The Deep End

Good luck to Bree and Brooke in the Honolulu Marathon on Sunday!!!!!

After you have done the Ironman, you tend to have a few niggles. Do 2 in one year... in 3.5 months.... (Have I mentioned that I did 2 Ironmans this year yet? :-) , and niggles become a part of every day existence.

In 2005 I partially tore my left Achilles Tendon and it was a long road back. While in a walking boot I biked with one leg, I swam with my feet tied together, it was awful.

My right AT began to feel sore before Ironman lake Placid, but luckily I did no damage to it. I was easily able to run through it, and I was able to have good solid training and a good Ironman Florida. The soreness would vanish after 15 minutes. Whew.

The off-season is about healing those niggles so they don't become problems. Coach T and I decided to take a full 3 weeks off road running and put me into the pool. Our goal is 100% pain free Achilles tendon on Monday December 17th. Now, granted my pain was a 2/10. But a 2/10 can stay a 2 or can become an 8.... and we don't want that to happen in March.

So I have been taking to the pool, and strangely I am loving my pool running sessions.

I am a believer in specificity. If you want to run well on the roads you have to run on the roads. No amount of pool running will replace road running, but it does make the transition back to the roads a bit easier. It is excellent for a day of no pounding. It absolutely has its place.

Because I teach spinning as a college course at the Rochester Institute of Technology, I have access to the most amazing facilities. A 10 lane pool, a diving well, a kids pool with a lazy river built in, and a giant hot tub. My husband and son come as well.

So I am blessed I am not stuck running during water walking time at the YMCA with the blue hairs.... who claim we runners splash too much....

I get to run.... get this.... in a pool with other runners. Kids from the indoor track team, cross country team.... at noon there are about 10 of us running in the giant diving tank. It takes me about 10 minutes to complete a rectangle around the pool, so a 30 minute run is a breeze.

I do wear a heart rate monitor so I have something to gauge intensity. And I pay very close attention to form. I wear an aqua belt and as I am getting stronger I take it off at the end, I allow myself to run without it as long as I don't lose form! To emulate running form as best I can I concentrate on running form (genius... I know) and keeping a cadence around 90.

When fatiguing it is easy to revert to a cycling form, so pay attention, keep the focus!

So I am healing nicely, and it is all I can do to prevent myself from running. But I will be back to the roads soon enough. In the meantime I am back to the pool and back on the bike. And man, it feels good!

Thanks for stopping by.

:-) Mary