Tendonitis and Chocolate Milk

So my shoulder pain came back. I'm not sure I mentioned it before, but 6-8 weeks ago I had a pain in my right shoulder. My chiropractor/physical therapist told me stretch and work on my traps. I did and the pain went away. I stopped working on my traps and now it's back.

I went to a MD on Tuesday. He diagnosed the tendonitis and told me to do yoga. When I told him I was a runner/triathlete he told me to keep doing yoga. Interesting prescription.

What this means is no swimming until either A) my shoulder stops hurting or B) 9/7 the date of the Pacific Coast Triathlon. I paid my money and I'm racing it, even if I'm slow.

Wednesday was a breakthrough cycling workout for me. We did hill repeats on El Toro Trail. Two Sundays ago I got up the hill in record speed for me. This was after a 25ish mile ride on Santiago Canyon. I chalked it up to weirdness.

Wednesday my warm up lap was about 10:30, WTF? The next one was about 9:35 thanks to Martha chasing a fellow diva up the hill. I didn't want them to pass me, so I got the benefit of Martha's yelling, too. Passes 3 and 4 hovered around 10:09-1o:20! The last one was cut short due to darkness and me needing to ride my butt back home before it got pitch black.

I'm very impressed with my badassness. The Triathlon Goddess heard my rant about my swim and chose to show me my improvement on the bike. Well, really I was able to track my progress via my training log and my garmin. I love it when I can see progress.

Due to a few fellow bloggers asking about nutrition, I've decided to take one for the team. I will be using chocolate milk as my recovery drink of choice for the next month. I'll report back on my findings. I usually use Luna's recovery drink and have tried Hammer's Recoverite, which worked for me.

I just need to remember the chocolate milk is for recovery, not dessert. Tonight I drank 1 8 oz container for recovery and another one for dessert. At this rate, I'll have to buy a chocolate cow to make this affordable.

Schedule Change

It's times like these when I realize I'm not a "true" athlete. I don't tend to push past the pain. I don't tend to talk myself out of a DOR or try and convince myself to go to that 5:30 am spin class or just to the frakking gym in the morning. I'm putting together a plan to get over these things (Step 1: stop complaining. Step 2: toss any excuses. Step 3: get of your ass and train.)

One thing I haven't been able to force myself through is heat. My plan today was to ride Santiago Canyon at 4pm. I checked Accuweather.com before I left work. It was 86 degrees with a Real Feel of 96. Um, no thanks.

I went for a 45 minute skills and drills pool swimming instead. I figure, at least I did something, right? I was focusing on my gliding. I knew (it was empirically proven by me to myself) that a faster arm turn over doesn't equal faster speed, so I focused on slowing down my stroke, reaching as far as I can and flicking my wrist at the end of the stroke.

I think I made progress on a mind-body connection. I "know" how the whole stroke feels. It's a base to build my future swimming successes.

A Bit Premature

The Triathlon and Running Goddesses have a way of bringing you back to reality.

No you are not the stud of the endurance sports world that you thought you were. You're just an under prepared, overweight, short poser. (Okay, I don't really believe any of that, but I'm trying to drum up sympathy here)

I went for the 6.2 ish (really more like 8ish miles with the warm up) run lead by the OC Tri Club. The route was Mission Viejo International's run course. I am soo glad I'm not doing that race.

It goes from easyish (Lake Mission Viejo swim), to challenging (Santiago Canyon ride), to OMGWTFBBQ run. There is one street that I pretty much walked up because running up it was probably slower. Also the path takes you across all kinds of terrain. Yes I mean it. There is pavement, cement, bark, grass, hay type stuff and dirt. Not that any of this is bad, but it adds a certain element that I would be happy to avoid.

Somewhere between these terrain transitions I must have jammed my ankle, which ended up aggravating my IT band. (this is my chiropractor's theory anyway)

As I said before, the Triathlon and Running Goddesses have a way of telling us mortals to back off. So I'm taking my poll down and will be choosing the Bum plan.

So I'm not the stud of the endurance sports world, I'm okay with that. I know if I just listen to my body, I'll live to run another race.

Thanks Goddesses.