a complete and utter lack of patience

saturday am - 10mile BIKE
saturday pm - 60mile BIKE
sunday - 80mile BIKE
monday am - 17mile BIKE

out on my own on Macarthur and river rd, looped up to Poolesville through the peach orchards. temperature in the mid to high 90's so it felt pretty damn hot. went through a lot of liquid. found out that i like eating cliff bars on the bike and not so much with the power bars.

tried to run sunday night but didn't make it more than 2 blocks. the weight of the arm and the thumping motion of running (even when running reasonably smoothly) is obviously a bit much for it now. might give it another go towards the end of the week.

i feel so much better for having gone out and just risked it and gotten in some solid exercise.

urg

depression from lack of exercise kicked in about two days ago and i'm losing my patience with it. but, according to some site on tinternet... this is how my bone is healing in picture form...

Activity, movement, and use: In contrast to the early stages, in the later stages of healing patients' activity is necessary and decisive. Bone fractures are again a good example. Movement, use, and putting weight on the bone stimulate the reconstruction of bone and the realignment of bone layers parallel to the lines of force, ensuring optimal adaptation to the mechanical loads to which it is normally exposed.

unless something significantly chances between now and later this afternoon, i'm going to go for a ride outside. damn the consequences. sitting inside being glum doesn't heal broken bones.

like a small child then

didn't do indoor trainer last night. went to bed, brushed teeth under the covers, at 7:30pm. Didn't wake up until past 8am. Twelve and a half hours of uninterrupted sleep. I think my body is trying to get me to rest. All this sleep better be making my collar bone heal faster. In two weeks and one day I get he second set of x-rays and I've decided I want the doctor to use the word Miraculous when he describes my recovery. "Miraculous".

oh, and floyd? say it isn't true. please. test sample b better come back negative otherwise this 29-and-a-small-bit-year-olds dreams have just been shattered.

training on indoor trainer

watched the entire Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom while doing the following cycling workout last night. Shoulder and collarbone felt fine. Hurts more to take a t-shirt off than it does to do 2 solid hours on an indoor trainer. Broke the collarbone exactly 7 days ago.

30min	warm up
hard	easy
5	5
4	4
3	3
2	2
1	1
2	2
3	3
4	4
5	5
4	4
3	3
2	2
1	1
12min	cooldown
120min	total

not pretty

okay, so my hairy chestiness aside (sorry - just look away - it's probably best), at least here's a journal type entry showing the haematoma washing through my left shoulder.

According to Wikipedia (if it's on tinternet = FACT - big F big A big C big T capital FACT)

from Bone Healing

"After a fracture, the first thing that forms is a haematoma, similar to that seen elsewhere in the body. This is a clot of blood originating from the lacerated blood vessels in the bone and the periosteum.

Necrotic bone is then resorbed by osteoclasts, and the haematoma by macrophages. As the haematoma is resorbed, granulation tissue develops from the periosteum and endosteum. When this has completed, pluripotent cells migrate into the granulation tissue. These cells become chondrocytes and later osteocytes, that produce cartilage and bone respectively. The structure surrounding the fracture site is now slightly harder, this is a provisional callus. The area can be called a proper callus as time goes on, and more and more woven bone is made by the osteoblasts. This woven bone is initially remodelled into lamellar bone. With time, the bone is remodelled over the next few months, and the callus becomes smaller, as the trabeculae are formed along lines of stress."

Two days after - swelling on shoulder almost hides entire distal third and ac joint on my left.

6 days after - swelling still present but haematoma on and below damaged area

it's not smart, clever, or pretty.

good news...

from cyclingnews.com - after a collarbone break, when the bone has healed, "...your left shoulder will be a little narrower than your right for the rest of your life. This is actually good for bike racers provided that you regain full mobility. A narrower profile reduces wind resistance. "

paha. good news then. maybe i should break the right one to make me even more aerodynamic.

back in training

wednesday am - broken collarbone
sunday am - 60min BIKE
sunday pm - 60min BIKE
Monday pm - 90min BIKE

managed to get in a very solid workout on the bike last night. Breaking it up into little sections really helps. watched the second half of raiders of the lost ark and then a documentary made in 1999 about the badwater 135mile run.. cause i have that on dvd, and cause they started this years race yesterday.

