Team McAlister

In spite of yesterday’s small Cyclemeter meltdown, the ride itself was fine and fun.  The icing on the cake though was hitting the Vibraflex, post-ride.  You have to find a club or gym that has one of these things!  The benefits are exactly (at least for me) as touted on their web site.  The Physical Therapist at our club oversees its use and gives tips about how to maximize its use.  As good as it is, apparently, you can get too much of a good thing with it.  Like any other piece of equipment, it can be misused to your detriment.

Here it is Wednesday and, as bummed out as I was on Monday about MCL pain, today I feel like I can run forever.  Not gonna actually try that, understand.  Just sayin’…

I have a late meeting today, so a ride is out.  I’m gonna try jumping rope today and see how the MCL holds up.  No running today, but look out for the weekend!  :-)

And, lest anyone, including the fine folks at Cyclemeter, think I’m just ranting about the app, my guess is that the app works as well as it can, but the iPhone’s GPS is the limiting factor.  Of course, I’m no engineer – software, hardware, or civil – but based on the way some other location-based apps seem to work, my guess is that iPhone’s GPS model is less robust than is needed.

Tags: cyclemeter, MCL, running, Training, Vibraflex 550

Getting old sucks!  And, having creaky, cranky joints sucks!  When you have both, it really sucks!  Back in September when I was in San Francisco hanging out with Colin and Schuyler, the medial collateral ligament (MCL) in my right knee started bugging me so badly that I could hardly walk.  I attributed this new-found pain to the also new running shoes and insoles that had been recently custom-fitted and carefully chosen to prevent injury.  Right….

The pain was nearly debilitating at times.  This “injury” had all the concomitant features – swelling, stiffness, loss of movement.  I could cycle about as much as I wanted without too many ill-effects, but running, swimming, walking were all crossed off my list of activities.  By December, when I couldn’t get over it, I plunged into despair and started considering giving up on the triathlon goal to settle for something more in line with what the elderly do, like a Scrabble tournament.

Sometimes though you just stumble into stuff.  Actually, if experience is any sort of guide, I usually just stumble into stuff.  First, I discovered that unclipping from my bike pedal in a certain way aggravated the problem.  Stopped doing that immediately.  Big help!  Second, I got an app for the iPhone called Muscle Trigger Points.  Massage therapists and physical therapists have taught me a thing or two about how body parts are connected and how a tight muscle here causes a pain over there.  A daily part of any and all of my not-really-routine exercise is to stretch and try to work on tight muscles.  That seems to be ultra-important as I age.

Anyway, about two weeks ago as I was going through my nightly stretching/massage program, I hit a spot in the Vastus Medialis (one of the muscles in the quadraceps group) that literally turned off the pain in the MCL.  It was like flipping a switch. No pain.  Zero.  I almost jumped up and took off running right then and there. Well, not really.

Next day – no pain.  So then, added some activities like jumping rope.  No pain – at least until I had jumped so much that lots of other stuff was hurting also.  Started the massage, hit the spot in Vastus Medialis and Bang!  no pain!  So that’s been going for several days now.

I’m now ready to begin the running conditioning process again.  Yay!  We’ll see if this MCL pain is something that can really be conquered.

More in due course….

Tags: iphone, knee pain, massage, MCL, running, triathlon