Wow, February was my last post? Yikes. I think about it a lot, but find myself tired and wanting to get to bed instead of updating my blog. Things like this make me wish I had a more of a desk/computer job where I could take a quick break every few days to submit a post. But most days, I'm glad to be a physical therapist where I'm up and about and trying help people get rid of their pain and teach them how to take care of themselves to reduce the risk of recurrence. I've had three great weekends of continuing education course work in the last 5 weeks that has helped my skills and enabled me to make more accurate diagnoses and, thus, achieve quicker results. This is very rewarding for me and my patients. The bummer is that we've been a lot more busy at work meaning a lot less time to get notes done during the day so I've been working longer hours, which makes me less happy about my job. It is sort of the nature of the business to ebb and flow, but I wish it could be a steady rate of about being 85% booked, not 50% for weeks and then 100% for weeks. Oh well, just need to get through this crazy period. I do have our wonderful Italy trip to look forward to which is just 7 weeks away. Can't wait!
As far as triathlon news- -not much to report about me. My training has been fairly consistent. Indoor track ended and I rejoined the usual Wednesday night crew- always fun to see friendly faces. However, the first two weeks I went there was freezing rain and snow-- welcome back, Jake. The last two weeks were great and plenty of daylight since daylight savings. Love that.
The big news, though, isn't about me.....two of my athletes raced Ironman 70.3 Oceanside on March 29th. Steve, who has done several 1/2 and full ironmans, had a very solid race. We were nervous because he's battled achilles and calf issues for years. They had been doing well since last summer but had a calf strain in late January and we had to back way off his running and rely on the eliptical for some run simulation. After strong swim and bike legs, he was able to jog the whole 1/2 marathon without walking. We were both relieved as the furthest he'd run in 4 weeks was 45 min. And he has felt fine since the race also which is a good sign. Now he's headed to China this week for work and is going to do a 70.3 race while he's over there. He's nervous to do two big races so close to each other, but hard to pass up since such an opportunity doesn't come very often.
My other athlete, Nick, had an amazing race. He has never done any race, of any type, or any distance.....ever. Not even a 5km fun run. Needless to say, he and I were both nervous that a huge 1/2 ironman would be his sporting debut. But, we figured this would be better than Ironman Couer d'Alene as his debut, which was the alternative. (Quick history: he signed up last June for IM CDA having never done any sort of race and didn't have a bike). Steve and I both tried to think of every detail possible since we both take much for granted after years of racing-- luckily, between us and Nick's questions we covered almost everything (from registering and numbering bike the day before, laying out clothes, pre-race breakfast, getting to race, donning wetsuit, transitions and gear, sunscreen, to race number belt).
His race couldn't have gone much smoother. His swim was a scary fast 34:01-- came out of the water with seasoned swimmers-- I had no idea what to expect as I hadn't seen him swim and he normally swam alone in the evenings. I had been writing his workouts most of the year, but had no idea he could swim so fast. His bike was a solid 3:04 and then ran 1:52 for the 1/2 marathon. He didn't walk at all except to drink well at the aid stations. He said he felt some fluid sloshing in his stomach and nausea on the run so I think he was low on sodium and the fluid wasn't absorbing. He's going to use the electrolyte pills now as a supplement and will be sure to use them in the ironman. All in all, though, pretty amazing debut into a logistical nightmare of a sport called Triathlon.
This was a really rewarding experience as a coach and both athletes were really happy with their races. And, like every race, learned something (or several things) to improve upon for next time.
Well, I need to get some sleep so I can swim at 5:50am tomorrow!