Bike workout was
30min warm up
5min hard; 5min easy
4min hard; 4min easy
3min hard; 3min easy
2min hard; 2min easy
1min hard; 1min easy
2min hard; 2min easy
3min hard; 3min easy
4min hard; 4min easy
5min hard; 5min easy
10minute or so cooldown

there's probably a really easy way to describe that workout (some sort of ladder) without writing it all out.

arm and collarbone feels fine on the trainer. it's very quickly very sweaty indoors on the bike with now air flow around me. but thats good i suppose. don't know how long it'll be before i run, but it's my body and i am an experiment of one... so i'll do it when it feels right.

the arm can move around quite a bit now. no problem putting on shirts or showering. able to lift arm up to shoulder height but fully extending it is a bit of a pain. the left elbow hurts just from not extending it at all during the day (stuck in the sling). body still wants a lot of sleep - just shy of 12 hours last night. woke up once in the middle of the night when i moved it enough to jolt me awake. no problem holding or lifting things with the left arm. situps are pain free, but i'm more than hesitant at even trying a press up, and you can eff off if you want me to try a pull up. two and a half weeks until i get the second round of xrays... until then maybe it's best i stick to working my tits off on the indoor trainer and icing the shoulder/collarbone as often as possible.

imagine if i went out on the bike tonight, and crashed, and therefore deliberately favoured my right arm, and broke the right collarbone... i'd be, well, buggered. wouldn't be able to do pretty much anything.

got to admit it's getting better

Shoulder and collarbone gets better everyday. Significantly better. Pain has subsided significantly, and there’s some decent colour coming out of the shoulder all down the top left hand side of my torso. Swelling seems to be going down quickly too, although there’s still enough swelling that the top part of the collarbone isn’t that well defined yet (when compared to the good collarbone on the right). drinking a lot of water. Not much appetite now. Sleeping a lot… body seems to want about 2-3 hour nap in the afternoon and can sleep for 10hours every night. But it’s healing itself really quickly. Makes me more pissed that it couldn’t work so damn fast on my shin.

Was able to do an hour Sunday morning and an hour Sunday night on the indoor trainer that Tri-athlete Erika lent me before slr.

Trying to take loads of calcium and drink lots of milk and eat just good food to provide my body with all the minerals and nutrients and all the good stuff so it can fix itself as quickly as possible. I have a follow up x-ray in just less than 3 weeks and I’d like the doctor to tell me it’s fixed by then. Also avoiding caffeine which might (according to what you read) hinder the body’s ability to absorb calcium and vit d.

Picture of me at the washington nationals cubs game on Friday night. Cause if you can’t go out running or cycling you might as well be social, right?

fixing

saw orthopaedic surgeon this morning. took 2 new xrays. as per the doctor,
the bone has realigned itself perfectly
no should dislocation
should be fixed fairly quickly cause i'm young and healthy

booya.

xrays again in 3 weeks just to confirm everything is fixing itself correctly.

ice ice ice
watch diet cause i'll have to lose any weightgain later
borrowing indoor bike trainer and will see how painful (if at all) it is to ride on the bike indoors with just my right arm. probably not bad at all.

my broken collarbone

my expert analysis:

this is effing rubbish if you ask me

collarbone broken clean in two. one broken end of it (seemingly) pulled out of the shoulder joint. jagged edges of bone pushing against muscle and broken nerve endings. any left arm movement really hurts the left arm and shoulder muscle.

i can't swim, i can't run and i can't bike. i wish i could get back on my bike or at least go out and run a cheeky 4 or 6 mile run just to be out there doing something. i think i'm going to set my bike up on an indoor trainer and bike arms free to keep fit. this isn't the best start to my ironman training. somebody has offered to lend me her indoor trainer and could bring it around my place this saturday so i can start some training in a couple of days.

appointment with orthopaedic surgeon tomorrow morning to see how it should be realigned and whether or not it'll need surgery to pin it back together. managed to sleep for 9 hours last night without waking up once. that was probably the vicodin that i was prescribed.

