Clearwater Here We Come

Time to make the annual pilgrimage back to Clearwater! Sadly, I'll be on the sidelines this time around. But... it's all good. I CAN'T wait to see my crew in action! Stay tuned for race recaps and pics. Weather is looking ideal, so it should make for a great mini-vacation.

In other news... I was inspired by Michellie Jones' annual training approach and have decided to shut things down for a while in order to let this knee fully heal up. Although it's substantially better now, every time I try to run more than 30 minutes over rolling terrain, the inflammation creeps back up on me. And although it pains me to admit it, the pool has only slowed my rate of recovery from the injury :( Hundreds of turns/push offs + extensive kick sets leave the knee noticeably tender after every session. It'll be tough dropping exercise cold turkey for a couple of weeks, especially since I'm FINALLY making progress in the water, but if doing so means I'll be able to REALLY start training again by Thanksgiving, I'll do what I must. I'm not looking forward to the break though, that's for sure.

Upon further research, I'm pretty confident that my nagging injury (nothing serious mind you, just bad enough to keep me from being able to train "full on") is a case of Plica Syndrome. It's similar to PFMS, but the medial discomfort is the major distinction. Whether it's related to the overpronation (which makes sense from a kinetic standpoint) or not is beyond me, but the location of the discomfort is EXACTLY what the linked article is describing. That spot is a bit sore to the touch, especially after training, and feels much better after stretching and a bit of passive recovery. Thinking back, I dealt with this same injury a handful of times both during my early 20s while training for triathlon and during my days as a youth/high school distance runner. Major doses of ibuprofen, ice and complete rest usually cleared it up within a week, but I have to admit that since the injury flared up back in September, I've only allowed myself 2 consecutive days of passive recovery; enough to bring some pronounced improvement, but not enough to kick this thing for good. Bottom line: If I'm not able to train like a PRO, I might as well not even bother training, because 30 minute runs and 2 hour easy spins don't do a thing for my fitness at this stage of the game.

Well, at least I'll be able to relate to my Clearwater athletes now; we'll all be laying around/doing nothing until 12/o1, training wise that is, effective this coming Sunday. I could stand to put on a little "chub-chub" anyway. To be honest, I'm getting sick and tired of hearing Dean Phillips complain about my weight "advantage" every time we climb a hill, so perhaps a 10lb weight gain on my part will help to level the playing field and make him happy on our Sunday long rides.