I Want to Be an Ironman….Am I nuts?

After almost 4 weeks off, I received clearance on Monday to resume running. I did run 1-2 miles last week to see how things felt and after a few adjustments, Dr. Potter decided to let me run.

My first 1.5 miles on Wed felt great in my left leg (the injured one) but my right knee hurt and I kept kicking my left shin with my right foot! Never have had this problem before! Apparently Dr Potter has done enough adjusting that my body needed a little time to reconfigure itself and after about half a mile my coordination returned and I felt fine.

Ran 3.77 miles this morning at a 9:19 pace and it felt great! I did have one twinge in the last mile so I walked for a few blocks and then picked up the run again and my piriformis felt fine. It is a little tight this evening but have been doing some stretching. Will have to be careful to not add too many miles too quickly!!!! Luckily I have lots of training partners to keep me in check and keep me grounded! Gotta love my outspoken team members! Always trying to keep me for making dumb decisions about my workouts!

Will do a run/walk tomorrow with the 7:30am group tomorrow, just down to Riverside and back. Probably take Bruno along so I have company and he will keep me from doing too much as I don’t think he is very fit! Good training for both of us!

All summer my “performance” muscles would “perform” after every workout and we kind of laughed about it and I stretched but they eventually got the best of me during the Maple Leaf Half Marathon (actually I should say the Jim Gokey Memorial Half Marathon!). I was in quite a bit of pain for most of that race. Funny what pain can motivate you to do. My painful logic was as follows: I am out here, I am in pain and I have to get myself back to the finish line. So, if I pick up the pace and run as fast as I can, the pain will be over faster! So that is what I did and I PR’d! Not really how I would suggest getting a PR but it worked and the pain didn’t lessen at the finish! But the bloody mary’s helped!

Now it is 3 weeks later, I have not been running or biking, only swimming and stretching and I still have some pain but I am hoping a new chiropractor who “beat” up on the piriformis muscle last Monday, will do some more “therapy” on it Monday and I can get back to running and biking this week or soon.

Piriformis syndrome is "a condition in which the piriformis muscle irritates the sciatic nerve, causing pain in the buttocks and referring pain along the course of the sciatic nerve. This referred pain, called "sciatica", often goes down the back of the thigh and/or into the lower back. Patients generally complain of pain deep in the buttocks, which is made worse by sitting, climbing stairs, or performing squats. The piriformis muscle assists in abducting and laterally rotating the thigh." Source: http://www.rice.edu/~jenky/sports/piri.html

My current stretching regime is as follows: (FYI – this stretching regime has not proven to be good or bad yet, so I am not suggesting it as the answer)

• Sitting cross-legged as much as possible
• Chair Stretch -cross one leg over the other with your ankle resting on the knee of the opposite leg. Gently press down on the inside of the knee and slowly lean forward (I can do this one at work at my desk)
• Lying piriformis stretch – Lay on your back on the floor and cross right leg over the left, with the right ankle resting on the left knee. Slowly lift the left foot off the floor and toward you while you apply gentle pressure to inside of the right knee.
• Pigeon Pose – a little too complicated for me to explain so here is a link to not only the pigeon pose but the whole stretching series I have been using above http://sportsmedicine.about.com/od/flexibilityandstretching/qt/Piriformis_str.htm

Here’s hoping this works! Stay tuned….

About two weeks ago, Maggie had “the team” out to her house for dinner and to discuss our Ironman training. As usual for our group, we had great food and great wine and oh yeah a discussion. We all had our race “wanna do” lists and our other activities and we started planning. The discussion started with Maggie sharing the basics of our program:

• Individual Race schedule needed to be determined
• 2-3 Century rides (100 miles)
• 3 20-mile runs
• 8-10 hours a week training from now until Feb
• Official training (30 week program) to start Feb 14 – Happy Valentine’s Day!
• 3 week taper

Hmmm, let’s look at these one at a time:

