I love my power meter. Tonight I did my first real power based workout. I've done a few recovery workouts that were power based, but I would say they were more cadence based than anything. But tonight I really put my power meter to use and it was great.
I did the Spinervals Timetrialapalooza workout. It's a pretty simple but effective workout. You start with a warm up, then do a 20 minute time trial, followed by a 5 minute recovery. Then 15 minute TT, 5 minute recovery, 10 minute TT, 5 minute recovery, 5 minute TT, cool down. The trick is that you're supposed to increase your power with each interval and drop your cadence a bit.
I did this workout last winter, but started too hard and died by the last 5 minute TT. But tonight I used my power meter and paced myself and nailed the workout. The only thing I came up short on was cadence. I need to work on higher cadences. I'm struggling to put out decent power at a cadence over 91 right now so I didn't hit the 95 cadence goal for the 20 minute TT.
I also learned a little about warming up tonight. I've realized that I didn't warm up enough at the Indoor TT at SBR a few weeks ago. I was afraid of going hard in my warm up for fear of burning out. But it doesn't really work like that. You need to push hard for a little while in your warm up to blow out the carbon (to use a car analogy) and get your legs ready for the open road. Tonight I was a little sluggish in my first TT, but felt much better in the following 3 TTs because my legs were warmed up and ready to go. The second Indoor TT at SBR is this Saturday so I think I'm going to go into this one with a better warm up plan and see if that helps.
I had physical therapy this morning, and he told my knee is healing well and that I should cancel the rest of my appointments. He said my goal now is to continue increasing my running mileage slowly while keeping the intensity within reason and I should be fine. That was really encouraging. My knee has been feeling really good lately, but to have someone else confirm that it's finally healing was good to hear.
The problem with swimming at the high school is snow days. We got hit pretty hard with more snow today, and the school closed. I was looking forward to my workout tonight, but it wasn't meant to be.
I went to physical therapy this morning and they told me to start running. What a surprise that was. He said I should start slow and take it easy, but as long as my knee doesn't hurt I'm fine. Then he asked if cycling hurts my knee, and I said no. So he told me to ramp that up as well. This was not what I expected to hear. I was expecting him to tell me to take more time off.
He also told me to expect it to take the entire winter to heal. That's going to be the tough part. I have no patience with injuries, so I'll need to work on that. I'm going to try and keep my training at a low to moderate intensity for at least the next six weeks so I don't do any more damage.
We've gotten over 15 inches of snow in the past week. I don't remember the last time we've gotten this much snow this early into winter. This might be an ugly winter. It's good for the skiers, but for those of us that despise snow it's not good.
Last night I had a terrible swim workout. I'm not sure what the deal was, but I was really struggling. My form was bad. I was slow. Unmotivated. And the water was way too warm. So I decided to cut the workout short and head home.
Today I went back to the pool first thing in the morning to redeem myself and I had a great workout. That felt good because last night's workout was a little discouraging. I try not to let bad days get to me, but that's easier said than done. Bad days running or biking don't bother me that much, but I lack confidence in my swimming so a bad day makes me think I'm losing what little I've gained. I guess you just gotta let it go and try to make up for it with a good workout the next time.
After the pool, I did my favorite Spinervals...Big Gear Strength. That is one brutal workout. If you don't end this one with shaky legs, you did something wrong. I barely made it up the stairs, which is a little pitiful since my wattage info isn't that impressive (yep, got the powermeter back). I can tell I've lost some cardio conditioning by not biking much and not running at all in the past 7 weeks. My heartrate wasn't dropping as quickly as it usually does after intervals.
My big mistake this morning was eating a Snickers Marathon bar and drinking a Sobe after swimming. My stomach doesn't appreciate peanuts or peanut butter. After my Spinervals workout I hobbled up the stairs to the bathroom because I was sure I was going to throw up. Luckily, I managed to keep everything down, but that was a close call. It reminds me that it's time to focus more on nutrition and stop eating crap. It's not worth it.
I started my home physical therapy last week...and I made an appointment to see the physical therapist but I wasn't able to get in until next Tuesday. Tendons heal very slowly so it's hard to say for sure, but I think I'm making progress. There hasn't been as much pain the past few days. Everyday, I'm doing a ton of lunges..front lunges, side lunges, back lunges (you step back instead of forward...I don't know what you call those). Then I stretch and do some core work.
One of the reasons tendons heal so slowly is because they don't get much blood. Heat increases blood flow so I've been putting a hot pack on my knee a few times a day. Plus, I ordered the secret ingredient the other day: Topical Nitric Oxide Cream. I know, it sounds crazy, but there's some research to back it up. A lot of bodybuilders - and some cyclists now - use Nitric Oxide because it's supposed to increase blood flow. I read a few studies where they used a topical Nitric Oxide cream to heal tendons and had some success. They used a cream (or a patch in some cases) so the Nitric Oxide was hitting the injured area instead of the entire body. I don't know if it will work, but I've wasted my money on nonsense with less research backing it up so I figured it's worth a shot. Plus, I'm getting desperate. I'm tired of this injury. Lastly, I read that Vitamin E has also shown to help heal tendons so I'm going to try to get more vitamin E.
Oh yeah, there's more snow on the way this weekend. It's sickening...much like Marathon bars and Spinervals.
I went to the sports medicine doc today, and he did an ultrasound on my knee. I have a tear in my semimembranosus tendon. It's one of the tendons that attaches the hamstring muscle to the tibia.
