I still do a decent amount of stretching as part of PT, but I haven't done a standalone yoga session yet.

Keep a healthy work-life-training-family-friends-other balance. I actually hung out with friends a bunch of times this month! I am not a hermit! But I still need to work on going to bed earlier. As I type this in my bed with the alarm set to go off in 7 hours.

Have fun. In addition to hanging out with four different friend groups, I also gave blood, got a haircut, and stepped out of my comfort zone a few times. (I am going on the record to say I have given escape rooms two different tries and they are officially not for me.) I made some good memories.

March is almost half over and I haven't done any training yet, but I'll get to it tomorrow now that I am back in the country and on schedule. I have to work off all that sangria, yuca chips, and mango. =)