Waiting, Making Lemonade, & My "Team"

I just looked at the calendar and realized that it's almost the end of JANUARY already? Wow!!! That only means one thing ... I have been busy!

Above is a picture of the trailhead at one of my favorite (and convenient) places to do run workouts. Instead, today was a brisk walk with the dog and a reminder of how much I enjoy the green winter colors and my running ... more on this later! For now just stick with me as I ramble some ...

I haven't been running for the last two weeks because of some plantar fasciitis. This is new for me and I haven't had any running issues for a couple years. This one snuck up on me and bit quick, and HARD! The reality is, it may not have been a running issue so much as an issue caused on the bike that exposed it's ugly head after running, or being active on my feet for long periods of time.

Considering I haven't been running I decided to attempt at making a little lemonade from the lemons I have. That means a little extra swimming and small amounts of cycling ... a busy week (last week) and horrible weather the last 10-12 days has seen me only on the trainer. With a little extra swimming last week I'd wanted to share a little main set with you that I stumbled on in the process:

>Warm Up:

*Anywhere from 500-1000 and add a little pace change and/or non free

>Main Set: (we did this 5 x thru and you can adapt however needed)

* 5 x (4x25, 100, 50) -- 25's strong @ 5sec rest / 100's same effort @ 10sec / 50 EZ -- rest between sets is 15-30sec. Try to swim the 25's & 100's consistent thru the entire set. I like the main set because you can play with paces and strokes and adjust to your needs and goal efforts / paces!

> Warm Down / OR add another main set

Now ... back to the injury and the process. The hardest part for me is wrapping my head around the initial "oh crap", AND yanking my head out of my own ass and realizing there is only one thing to do ... move forward. Wrapping my head around it meant dealing with not only the effect BUT investigating the cause of the injury. Addressing the effect and getting it calm down is one thing:

>> ice, rest, stretch, corrective strength, and seeking out professionals who "get it" / can help (not easy).

Finding the cause is another beast in itself!!! The obvious for me was to address the running and see what I could come up with.

> Training protocol ... doubtful

> Shoes ... possible, maybe they accelerated the issue, likely not the cause (gave me a chance to get rid of some old shoes though ;)

> Timing of extra activities and ones on hard surfaces while wearing un-supportive shoes ... likely not the cause but it didn't help.

With the effect treatment in motion and running evaluated I had to move on and cover more bases. Next? Well, I better look at my cycling / position / fit / bio-mechanics / shoes-insoles

* After an evaluation with Rand (http://www.ariavelo.com/) we made a switch, moving my cleats BACK on the shoe to take some stress off the calf and plantar fascia. Thing is, I was already so inflamed that this helped but It should have been addressed months before.

* Position / bio mechanics / insoles were all good after being "Retul'ed"

.... after more time, and inspection the only place left to look was closely at equipment. More specifically shoe/pedal/cleat interface. Checking the interface on my road and TT bike it seemed all was solid and with no instability (this is different than float) on my Shimano pedals. Last stop was my "trainer bike". Verdict ... excessive amounts of instability from horribly used and worn out pedals. The reality of horrible weather, the season, and being busy I have spent more time on that bike then I normally would. Previously it was about 15% of my cycling time and lately it's been more like 50-100% of my cycling. That's a big up-turn on time and a bio-mechanically poor, repetitive motion. Was it THE culprit? Note sure ... but I KNOW it didn't help. Since then I have done one workout on new Look Keo Max pedals and it was a marked difference.

Add all the culprits up and we have a perfect storm. Now I just have to figure out how to get the storm to blow away!

Take home messages?

- Treat not only the cause but get on the trail to finding the cause of your "issues"

--

- Look beyond the obvious and have a team of support folks to reach out to ... I have to thank "My Team" (Paul J, My Wife, Doc I, Rand, Amy, G, AC, DR J, Chuck S, KP, JJ) for helping me move forward on this work in progress. I hope to be back rolling soon!!!

My Best ... DL