Love the Hurt: Thorn in my side

A lot of this during the week

So about a week and a half ago after a long day at work, I rushed over to Masters practice (swimming), jumped in the water and found out we were starting off the day with a "500 meter mass start." In other words simulating the start of a race by everyone lining up in one lane, sprinting for the first 200 meters and then just settling in at pace. I was a little confused why we didn't even get in a warm up in first. I had just finished up a huge weekend of training and was not ready to go full blast as soon as I jumped in the water...Oh well. So we lined up and took off and immediately I got kicked right in the ribs. I tried to shake it off for 100 meters but kinda yelled at the coach out of frustration and just swapped into another lane to do my warm up. I understood the idea of getting used to bumping and starting fast, but normally you'd have a wetsuit on which definitely would have lessened the impact to my ribs and not to mention getting in some type of warm up would have helped too. I was pretty pissed, but more out of frustration (not with the coach) so I just dealt with the pain and finished up the workout and iced it up when I got home.

For the rest of the week, I stuck with the workout schedule but the rib just seemed like it was slowly getting worse. I figured it was just bruised and to just train through it. Saturday was a big day for me which started with 10x100 hard with 10 seconds rest. Despite the rib pain I was still able to average 1:30's. I got in a long cool down and then it was time to suit up for three back to back brick sessions. I won't go into detail about the workout but I basically hit a hard bike/run 3 times in a row. It helped me lock in that 70.3 half marathon race pace which came very easy and also gave me a chance to work on quick transitions. It was SUPER windy that day and with each brick, my rib started to hurt more and more. By the time I finished up my last run the pain was almost unbearable and I had to cut out the cool down. I was pretty torn up for the rest of the day and Sunday I just got on the trainer instead of my scheduled long run. Every sneeze, hiccup, cough, laughing or bump on the road really irritated it and that's when I knew it was time to go see the doc.

Waiting on X-Ray results...

Well I ended up getting xrays yesterday and they came back negative! I was very happy. He said it was a deep contusion (bruise) on lower/inside rib and all of the muscle/cartilage that's in that area. So although I can resume training, I just have to let it heal or it can linger. Either way I am very relieved that it wasn't broken. All I could think about was all of the hard work I've been putting in over the winter to get ready for IMCA - so I just have to be patient this next week and let it heal. A part of this was taking Monday off. I haven't taken a scheduled day off since like November, so it was really hard to wrap my mind around it. So I thought to myself, "How can I get better during a day off?" A massage and adjustment! The Temecula Valley TRI club has a really cool hook up for massage and adjustments. His name is Dr. Bret McLaws and you can find him over at the Tri Valley Chiropractic. He's worked with a ton of triathletes and professional athletes in all sports and he really knows his stuff. If you live in the Temecula/Murrieta area, I highly recommend going to see him. After he put me through some serious pain with some active release therapy - he told me my IT band and glutes are a disaster and that after some continued treatment I could see some free speed. I'm down for that!

Love wine country

As for the rest of the weekend, it was Amy's birthday and one of the huge benefits of living in Temecula is the wine country. As much as I love my beer, I definitely have a soft spot for good wine. We've wine tasted in pretty much every major valley in CA (except Napa) and the fact that Temecula has over 100 wineries definitely helped us in making the decision to move up here from San Diego. Our house is about a 5 minute drive to the nearest winery and not to mention miles and miles of stop free riding. I never realized how beautiful it is out here and I definitely don't take it for granted when I'm riding where you can take it all in. We also live near where they launch all of the hot air balloons so the kids always get excited to see them take off. We have still yet to hit every winery up here, so I took Amy to two wineries I always see out riding where people are outside, laughing having a glass of vino and I'm flying by on a bike in a world of hurt and very jealous of them! I joked with Amy that someday I'll be that guy laughing...and finally I was, we had a blast. We topped it off with a nice dinner at PF Changs.

Other than that, here's a few pics from the weekend: