The hidden benefit of my back injury

I promise this will be the last post about my back.  I am not a winer, nor do I seek attention for injury however, in this case, this specific SI Joint injury may have been a blessing.  I won't know for sure until I do my race but if yesterday was an indication I may have lucked out.

So periodically to make sure my training is doing what it is supposed to be doing and my specific workouts are based on where my physical abilities are, Jennifer at trismart assigns me tests.  Yesterday was a Functional Threshold Power Test or often referred to as FTP.  Riding with a power meter is the single best way to improve your cycling ability.  The reason being is that it is constant.  When you think about cycling, there are many variables like wind and hills being the two biggest.  Both of these greatly affect speed which is what we all strive for (yesterday was a great case in point).  The reason power is so important is it actaully measures that amount of force you apply to your pedals.  Power doesn't care how fast you go or if the wind is at your back or in your face, it only measures how hard you are working.  About once ever two months I do an FTP test which is loosly defined as the average power I can generate for an hour.  Once FTP is determined, my coach can calculate all of my Power Zones for racing based on the distance of the cycling portion of the tri.  For instance, for my Ironman I will bike in Zone 2 - the aerobic zone and regardless of wind and terrain, I will be instructed not to apply more power (as measured by my powermeter) that we determine I can handle.  THIS IS EXTREMELY important when you race because you always feel jacked up and like a super hero during a race.  If you go too hard especially in a race that is 12+ hours long your body feels great at first but all of the blood rushes to your legs to help them pedal.  During the bike, especially the first 60 miles you need to take in a lot of calories to fuel you bike and run and recover from the swim and if all of your blood is in your legs, you don't digest your food and when you don't digest your food you have no energy and you bonk.  Here is a great video of a famous dual "bonking" in an Ironman.  It isn't because they didn't train, it is most likely because they didn't get enough nutrition during the race or raced so hard they couldn't process it.  For us inexperienced racers who have not gotten the "feel" of the right mix of effort yet, power is the only way to tell. This is one of the most famous of all bonks but it happens every race   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTn1v5TGK_w .

Anyway I digress....  The reason my back injury may have been a blessing is because I wasn't able to run so spent a lot of time on the bike doing very specific work to increase my FTP.  If I increase my one hour FTP the trickle down is that I also increase my aerobic zone allowing me to apply more power over a longer period of time in the Ironman making my relative speed faster.  The FTP test is pretty simple.  Do a time trial as hard and fast as you can go wihtout "blowing up".  Your power over the first 10 minutes should be less than the last 10.  Instead of doing this for an hour (because that really really really sucks) do it for 30 minutes.  Most experts believe that your FTP is 5% lower than your 30 minute average power.  I did this test yesterday and was able to average 274 Watts for the test.  I mentioned above your power meter doesn't care what your speed is was demonstrated yesterday.  My test was into a 20 mph wind the entire time.  That is the most power I have generated but my average speed was only 15MPH!!!  My previous best was 240 Watts so my test yesterday was a full 14.2% gain compared to the test that I did outside July of last year.  My extra time in the offseason on the bike (assuming I can maintain it) should help me come June at IMCDA.

Now, I need to make sure I get my aerobic engine and endurence where it needs to be along with my swimming.  I feel great about where my biking is right now for this time of year.  The other two things are a little scary but we will see.

T-Minus 17 weeks and counting.

All for now...

Tracy

My back is finally healed

What a wake up call for me.  I have never really had any back issues to speak of in my life until now.  Since before Thanksgiving I have been dealing with lower back pain.  Doctors, Oral anti-inflamatories, No Running, and a lot of grumpiness has finally came to an end.

Last Tuesday, I woke up, back pain as normal, and was getting dressed for a breakfast meeting.  I bend over to get my shoes and all of a sudden I feel a pop and my left leg goes limp.  I can't stand up, I can't straighten up and I am laying on the floor.  I cancel my meeting and can do nothing but literally crawl on my stomach back to bed.  To say I was sickened would be an understatment.  The Dr. that is seeing me doesn't get back in the country for another week and I literally can not walk.  I am hoping laying down would help so I tried to sleep.  Of course, I was in too much pain to sleep so at 8:00am I call the Chiropractor that I have been to a couple of times, Dr. Dykeman in Rosewood Heights.  I have known him for a long time and Rene goes to see him periodically.  They were able to get me in, assuming of course, I could get myself there. 

It takes me what felt like 20 minutes to get out of bed and then I still couldn't walk.  I called Rene and she had to come home, get me dressed, and help me to the car.  The only thing I could think was that Ironman Coeur d'Alene is over for me and I actually said that to Rene.  With IMCdA in 20 weeks I am getting really nervous at this point. 

I get in to see Dr. D and explain history.  After confirming, reconfirming and reconfirming again that there is no disc issues (thanks MRI) he puts me on the table.  Then he proceeds to crawl, literally crawl on the table with me.  An arm through my legs, a hand on my shoulder and with one quick motion I hear and feel what sounds like a shot gun go off in my hips.  I literally let out a "Son Of A B$%#ch", quickly realizing that I just yelled in the middle of a busy office I apologized and then realized I had almost instant relief.  He told me to stand up and I could.  I could walk again.  He then proclaims what I have been dealing with this entire time was my SI Joint.  It has been off and on all the way back to IronMan Arizona in 2010 and I never realized it.  Everyday since I have gone back to him for an adjustment with each one getting less and less until I can actually do it myself.

Sunday was the first time I would even attempt to workout last week with a semi-easy 1.5 hour bike ride on the trainer.  I was still feeling good so I quickly transitioned to the treadmill for my first run in over a month.  My goal was to get 15 pain free minutes in.  50 minutes later running at this time (8.5 min/mile) I thought it was time to stop.  Still - ZERO pain. 

Had a great weekend with KGB having a great basketball game and Dance competition rehearsal and NBB having a great Upward basektball game as well.  He is fighting a weird cold right now (slept through recess yesterday) but other than it it is a great Valentines Day!

More to come but I should have a full week of training this week with hopefully no issues.

Until then, have a great week - T-Minus 19 weeks to IMCdA

Tracy

My Darn Back

I finished all of the meds today and my back has stopped getting better.  I am about 80%, I have full range of motion but still have pain when I wake up or sit for too long.  THIS IS SOOOO FRUSTRATING!!..  Unlike other times I have been injured and improvement continues until I reach 100% this is frustrating.  I started gettting better and it just sort of stopped at he beginning of last week.  I am still only biking and swimming because those do not seem to make it any worse and as a matter of fact, biking actually makes it feel better....  weird

So, Dr. M won't be back until next Sunday.  If he doesn't think it will get worse or relapse, I can deal with it, add core work and running back in.  If he thinks my progress will slide I am sure he will want to inject the area directly with anti infammatory meds. Although not very appealing, at this point, I really don't care, I want it to get better and go back to pain free training. 

Ironman Coeur D'Alene is 21 weeks away (tick tock tick tock) I am definately feeling the pressure start to build with each day that passes that I am not able to train the way I feel like I should be training...  In the meantime, I am spending a lot of focused time on the trainer getting high quality workouts in and swimming.  I have also added some Yoga back in not that my friend Tiffany has allowed me to borrow some Yoga videos. 

Probably no more udpates this week unless something significant happens.  Until then, happy training.

Tracy Butler 

Just a quick update

I'm about 1/2 way through my anti-inflamatory meds and they seem to be helping.  I did a 2 hour bike ride yesterday (semi hard effort) and felt better after than before I started.  I did a little strength last night after my daughter's basketball game and I feel pretty good today.  I plan on taking the week off running but focusing on biking, swimming, and introducing some more core strength since that is my journey from back pain. 

Bike ride tonight after the kids go to bed with hopes of continued improvement.

All for now
Tracy

MRI is back well uh.... on my back

Can't remember if I have written about my back issue that I have been dealing with for about 2 months now and I am too lazy to read back through the blog to find out.  In a nutshell, I have messed up my lower back probably trying to do too much too soon in the weight room.  I have had lower back issues off in on in 2010 training for IMAZ but nothing that has kept me from training.  During the race, I had a flare up for the first half of the bike that was terribly painful.  Eventually it worked itself out and I stretched about every 5 to 10 miles and it helped.

Anyway, more recently I have been having problems between S1 and L5, basically this is where your pelvis joings your Lumbar.  Rest helps but as soon as I started feeling better, I would do somthing and have another flare up.  Really frustrating and with IMCDA in June it is something I don't want to mess with.  So, on my coaches advise I made an appointment with Dr. Anthony Margherita in Creve Coeur.  He was the doctor for Tour of Missouri Pro Cycling Race, numerous marathons and other cycling events.  He understands training and working with endurence athletes so I went to see him.