1. My “Wanna Do” Race Schedule –
   1. Mardi Gras Marathon Feb 13 in New Orleans – On second thought let’s make that the Mardi Gras Half Marathon on Feb 13!
   2. La Crosse Fitness Festival Biking Time Trial and Marathon Relay first week in May
   3. Intermediate Tri in June
   4. Door County Half Iron in July
   5. Firehouse 50 in August
      1. Individ TT and then another 50 mile lap on Saturday (hope that counts as one of the Century’s? I am sure it does!)
      2. 15K Run on Sunday
   6. Open Water Swim in Madison end of Aug
2. Century Rides – Well one will be at Firehouse, I hope! So 2 more shouldn’t be too bad. I will need to do these pretty much on my own as I need to work on my mental toughness on the bike at this distance. Okay, not just mental toughness there will be “other” areas that need to toughen up! Yikes!!! Going to  learn to “Love my Time on my Bike”!
3. 20-Mile Runs – I was not too worried about the run, but had a tough Maple Leaf Half Marathon a few weeks ago and now I am a little concerned. On the positive side, I know I can run in some pain. On the negative side, I had to run a lot of the race in pain! It appears I have developed Piriformis Syndrome (tight muscle deep in your butt, very difficult to stretch) so I am currently resting and stretching. I have heard horror stories of Piriformis problems lasting for a year or two! Not acceptable! This is the current focus of my Pre-Ironman Training – “Nip piriformis in the butt! Literally!”
4. Current level of training – Well 8-10 hours is probably about my normal workout level but since I am not biking or running right now, I am lucky to get 4 hours a week with swimming 3 times a week, walking the dog 3-4 times a day (if you can even count that!!!) and then if you add my 15 minutes of stretching a few times a day! Mmm oh well, flexibility and getting to Feb 14 healthy and uninjured is the new goal right now.
5. Training Program – We haven’t decided on our actual training program yet. We are still evaluating a few and will see what we decide. Why rush??? We don’t need it until Feb. Best to find or create one that we all feel good about since it will become our part-time job!
6. TAPER!!! Can I tell you how much I LOVE TO TAPER!!! It is the best part of the whole deal! Well okay crossing the finish line is right up there too! Taper will start on Monday Aug 29!!! Love that day!!!!!

So that was the meeting. I must share that about midway through this meeting I had to “retire to the loo”. I guess my “system” still has major anxiety about this endeavor. So yes I spent a little alone time contemplating the next year in the loo. I hate to think what I will be like the week before! It may take me two days to drive to Madison with all the potty stops! I know “TMI” but then again – Get used to it, cause this blog will be about the good, the bad, the ugly, the gross, the smelly and maybe a few more before we all hear “You are an Ironman”.

So the first order of business to do an Ironman is to get registered. Not as easy as you would think. Best way to do it is to go and volunteer at the Ironman you want to do the year before! Lucky for me, I live in La Crosse so Madison is not that far away and I had lots of friends competing so volunteering was fun. We volunteered in the Bike Transition. Initially we volunteered for T1 (swim to bike) transition. Not a difficult job – you stand at the end of a few racks of bikes and help your people get their bike and make sure their helmet is secured and send them on their way. Paul, one of my training partners, was a captain for Bike Transition so when we saw him at T2 (Bike to Run) he said they needed help so Angie and I piled into help catch bikes as the athletes were finishing their 112 miles. Needless to say that is a interesting task. Many athletes are quite humorous as they relinquish their bike to you. Many give you a few choice words on what you can do with said bike! So after 5 hours in Bike Transition, we earned the priviledge to sign up for Ironman Wisconsin 2011.

People lined up waiting to register for Ironman Wisconsin 2011 at 7am

Now no one quite prepared me for the registration process on Monday morning. It started for our group at 7am and the line was already hundreds of people long! Two and half hours later we had thoroughly exhausted all conversation, were starving, and had forfeited a good chunk of money to the organization and had nothing to show for it but a piece of paper with a bunch of instructions and a handwritten confirmation number (which you wrote yourself so no one to blame but you if you got the numbers out of order).

I won’t even talk about my personal escort to the registration table to make sure I turned over my credit card, my cold clammy hands and my queasy tummy. All of this for the Priviledge of 13+ hours of physical and mental torture. Hmmm I think I am nuts!