Frustration

I'd like to start by saying that I'm frustrated at myself for the following: (1) hurting my left heel again and (2) not blogging yesterday.

Yesterday morning I woke up and knew instantly that I had hurt my heel again. I was a little confused because it was feeling fine on Sunday, so I wondered if I had somehow aggravated it during swimming on Sunday. Of course, I'm sure it was a delayed reaction from the run on Saturday. I'm sure that it was a combination of the fact that I did a longer run, ran up hills, and didn't have my new shoes or new orthotics.

I will admit right now that I should have just listened to Laura's advice to take it slow and steady when starting back to running. She was right and I was wrong. I'm not too proud to admit it. Since she's been through her own injuries, I should have listened to her and learned from her prior pain. I'm going to try to remember that going forward. And next time, Laura, when you see me making a mistake, could you try to speak up? I give you permission!

So, with my bum heel, I went to pilates yesterday morning. I had a good workout with Nicole. I'm really trying to remember to keep my abs tucked in and my shoulders down, but I still need a lot of work on that. It's a good thing that Nicole is such a watch-dog for that sort of stuff.

I was hoping to make it to the gym again last night after work, but with my heel I was too frustrated and sad to make myself go. I was feeling really discouraged because I had wanted to go and do the strength workout for the day, but two of the lifts (leg presses and calf raises) I can't do because of my heel, which was enough to just push me over the edge and make me not go. I know it wasn't a total waste of a day, but I also wanted to go and do some cardio and make up for skipping out last Friday.

This morning would have been the Terrier run, but that's obviously not a real option for me right now. I decided that I would sleep in and hope that my heel would be magically healed when I woke up. Of course, it wasn't. On my way to work, I dropped off my prescription for Celebrex so that hopefully that would help and at least reduce some of the inflammation in my heel over the next few days.

I knew I had to hit the gym tonight and hopefully put some of this frustration to good use. I rode the cardio bike on the random hill setting on level 10 and had a really nice workout. I rode for 45 minutes and went 15 miles (20 MPH average - why can't I do that in real life?). I really tried my best to keep the cadence up as high as I possibly could. I also watched a video yesterday by Joe Friel on how to bike more efficiently and I tried to put some of those tips into use on the cardio bike, just to get my legs used to the feeling of "scraping the mud off" my shoes. Hopefully that will translate back to the real bike once the weather clears up around here.

I feel much better now that I've gone to the gym. Even if I have to ride the bike most of the time for the next couple weeks. I've decided that I'm not going to try to run again for at least a week (and hopefully by then my orthotics will be back) to let my heel rest and recover. I still have the thought in the back of my head that I might need to re-think this sprint triathlon in June. At this point, my goal is to still compete and if I absolutely have to, I will walk the run portion. I think either way the transition practice will be invaluable for the Olympic in September. I'm just going to try to keep my chin up and keep working out to the best of my ability.