The cure? Physical therapy. *sigh*
I'm quite frustrated about the whole deal and I don't think I'm going to go to physical therapy. I'm sure they're just going to tell me to take time off and do some more lunges and maybe walk a hill or two. I'll do lunges and I'll walk hills, but I'm not taking time off. I don't believe it's the answer. Tendons don't get a good supply of blood, and that's why it takes forever for them to heal. Not working them isn't going to help pump blood to the tendon.
I think what frustrates me the most is that I always injure myself when it seems like I'm starting to get into a groove. When I raced motocross, I broke my collarbone for the first time in
what was my best race to date. I had crashed in the first turn and gotten up in dead last. Within 2 laps I was in 3rd with the leaders in sight. I was flying. Then I made a mistake coming out of a corner, came up short on a jump and pummeled myself into the ground. Same thing happened a few years later when I was hitting another groove and riding really well. I did a swan dive over the handlebars and broke my collarbone, dislocated my hip and broke my thumb in a few places. So I switch sports and do the same thing.
At this point, I'm not really sure what to do about it. I'm frustrated and a little pissed off. Maybe I'll give it some thought on my ride Saturday. My lobster gloves, balaclava and wool base layer showed up today so I'm ready to take on old man winter.
I had physical therapy today, and as painful as it is to say...[I can't believe I'm going to put this in print. I'll never hear the end of it]... Heather was right. I should have gone to a sports medicine doctor in the first place. Today, my physical therapist told me I need to go see a sports medicine doc for an MRI. He didn't put it in these words, but he's throwing in the towel. I asked if I needed a referral and he asked which insurance I have. When I told him, he said I didn't need a referral. Are you kidding me? I should have gone there in the first place.
He gave me two names of doctors he thought could help, and I went with the one that's into cycling. I go see him next Wednesday, and I'm going to push for a rapid treatment. I don't really care what that treatment entails, just so it's quick. I'm tired of screwing around.
Physical therapy is getting old fast. My doc finally diagnosed me as having popliteal tendinitis. I self diagnosed that months ago. So now he has me doing some exercises and walking down a hill several times twice a week. I have news for him. It's not going to work. I did my own thing and ignored it and the pain was a mild nuisance. I did his thing and the pain got worse. Plus, popliteal tendinitis is caused by running downhill. Now he has me doing the thing that created the problem in the first place.
I've done the research. I know the fix. It's an injection of a corticosteroid into the tendon. I say get the needle out and let's end this thing already. I have things to do. Perhaps my constant begging for EPO hasn't gotten the point across: I'm not opposed to injections.
Speaking of drugs, if doping in cycling is a topic that interests you check out the interviews with David Walsh at The Competitors. I'm reading his book From Lance to Landis right now. It's good stuff. Very interesting. I like to believe Lance and Landis didn't dope, but I'm not convinced.
Even though I think all the doping is ruining cycling and they need to clean up the sport, I don't hold it against the guys. I can't say for sure I'd be above it. If I was a professional cyclist and someone told me that a few injections everyday or a blood transfusion here and there would put me on top of the podium in Paris, I'm not sure I'd say no. Plus I think some of them were doping without knowing it. Imagine this...you're a young cyclist dreaming of winning the Tour, you get your first ride and the team doctor gives you some "vitamins" to take everyday...would you question him or take the vitamins?
Anyway, the book and interviews are interesting.
I went swimming last night. It felt great to do some training. I definitely lost some endurance, but no speed. I did some sprints and turned in one of my fastest 50 yard time yet: 37 seconds (that's about the pace the pros do for the entire 2.4 mile swim...that shows you how horribly slow I am in the pool). And that was with a mediocre flip turn. Yep, I'm doing flip turns now. They're a little ugly, but I do them anyway.
What a boring day. I can't wait to get back to working out. It's only been 24 hours, but it feels like I haven't worked out in a while. Luckily, I don't need to take any more rest days for a few weeks. Recovery days are much more fun than all out rest days. Tomorrow is a recovery day. Only an hour of working out - swimming.
I went to physical therapy today for my knee, and the doc was actually helpful...I think. We'll see. He didn't tell me to stop running, which was good because there's no way I'm taking time off. That's not an option. He thinks my injury stems from my left side not being as flexible as my right, especially in my hips. I overcompensate for that when I run and that's putting stress on my joints, tendons, muscles...you name it.
So I have some stretches I have to do everyday. I also need to massage the tendon twice a week, buy new running shoes and get some supportive insoles for my everyday shoes. That's it. That's what he prescribed. I guess we'll see if it helps. If not, then we're moving on to more aggressive treatments. Hopefully something involving electricity. I don't know why, but I'm convinced high voltage is the cure. It will at least deaden the pain.
He also said he thinks I have a high tolerance for pain, which isn't necessarily a good thing. He did some tests on my tendons where he applied pressure to them, and he said most people squirm in pain when he does that. I barely felt it. He said people with a high pain threshold are very susceptible to serious injuries because they can't tell they're injuring themselves until it's serious. So I need to listen to my body and take small aches and pains more seriously than I typically do. That's going to be tough. I prefer to ignore the pain.
On to another subject...someone needs to force Cost Cutters out of business because that's the only way I'll stop going. And I need to stop going. I hate making appointments for anything and that includes haircuts. So I go across the street to Cost Cutters for the inevitable bad haircut. Today's was worse than usual. It's a good thing I workout a lot and my workouts include a helmet, visor or swim cap. Maybe I should just shave my head and get it over with. That place is a like crack. I know it's bad for me, but I can't stop.
