5 posts tagged “swimming”
Bad news #1 is that as of December 2008 my right hamstring was still bothering me. For a quick recap... In December 2007 my doctor diagnosed a "grade 1" hamstring strain. Six weeks of PT I still had pain but was cleared to run. It never quite healed. My goal to run the Wild West 100K in August 2008 was nixed.
It was last October that I injured my right hamstring. I took some time off from running but on Thanksgiving day 2007 I went for a run only to return with my leg more sore than ever, so I went to the doctor.
Both the primary doctor and the physical trainer diagnosed the injury as a "grade 1" hamstring strain: there was no acute injury, no bruising and no palpable tears.
After a month of therapy the PT was satisfied that I was almost fully healed and he cleared me to go running again, albeit it slowly. I still couldn't run a moderate pace without pain but the PT was certain that my hamstring was just sore, not injured. During treatment he was amazed at the strength in my leg, so I figured all was good.
It hasn't turned out that way. Although I've managed to log 255 miles so far this year that's a far cry from the 1018 that I ran in 2007, the latter which includes zero miles in December. In fact I was averaging about 100 miles per month in 2007 before the injury compared to 23/mo this year.
In part that's due to being cautious with the leg - I took up inline skating and added more cycling to reduce the impact stress on the hamstring. But it's also due to the hamstring itself. While I can run without pain for up to 3 miles, my hammy still gets sore during a run if I go faster than a 9:00 pace or if I exceed 3 miles; plus, it gets mildly sore after a run of any distance.
It's certainly better than a year ago, but shouldn't it be healed by now? My doctor seems to agree. When I saw him last week we were talking about his own injury - last year he ruptured his achilles tendon playing basketball almost the same time that my hamstring acted up. He's back to playing basketball although less than 100%, but when we considered that my "grade 1" strain is still limiting me after the same recovery time, it's a bit concerning.
So now I have an appointment with an orthopaedist in a couple weeks to see if there's something else going on, and I've pretty much shut down my running again. Yeah, I'm a bit bummed but the worst part is that with winter here, inline skating and cycling are no longer options. I'm finally starting to notice a significant decrease in endurance when I go hiking with the dogs, and my resting heart rate is now 64 instead of the "in shape" 54 and the 57 that it's been this summer.
All I can think to do is try swimming. Although it's indoors, it sure beats sitting on a stationary bike. Since the local health club offers monthly rates that are reasonable, I'm planning to start swimming in December and if I need any rehab from the ortho, the club will have equipment there I could use, too.
One problem: I'm not a swimmer! Sure I *can* swim but I've never sustained a continuous swim for longer than a couple minutes. Treading water I can do of course, but boy is it hard to breathe doing a front crawl! I can never get the timing right. Another issue is goggles - I have 20/400 vision without contacts and I'd like to wear them in the pool if possible, but past experience with goggles has been that they leak.
Are there any swimmers out there who can give me some advice?
With luck I'll maintain my fitness in the water and by the time spring rolls around, I can get out onto the roads and trails again!
Sorry about the corny title, but I decided to let Haven and Beacon write this one... :)
"Woo hoo! Andrew took us trail running this morning! It wasn't long before we stumbled upon this rock in the middle of the trail, but it moved! It kinda freaked us out, but we were brave enough to sit next to it while Andrew snapped a photo.
After chasing some deer, squirrels, and even some robins we were getting pretty hot even though the morning air wasn't warm yet. We found a small trickle of a stream that was full of black mud - it wasn't much, but it was enough to roll around in to cool off. Andrew wasn't so pleased when we ran past him and rubbed the muck on his pants!
Almost two hours into the run we were getting really tired! Andrew had us pause for a break and we were more than happy to lie down for a while and enjoy the sunlight filtering through the branches of the pine trees. Yes, dogs enjoy nice weather, too!
On the way back home we rolled in the little yucky stream again so Andrew took us on a detour to the Flat River before going home. Eagerly we jumped into the river and lay down, soaking in the refreshing coolness of the smoothly flowing water. A side benefit was that it rinsed the mud out of our fur. Apparently Andrew wanted to cool off too, so he started waded out into the water! Not wanting to be alone in the woods, we swam out after him.
