My Achilles' Heel

As the fates would have it, my Achilles' heel is, in fact, my Achilles' heel tendon. For the purposes of this triathlon, then, my Achilles' heel has been the running. In other words, I haven't been doing it. Oops.

This is potentially a little tiny bit of a problem. I am competing--well, that's an overstatement; how about participating--in a triathlon in two and a half weeks (eeks!) and I have yet to run the full distance my training regimen suggests. The final leg of the triathlon is a 3.1-mile (5k) run. At this point in my training, I should be running about 40 minutes. The program I have definitely over-trains the trainee, so that you're absolutely for sure ready to go on race day; I'm hoping to complete the run in less than half an hour. I train at a 10-minute mile on the treadmill, but probably run closer to a 9-minute mile outside; and who knows how I'll be feeling on race day. Anyhow, I've still been calling it quits around 2.5 miles. Not cool.

To be honest, I really don't know what my hangup is. I've been running inside recently--the last two times I've had runs on the schedule, it's been raining or obscenely hot or something--so that might have something to do with it. But both times I also happened to be on a treadmill next to someone I knew, so we could chat it up during the run, which usually helps keep me motivated. Apparently "usually" in this instance means "not so much."

Anyhow, part of my struggle with running is my Achilles' tendon, as I mentioned before. It gets really tight when I run if I'm not careful. About a year and a half ago, it froze up to the point that I could hardly walk for a week. I took so much ibuprofen that I think it's still coursing through my veins, rested and iced constantly, and after a few days things settled down. I happened to mention it to my boss when I was getting an adjustment, and he started working on my calves to get them loosened up. It hurts something fierce, but it's helpful! I also him adjusting my feet, because something happens that he explained but I have forgotten--maybe it's called my metatarsal arch? Anyway, basically the ball of my foot goes bonkers from running and it hurts a lot but then he fixes it. I think I need to have my feet worked on this afternoon again, come to think of it. Maybe that will help me get motivated to get moving. We'll see.

I think I will try to hit the gym this evening for a run. I do need to go a few more times before the month is up, so that my insurance covers some of the membership costs. My training buddy is out of town for a few days, but we might try another lake swim on Sunday or early next week! I need to go for a few more long bike rides in the next few weeks, but then I'll be good to go for race day! I'm really appreciating the more relaxed approach to triathlon training. Maybe I'm just that lazy, but at least I'm enjoying myself!

Lake Swim

That's right, folks: I swam in a lake. A gross, murky, seaweed-infested lake full of sharks and shipwrecks and squids and probably the Loch Ness monster in there too. At least, that's what my crazy brain kept thinking every time I had to put my face back in the water. I miss my nice clear pool water! I want to see that blue tile stripe showing me where to go! But I have done the lake swim and will do a couple other lakes in the coming three weeks (eep!) before The Big Day.

Let's share some more details. First, a picture! (I don't have a lot of those, sorry. I'm not one of those people that wants to put pictures of myself sweating on the Interwebs.)

Thanks to the magic of cell phone cameras, we have this picture of me, my friend/swim coach Jess, and my training buddy KC. This was shot moments before we plunged into Silver Lake, shown behind us. Just look at us in our swim caps! My roommate Anna sat on the beach with our stuff, and she reported a child saying of us, "They must be really good! They have hats!"

A few details about the swim: First of all, it was c-c-c-cold. Hopefully another 3 weeks will warm up the lake in Clearwater! It was manageable, though, so I'm not worried about it. Second of all: I am SO THANKFUL for Jess! Without her, we would have been... well, sunk, pun more or less intended. KC would consistently swim off at a 90-degree angle to the direction we wanted to go; and I freaked out every three strokes or so about the nasty murky water. Thanks to goggles, I could open my eyes underwater, but I couldn't see anything. It was gross and kind of nightmare-ish for me. I have anxiety about deep water a little bit. Oh, also, any time I would swim by a piece of seaweed I would scream. Couldn't help it. It's gross enough when it touches my leg when I'm not expecting it, but when I put my face back in the water after taking a breath and there's this piece of something nasty staring at me, waving in the current or whatever, it's kind of terrifying. Seriously, I would never survive in the wild. I better stay away from the ocean.

Anyhow, the solution that the three of us came up with was pretty great. KC would swim to one side of Jess, so she could keep him steering in the right direction. Then I would swim close behind Jess, so I could see her feet and knew that I was not left alone to die a murky death in the middle of some godforsaken lake. (Did I mention I have anxiety about deep water?) With that foot security right in front of my face, I made much better progress, except when we swam around an island that had enough seaweed by it that I had to stop every stroke and a half to scream. But the swimming part itself was not bad. The only problem was that I was not relaxed in the water at all, so I was having a much harder time breathing. Hopefully a few more lake excursions will get me accustomed to the ick. Also, on Race Day, there will be hundreds of people swimming together, so unless I'm really super awful bad, I should be able to see other people throughout the duration of the swim. That will help a lot.

I'm not a good enough swimmer to go fast enough to actually fatigue my muscles; so in that respect, I hope I'll do all right for the other two legs of the race. I'm feeling pretty good about the swim portion of the tri. Now I just have to convince myself to train a little more with the running and the biking. I've been pretty complacent in both areas, I'll admit. One of these next couple swims, I'm hoping we'll be able to swim for a while and then get right on a bike. That transition will be weird, I think, so good to practice before The Event. Same thing with the bike-to-run transition. All right, Ruth. Let's go.

Strange(r) Encouragement

There are some strangely friendly and easily impressed people at my gym. Yesterday I went for a quick swim and the lady in the lane next to me started talking to me. She asked if my goggles worked. Strange question right there, if you ask me. But I told her all about how goggles changed my life. (Side note: I have to type that word twice every single time because I always write googles the first time! Anyone else?) Anyway, she commented on my flip turning... apparently she was in the pool during one of my flip turn lessons. She was pretty impressed with my progress, I guess. That's not the first time someone in the pool has taken note of my swim routine and talked to me about it, either! Several months ago, a lady in the water aerobics class noticed the drills I was doing in the open lane at the end of the pool, and spoke to me after class. She was very impressed with a one-arm-only drill I did.

Both of those instances were pretty strange to me. I generally don't talk to people I don't know at the gym. I love seeing people I do know there--and I often do--but sweaty or swimsuit-clad strangers? Eh... I'll pass. Nevertheless, it was pretty great to get some truly unbiased encouragement. I have a fantastic amount of support from friends, family, patients, and my boss and his wife, and I am so grateful for that! But getting a random unsolicited compliment from a total stranger is also kind of awesome, especially when they notice an area where I find myself struggling. The one-arm drill that caught the first woman's eye was really hard! And flip turns are definitely not my strong suit. (Is that a swimming pun? Oh, I amuse myself...)

Anyhow, I did appreciate the encouragement from this random lady in the pool last night. Every little bit of motivation helps! This afternoon I'll be going for a short run--should be about 21 minutes--over my lunch break. There is some fantastic weather going on outside, so I am looking forward to that. Tomorrow my plan is to fit in a long bike ride (70 minutes) and a long swim (35 minutes)--we'll see how that goes! Swim first, probably. Between the two, that's a large percentage of my day spent on training! But Friday I head out of town for a wedding, so I've got to cram things in a bit more this week. I'll definitely keep y'all posted on how the double workout goes.