The Appointment:
- I got a feeling I was dealing with the right guy when I heard him and his resident revieiwing my chart out in the hallway.  He made the comment - "This guy is a triathlete, we need to make sure that we consider his training and races in his treatment"  Okay, I felt really good becuase he already understood my psychosis!  After asking me a bunch of questions, what I was training for, when was it, what was I doing now, what causes flare ups etc... He immediately sent me over for a Lumbar X-Ray.  45 minutes later I was back in his office and we were reviewing them.  He didn't see any structural damage but because of my training he stated he "wanted to be aggressive" rather than a shotgun approach.  Do whatever we needed to do to figure this out now and treat it now so I can get back on track in my training cycle. 

The Pre-Diagnosis
- Based on my symptoms he though that I may have a small rupture in my disc.  The way he explained it is that you discs are like Onions and Jelly filled donuts.  The exterior of the desk is layered like an onion and the middle of your disc (the nucleus) contains a "jelly" like substance.  In a rupture, something causes a hole to be blown through all of the layers and the "jelly" leaks out.  In my case, he didn't think I had a violent rupture but instead he thought that I may have a series of tears that have connected creating a path for the nuclear material to leak out.  Any impact like running, jumping etc... causes the leakage.  The nuclear material is highly inflamatory so when it leak it cuases pain and swelling in the muscles in the area along with swelling in the disc creating the pain I am feeling.  Unfortunately the only way to know is MRI.  I am all for dealing with facts to MRI it is.

The MRI
- My first one, it took 30 minutes, it was loud, it was me being jammed in a tube, it was unnerving but reassuring knowing this huge machine would produce the facts so I can get past this.  This was Tuesday Morning for my Doc appointment with Dr. M Tuesday afternoon.

The Results and Plan of Action
- Frist off, the images were amazing.  He stepped through the images working his way down my back until he got to the trouble spot.  Sure enough, the disc in question was protruding to the right side putting pressure on the sciatic nerves that run adjacent to it.  You could actualy see the disc on the nerve.  The great news is no strucutral damage and he felt this was a very treatable issue.

The Treatment:
- Heavy doses of oral steroids to get the infamation down.  If Ibuprofin is an anti-inflamatory - this stuff is 1000x that.  I am to take this stuff for 12 days.  I can still bike and swim because that does not affect me believe it or not.  No Running and No impact or core work.  I am to call his office every2 days with a report on if I am getting better.  If this doesn't work, I will then have to get injections.  Think of it as an epidural of sterioids to my spine... SWEEET!  I am on day two...  Keep your fingers crossed.

Moving Forward:
- After this is fixed, his advise is more core work.  Specifically obliques.  He pointed out that everything that I do is in a straight line - road running - straight line - cycling - my feet never get outside my pedals, swimming - limited rotation.  So, the plan once this is done is more core oblique work.  Absolute Fitness here I come.  I will add trail running as well.

When asked if this is a manifestation of the problems I had in 2010 he said most definately.  The fact I have ignored strength for endurance for the past 4 years is coming back to haunt me.  It is what I get for not listening to my coach. 

All for now, have a great week

Tracy

A note to my Tri Coach

Here is an email I sent to my coach following some analysis of two identical rides.  For the non technical out there, please ignore. For those of you that want to read more about this feature in WKO software you can read about it here:  http://support.trainingpeaks.com/trainingpeaks-wko/wko-user-guide/workout-data/quadrant-analysis.aspx

Here is my email to my coach - Jennifer Meyer at Tri Smart Training Systems.  Again, the goal is to improve and do so efficiently so we have emails go back and forth like this to validate her training plan or see where it need tweaked for my specific needs. 

Begin Message:

Since I did the Pierre Marquette climb repeats on Saturday I was curious if what a comparison of the last time I did it would look like. Take this for what it is worth – a neophyte trying to do complex analysis for the first time . In an effort to gauge progress or lack of it I did a quadrant analysis in Training peaks for my peak 60minutes (other below). I don’t know how to send that file to you or I would but this is how interpreted it. Please Please Please point out any errors in my thought process just because I am really new to this. Also, let me know if this is even a little bit helpful. I can see doing this on my “test” rides to look for changes if any since those should be the most alike than any other rides.




Below is my graph the Yellow is my ride on 9/16/2010 basically my peak for IMAZ training (or close to it)

The Red is my ride on Saturday

 Based on what I see, obviously both rides were lower cadence high power output based on 69.4% spent in quadrant II. I am not sure how to analyze the graphs but I can look at the averages.

My normalized power for my ride on 1/7 was approx. 22watts higher than when I did it the first time. My max power was higher as well (although meaning very little). My average HR was lower the first time I did it by 4 BPMS making me think that I was in better aerobic shape then (as I should have been). My higher maximum and higher minimum also make me believe this is the case.

