Team McAlister

Today’s plan was for a long-ish ride at a pace that would be on the edge for me.  The route is very similar to the last 2 rides – only a little longer.  As always I was testing out myself and my gear.  Cyclemeter was almost dead on with iSport today….go figure.

Here’s the skinny: iSport shows 35.9 miles, avg speed 16.3 mph, top speed 46.7 mph, 2629 calories. Cyclemeter shows 35.78 miles, avg speed 16.16 mph, top speed 47.45 mph, calories 3727.  Close enough for Cyclemeter to get a passing grade today.  Even better, Cyclemeter appears to have mapped the route correctly.

Check out the ride:  http://j.mp/9eF0uO

By the time, I hit the last climb on River Mountain Rd, my legs were toast.  I was hungry.  In short, that was perfect for the next part of the day – shaking on the Vibraflex.  I went straight to LRAC to jump on it for 2x 2 minutes at 26Hz.  Man, that feels good!  Vibraflex seems to be a recovery miracle!  No knee pain!  Better flexibility!  No sore muscles! YAY!

Tags: bicycle, cyclemeter, cycling, injuries, iphone, Vibraflex 550

Never having been a runner, I’m not all that familiar with the attendant injuries. For the past few weeks I’ve been trying to learn to distinguish between all the different sorts of pain that come with this sport. Sure my legs are going to be sore, my calves feel like they’re on fire about 60% of the time now. My upper leg muscles weren’t used to anything more strenuous than walking up a hill or an occasional bike ride. So there’s a certain amount of just shutting up and getting over it that I have to do. But the past few runs have had me worrying. All the info I can find points to shin splints, but fortunately at this point it’s not bad enough to warrant real recovery time.

I’m pretty sure that it’s my shoes’ fault. I’m running on neutral trail shoes when I definitely need at least a stability shoe, more likely a motion control, in the road variety. Maybe this week I’ll hit a few specialty running stores and get gait analyses and shoe advice. Until I can afford new shoes though, I’ll just have to back off on the running and maybe substitute biking. If it would just stop freaking raining all the time I’d put some miles on the ol’ Cannondale, but until that happens I’ll be on the stationary at the gym (ugh). Now’s as good a time as any to start swimming, I suppose, but I want to swim even less than I want to run.

Tags: equipment, injuries, running, Weather

Last week was sort of lost due to a trip to LA. The highlights were crummy bikes in the Marriott workout room, a tour of dts Digital Cinema’s engineering department, and the porn convention at the hotel….seriously, there was an internet porn show at the hotel. Trés bizarre! Anyway, it was a good op to let my knee recover some….the trip, not the porn show. Since my last entry I’ve had a couple of good rides. Last Sunday was about 32 miles, decent pace, good rolling terrain. Nothing too strenuous and the knee held up well. Today was the bad boy though. 48 miles. 3:21 and change, about 3,000 feet of elevation gain with a westerly wind that nearly made forward progress impossible. Going East, I was a star. Knee is fine even after 4 significant climbs that averaged in the 11 -12% range – and 2 of those were directly into the teeth of the wind! It’s great to be back in the saddle and getting some quality miles in. The dodgy knee continues to improve.

Tags: cycling, health, injuries

something valuable – power, wisdom, Ding Dongs? Well, whatever else may accrue to me, I’ve learned that running as a recreational activity is not in my future. Here’s the deal: I know I can make a half-marathon distance at a 14 minute or slightly better pace. I also know that a shorter, faster run jacks up one knee pretty badly, at least right now. So, the plan now is to continue training on a very moderate program. “Real running” will only occur as an element of an actual competition. I need to have a much deeper running base and a lot less weight to stay serious about this. Today was a nice, short little ride that helped recover some athletic motion in the bad knee. About 18 miles. EZ pace. Nothing spectacular, but it was better than sitting on the sofa.

Tags: cycling, health, injuries, running

but it’s for the best. Afterall, when one’s race pace amounts to a 13:06 mile, humility is an easy virtue to cultivate. Today’s scheduled run was 4 miles at pace. A nice warm-up was followed by 2 miles of actual running, 1 mile of walking, and a final running mile. Several observations include a definite absence of sore calf muscles, a longer stride, a more confident foot-strike, and better overall looseness. However, the knees are organizing a revolt. A coup d’ patella is brewing on the horizon. (Probably at the behest of free radicals lurking the neighborhood.) I intend to win the hearts and minds of my rebellious body parts with generous applications of ice and Aleve, stretching, and recovery time (thank you bicycle!).

Tags: health, injuries, running

The other day during my five-mile run my left foot started to hurt. I think it was my flexor halucis longus tendon (I had to look that up—running might end up helping me with my anatomy class). The next day when I did three miles (29:33, w00t!) it was fine and it hasn’t bothered me since. I’m going to try for 9 miles tomorrow, and if it’s a problem I may look into getting some more specific running shoes.

I’m wearing New Balance 873s now, which are trail runners, meaning they’re not as cushioned. I also picked them out based on their looks, because they lack that certain running-shoe butt-ugliness and when I got them I didn’t think I’d ever actually be running unless somebody tried to rob me or something. Unfortunately this means I skipped the whole gait-analysis thing so not only do I have the wrong shoes for the surface I run on, they also might be just wrong for me altogether. I will, however, be using them in that half marathon because that sucker includes “a combination of singletrack hiking trails, fire roads, pavement and a beach crossing.”

It being the last day of the month, I went back and read some of my older posts. It’s really encouraging to see how I’ve improved—A couple of weeks ago I was really proud of myself for doing 2.54 miles in 30 minutes. I guess that’s what this blog is for, good to know it’s working!

Tags: injuries, running, shoes

In an effort to loosen up after yesterday’s insanity, I hit the rollers for about 40 minutes. It was a good spin; just the ticket to warm up some tired muscles and get the kinks out.

But, my toe is pretty sensitive. Guess this nail is coming off. It took having the bike shoes a little loose and some easy spinning to get comfortable, but at pace everything was fine. A little post-ride stretching and all’s right with the world.

Tags: cycling, injuries, rollers, running, toes, triathlon

It’s beautiful out there today! As soon as the aquarium water change is finished, I’m getting out to ride and run.

The danger is in trying to do too much. Ideally, I’ll get about 3 hours of cycling in plus the ever-present 30 minutes of running/walking. Three hours of cycling right now is a load though,so we’ll see how it goes.

Tags: biking, cycling, injuries, running, triathlon