i think I'm going to have to scratch the kenya trip cause i won't be able to run there, and i won't be much able to carry 80lbs in a backpack around on my shoulder.

there's the tiniest bit of anger left in me about the guy who pulled out in front of me on the bike trail without looking. i sort of wish i'd just let him know how much this was his fault and how much a broken collar bone has buggered up my life. when you rely on getting 4 or more hours of exercise a day, a broken collarbone pretty much buggers you every which way possible. i did the entire - "don't worry about it", "stuff happens", "it's alright, how are you?", "spilt milk", etc.. - after my initial reaction as i laid down after the crash and ask him "what the eff was that?" - about a minute afterwards he asked if i was alright and i told him "got a puncture on my front tire, couple of scratches, and think i've broken my left collarbone" so at least there's a chance he understands how much damage he did. and then he went off one way and me the other.

oh well. i'll bounce back from this like everything else. i wish i could be outside running or biking now. maybe i should practice my one armed press-ups or pull ups? yep, cause i have any upper body strength.

My body seems to be controlling the pain very well. I hope realigning it doesn’t take too much manipulation cause I don’t want to endure too much more of the acute pain I felt yesterday when it happened. About 15minutes after it happened, when the adrenaline had all but gone, it really was a bit of a bother.

bugger it all

1. got up at 5am
2. made small cup of coffee
3. opened presents from m&d and sister
   
4. rode bike to pool
5. swam over 1 mile freestyle for the first time
6. rode bike home
7. changed into bike shorts
8. rode bike to(wards) work
9. idiot on mountain bike pulled out infront of me without looking
10. I t-boned him liek nothing else at about 20mph
11. punctured front tire but otherwise my bike was fine (his wheel was very buckled)
12. something with left should was very bad. pain started to kick in pretty quickly and quite badly... pain went like this:
    
1. something weird is clicking in the left should that doesn't in the right
2. i'll fix my puncture and just go home - thats a shorter bike journey
   
3. left arm movement is really quite painful - best i hold it as if it's in a sling
4. can't pick up stuff with lefthand
5. there's no way i can fix this puncture with one arm
6. left arm really hurts now (after about 10minutes) - starting to feel very sorry for myself
7. biting my right arm/wrist in order to avoid crying. failing. crying a bit.
   
8. lots of short breaths and controlling pain and needing to just get home and just get to the doctors and just go that next little bit of where i'm going. back to what i did today...
   
13. 411 and got taxi company number - got taxi home and dropped off bike
14. drove myself to georgetown hospital
15. got seen to and x-rayed
16. Fractured Collarbone and dislocated/effed up shoulder
17. the collarbone broke in two and one end looks to have come out of the shoulder joint, so the doctor told me...

happy effing birthday hugh. happy effing birthday.

swim.ming.

been a week and a half trying to swim properly now, and it's starting to get easier everyday. I hope the decent swimmers don't much care when i look at their strokes intently in order to work out what on earth they are doing that makes them glide through the water so easily.

monday noon - 4mile BIKE
monday pm - 40mile BIKE (4x hill repeats - macarthur up to Great Falls MD hill)
tuesday am - 60minute SWIM + 25mile BIKE

shin still tweaking a little bit so giving it lots of time off. planning a cheeky 6miles through town tonight after i get home from my 20mile bike ride home. planning on swimming a mile non-stop in the pool tomorrow morning - all freestyle. i make that 64 laps as the olympic pool is cut width ways. might do 70 just to make sure.

i wish i could run 29miles tomorrow morning, but i don't think my shin would hold up to it, which is a shame.

century

thursday am - 10mile BIKE + 60min SWIM
friday am - 30min SWIM + 10mile RUN
friday pm - 30mile BIKE
saturday - 102mile BIKE
sunday - 5mile RUN

cramp in calves while swimming, humid conditions in dc

tuesday am - 60min SWIM + 30mile BIKE
tuesday pm - 40mile BIKE + 6mile RUN
wednesday am - 30min SWIM + 25mile BIKE

cut swimming short this morning due to cramping in my calves. I think the large amount of exercise and heat yesterday resulted in me being a little dehydrated and not getting enough electrolytes straight after the 40mile bike ride and 6 mile run last night. got to bed quite late cause the biking and running took quite a bit of time.

my new bike pedals and shoes are pretty damn great. it makes everything so much easier from trucking along to hills to cheeky little sprints... everything is faster and easier and i'm well chuffed with them.