Halfway across the river there was an old tree stump that had lodged against a large, submerged rock. Swimming gets tiring after a while, but luckily Andrew stopped here and we hung out in the river, using the stump and rock to brace ourselves against the current so we could relax, rest, and cool off.
Finally it was time to go home! Andrew had to leash us up for the last of our ten miles since it was along neighborhood roads. We would've preferred that Amanda had driven the car out to pick us up! Especially Beacon, who was suffering from a very sore paw pad, but he toughed it out and made it home. Amanda fed us breakfast and within no time we were ready for a nice, long nap!"
This year we're keeping track of our dogs' activities and thanks to Saturday's race and an easy run with Haven yesterday, the dogs can boast some milestones:
Haven - 202 miles and 5 hours of swimming
Beacon - 150 miles and 9 hours of swimming
The miles include on-leash running and off-leash running and hiking; the swimming is mostly fetching sticks in the river. If we could teach them to ride a bike they'd make great triathletes!
Amanda is a bit worried because Haven is keeping up with her! Amanda is at 208 miles, so I'm teasing her by saying I'll take Haven for a 12-miler this weekend. Although Haven needn't worry because I have yet to see Amanda swim in the river with a stick in her mouth. :)
Triathlons are probably the most popular multi-sport event out there. I've never tried one, although I've tried a few adventure races. One thing that has intrigued me over the years is that most triathletes I know are cyclists who converted to tri's, or tell me that cycling is their strongest discipline. There are a few runners who dabble in tri's, but I don't know any swimmers in the sport.
Why is this? At first I assumed that the meticulousness required of cyclists to maintain their bikes is an attitude well-suited to triathlons - you have to keep lots of gear in order. I've often felt this is why most adventure racers hail from backgrounds in either mountain biking or rustic camping.
Then I started comparing the lengths of disciplines involved with triathlons, specifically the iron-distance variety: 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike, 26.2 mile run. Is running a marathon really equivalent to swimming less than 1/10 that distance? Let's examine a hypothetical situation...
Three buddies are training regularly for Ironman Hawaii. Each has a background as a single-sport athlete in each discipline. Sam was a Swimmer, Bob was a Biker, and Rick was a Runner. As a result, each is 10% faster than average in their specialty; in other disciplines they are average. In theory, they should each finish at the same time, right? Let's look at the results for the 2006 Ironman in Kona.
First up is the swim leg. Average time was 1:16, which is when Bob and Rick came out of the water. Sam was 10% faster, so he finished at about 1:08.
Next is the bike leg. Average time was 5:47, good for Sam and Rick. Bob's 10% advantage has him finishing in 5:12.
Finally the run leg. Average time was 4:10, which Sam and Bob ran. Rick was 10% faster and finished in 3:45.
(We'll assume that all three of them were average in transition times at 4:30 per transition, 9 minutes total.)
You can see where this is going. Bob was the first of the buddies to finish, crossing the line at 10:47 and putting him 4.6% ahead of the average overall finishing time of 11:18. Rick finished 10 minutes later at 10:57, 3.1% above average overall. Then "straggled" in Sam at 11:14, his swimming prowess placing him just 0.6% above average overall.
No wonder most triathletes are primarily cyclists - they get the most bang for the buck. Swimmers get the shaft. For this reason some have proposed re-scaling the distances so that each discipline takes a similar amount of time, based on single-sport athletes' records for each. This has been called an "equilateral triathlon". For comparison, a traditional iron-distance swim / bike / run is 2.4/112.0/26.2 (in miles). An "equilateral" iron-distance triathlon would sport distances of 7.5/60.0/26.2, where a world-class single-sport athlete could finish their respective discipline in just over 2 hours. Quite a difference!
However, is that really a fair comparison? What's more difficult: swimming 2 hours, cycling 2 hours, or running 2 hours? Maybe Sam's 10% swimming advantage only saves him 8 minutes of time, but also saves him proportionally more energy so that in theory he could do the next two legs a little above average, while Bob's 35 minute savings on the efficient bicycle doesn't gain him much extra energy over other racers.
Here's how I'd do it: Find out how many calories the average world-class marathoner burns over 26.2 miles. Then find swimming and cycling distances where athletes of similar caliber would burn the same number of calories. That way competitors would strive for equal skill and efficiency among all disciplines in order to maximize their overall endurance. I believe that such an "energy distance" triathlon would be truly unbiased!
