Weekly Review: March 19 to March 25, 2012

This past week was a mixed one. On the positive side, I hit my goals of doing 3 core routines and 2 strength exercises while getting an extra long bike workout in. On the negative side, this was due to some issues with my left leg which prevented me from doing my runs. The first issue that popped up was a sore left calf muscle, probably due to last week's 13-miler. Nothing serious, but I opted to just rest it knowing that I had a half marathon coming up. Later in the week, my left quadricep started to bother me and while doing some muscle manipulations, I felt a pretty noticeable knot in the muscle (Carly also verified) that is probably the source of the  pain. Knots aren't the end of the world but it will take some patience and diligence with rolling them out every day to remove them. It could easily turn into ITB issues if not cared for accordingly. I was debating whether or not to run the Caesar Rodney Half Marathon yesterday up until Saturday afternoon when I went for an easy run between football games to see how it would feel. It did not feel great at all. I could have been a hard ass and tried to gut out the race but it was pointless because the race was a "C" race for me and more of a fun thing to do. It was tough having to pull-out of my first race ever but I opted to play it conservative and focus on getting recovered and ready for the New Orleans Half Ironman which is a "B" race for me, so a little higher on the priority scale. Hopefully this is one of those "one step backwards, two step forwards" scenarios.

Despite the frustration from an early season injury, the key is staying positive and celebrating some of the other small wins to keep myself motivated and pushing forward. Here are some of the positives:

• Turning recovery day into a very light workout day as opposed to 100% off. A part of getting better is frequency so I've decided to do a short, light 1000yd swim on Mondays to try to get extra pool time in and my body used to swimming more
• First "big" swim of the year. I hit 3200 yds for a swim session on Friday which is probably the longest I've swam in a year for a workout.
• First outside ride of the year on the bike. I haven't ridden outside on my back since the Poconos Half Ironman last October so it was great being out there. It is funny because the ride was a substitute workout for not doing the half marathon but that is a benefit of triathlon/cross-training in that there is always some kind of workout you can do. I averaged 21 mph over 40 miles and dropped a guy trying to draft me so great early season ride
• More improvement on body composition. I slightly loss some weight over last week (.1 lb) from 170.5 to 170.4 which is negligible but my body fat % dropped down to 8.3% from  the previous week of 9.8% and lower than my best this year at 8.6% which overall is a new personal low for me. I'm hoping the difference is more lean muscle mass from my increased focus on lifting. I did track everything I ate last week pretty extensively so I'll post that up later this week for everyone to get an idea of how my diet/nutrition plays along with the workouts.

Overall, an up and down week but I'm optimistic I'll get over the leg injury. Being that both issues occurred on the left leg, it does cause me to re-evaluate any strength/mobility discrepancies between my right and left leg which maybe causing the injury. I think my left leg maybe over compensating for my right leg somewhere during my stride. I'll have to test it out and fix it.

Summary

Total Time: 10hr 31min

Total Distance: 99.75 miles

Swim: 5300 yds/2hr 26min

Bike: 88.67 miles/4 hr 33min

Run: 8 miles/1 hr 06min

Strength: 2hr 26min

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