In my rudimentary analysis what I was trying to see are power numbers and how they compare. Based on what I have seen, both files look pretty similar except for a couple of things.

1) I had more time in Q1 on Saturday – High Force and High Cadence which I think is good and ultimately the goal.

2) My raw power numbers are higher for my Peak 60 minutes. Not by a lot but still higher. With it being “strength” time I would hope that strength training will continue to help this. I want to do this workout a few more times to compare to see if my strength training is helping at all.

3) All things being equal, I near where I was in the past. My concern is that I have slipped way below what I was. Based on this very small “POWER” focused sampling it doesn’t appear so which is encouraging. I know I have a long way to go for CDA both in time and fitness however, it is not lost on me how bad of a training year last year.

The other thing that I did was look to see how “fresh” I was for each workout. Obviously this could make a big difference if I was fatigued either day. When looking at WKO my TSB on 9/16 was -24 and on Saturday it was -7 so from a fatigue stand point I was pretty fresh both days ruling that out as a significant factor.

Again, I am just thinking outloud here so please don’t waste any time on a deep dive or anything. I am just trying to make sure that my thinking is sound as I compare this run at IMCDA versus IMAZ. I want to do things smarter and these comparisons are helpful to see if what I am doing is making me a better cyclist (and hopefully runner). I do want to do more comparisons as I do similar workouts.

Thanks for humoring me and reading this. Any thoughts are appreciated but not expected. Below I have done the same thing for other ranges. It looks like I am generating more power across all the ranges looked at below. I will keep adding to this as I do these workouts and see if it keeps improving? I will also email you so that I have a log for the next time I do this (If there is a next time)

Tracy

Peak 30 Minutes

Peak 5 Minutes – You can see this is all climbing with very very little out of quadrant II. This climbes takes about 10 minutes to do.

Thanks and have a great week.

Tracy

Humbling Ride Today

I had a good ride today, actually it was a great ride today.  50 degrees in late December is a bonus day to be outside.  I rode with Don and a friend and fellow Ironman that I haven't seen for a long time Rick.  Don (as I have written) is GONZO into his Leadville 100 training and Rick is training for Ironman St. George which is the hilliest Ironman of all and the earliest US IM in May.  I am not even close to being in race shape so I knew my day was going to be a challenge.  Couple that with riding on Mountain Bike vs. road bike and crashing into the curb and going down in the first 5 minutes, I knew today was going to be rough.(I think that covers all of my excuses for sucking).

So we left out from Bethalto and Rick left both Don and I on several occasions.  We couldn't stay on his back wheel.  He is in good - scratch that... great shape.  We get to the trails and our first turn on to the trail was a very short but pretty steep incline.  I was in the wrong gear so as I down shift to climb the hill I feel my chain seize up.... then get REALLY Loose, then I fell over...  I busted my chain... UGH... By the time Rene could come get me, it would be 30 plus minutes so Don had the idea for he and Rick to ride to the local bike shop about 15 minutes away and pick up the tool and new link for my chain which was an awesome idea.  They still get their ride in, I still get what is left and all is right in the world...   So not only were these guys dragging my sorry butt around all day, they were also Sherpa to based camp (the bike shop) for supplies.  They were quick but standing waiting it got pretty chilly.  I was in shorts and cycling shoes so I couldn't run or do anything to stay warm so I hopped in place for a good 20 - 30 minutes until they got back.  The chain repair was literally 3 minutes and we were off.

The trail ride was good.  It was pretty wet and sloppy in parts.  Don of course spends most of his time riding the trails, Rick very little and me a few times under my belt this year.  We did that for about 30 r0 45 minutes and then hit the road back to Bethalto.  We were hitting it pretty hard.  On the way out into a head wind we averaged 14.5 MPH which is pretty fast on a mountain bike.  On the way home we averaged 15.25 MPH and I was feeling it.

I don't train with people normally, not because I don't like too but instead it is just very hard to do.  I am literally cramming my workouts in my day and many times I don't exactly know when that will be making it very difficutlt to plan around someone elses schedule as well.  However, when it does work out it is great.  It makes the time go by much quicker and when riding with stronger riders you tend to push harder than you would when you are by yourself making the workout harder and in many ways more beneficial.

Can't wait for the next one.  Now I just need to work on strength for the next 2 months before my final IM push begins so I can keep up with those guys.

All for now....

Tracy