On The Mend

IronMan Uk Plans Are Back On Track!

Those of you that frequent this blog (much appreciated by the way!) will have noticed that it has been a while since I have posted anything related training – running or otherwise. The main reason for this was that after four months of solid training starting in October last year, I picked up a nasty injury in my left knee which threatened to put my carefully laid IronMan plans on hold. Training for a race like IronMan involves changing your entire routine to fit in all of the essential brick sessions, interval sessions and long steady sessions, as well as the gym work and never ending stretching that you have to do to keep your fitness on track. You literally throw everything you have into your training and so when someone tells you that you are going to have to pull out of the race, or you risk causing yourself some long term damage, it is absolutely shattering news. This is what happened to me a few months ago, and so instead of filling the web with the usual training tips and progress reports, I had to resort to reviewing some of the latest gadgets and gizmos that have been released during 2011 Q1. Not a bad thing in itself I guess but I wasn’t exactly talking about the parts of the sport that I love either!

Thankfully this is all about to change as after consulting two physios and numerous other medical practitioners for two months, my battered knee is now in a good enough shape to start training properly again! Although I have been able to do a large amount of swimming over the past few months, running and cycling has been a rather more painful affair, and as a result I haven’t run or cycled more then a mile for since February. For anyone that knows something about knees, I had a multitude of diagnoses that ranged from probable tendon damage, quad muscle imbalances, patella tracking problems and even tendonitis. No mater what the diagnosis, they all had the same treatment in common – ice, rest, massage and resistance exercise. After two months of rest and rehab there was no notable improvement and so last week I finally lost my temper and in a frustrated rage, headed out for a longish cycle to tempt fate.

Thankfully the gamble paid off, as after the initial painful few miles my knee slowly started to loosen and the pain diminished from a sharp stab to a dull ache. Even though I knew that I was risking more knee damage, I really enjoyed just getting outdoors on the bike and before I knew it I had racked up a fairly slow twenty five miler. Fully expecting serious repercussions from the ride I stretched and iced the troublesome knee as much as I could bear after the ride, and to my amazement, the next day it felt better then ever. There was no pain, no stiffness and I even managed to go out for a three mile jog without too much trouble!

Frozen Pea Therapy!

Fully expecting this one-off pain free training session to be a fluke I opted to join up with a mate from work who has completed six IronMan races before and on Monday we went for a speedy 36 mile ride through some Middlesex countryside! Riding at 18mph made me realise just how much my fitness has suffered over the past two months but more importantly the dodgy knee held up just fine and after some gym work and physio attention today, it is felling almost as good as new. Hopefully this good spell of rehab is part of a long-term trend and I can start to scale up the training to some respectable levels as soon as possible. Who knows, the UK IronMan plans for this July might not be dead after all!

Next step – some open water swimming and a fifty mile cycle!