The humidity in dc is very high this morning (and was fairly high last night) so i sweated buckets on last nights run and ride and absolutely loads this morning. i'm going to have to pay closer attention to fluid replacement during and after exercise, especially with the biking and swimming because it just means i'm out there sweating for many hours more...

But that stuff is so much more expensive than water. Then again, cramping up and having to cut short my swimming by 30mintues isn't the best option either.

resting heart rate was up this morning to 54 which shows i'm pushing myself a little hard. i tend to only get worried when it sky rockets somewhere over 60. Usually, after a two nights full sleep (8-10 hours) and a full complete day off any exercises, it settles to about 44-48, so 54 is a little high.

shin was a little sore every now and again in the pool at the trouble spot, and felt a little funny a couple of times this morning when i'd just gotten out of bed. reacting to yesterdays run i guess. i went through town on the concrete cause i'd been out on the bike for a good while and i wanted to run while looking at people to entertain me a little.

i heart my bike.

speedplay pedals look fast

so much learning going on...

biked to swimming pool this morning. the swimming pool at takoma community center is still one of the greatest things ever. watched a few basic Total Immersion online snapshots from their videos (2minute advertisements really but including some drills and advice). did the drills and took the advice this morning and the swimming already feels easier. i need to get very good at this swimming thing.

bought new bike pedals to replace my old school cages that came with the bike...

also bought new bike shoes so i stop biking all these miles in old worn out racing flats...














bikes are just toys for grown-ups. going on a long bike ride this evening... planning on 40-45... or until it gets dark. i need lights too as the back light feel off about a week ago and as were are past june 21st it does get a little darker a little earlier every night. shame really. biking to swimming and swimming and biking home again tomorrow. might then drive to work and run during lunchtime... see what i feel like in the morning...

haven't fallen off my bike at the traffic lights cause i can't get out of my pedals... yet. but everybody says it happens when you get used to clipless pedals. oh, and the guys who helped me at performance bikes were so much help it was great. Significantly better than the grumpy mechanics i've run into at spokesetc. so i guess performance will have my money from now on out.

yay cycling. yay swimming. yay running (soon).

all so very different now

thursday pm - 60minute SWIM
friday am - 30mile BIKE
friday pm - 40mile BIKE
saturday am - 8mile RUN
saturday pm - 30mile BIKE
sunday am - 74 mile BIKE
monday am - 50minute SWIM
monday noon - 4mile RUN
monday noon - 20min CORE

just gentle exercise bike and reading to flush out the legs tonight... swim tomorrow and bike to work followed by long bike ride (40+miles) home.

swim 2.4 miles bike 112 miles run 26.2 miles

Not too sure of the exact order of events, but it’s something like this:

1. Get injured 5 weeks before london marathon
2. Over the course of more than a quarter of a year – continue to be injured, or get re-injured.
3. Not be able to do all the running I want to do
4. Buy a bike. (I heart my bike.)
5. Still not be able to do the running I want.
6. Hang out with running and biking and triathlete types
7. Running buddy signs up for ironman. Sends email. Search and find site.
8. Sign up for Ironman Triathlon on June 24^th 2007 – in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho

I don’t have the discipline to come back from this right shin injury and not run too much. I tore the right shin muscle (same old injury) again for, I think, the 5^th time on my run on Tuesday morning. Again, all my fault, too much too soon. So now I’m going to expand as much of my energy as possible biking and swimming and then I’ll have less energy and time left and will only be able to run about 50miles a week… and my body should be able to handle 50miles running a week without breaking down.

I still think I’m a runner, but I’m practicing to be a triathlete. And as of the end of June 24^th next year I’ll be able to say I’ve done an ironman… The next 11 months are going to be fun in training. Swimming Biking and running lots. I’ll probably end up more healthy from not pushing myself through 130mile running weeks… and I might even develop some upper body strength (I’ll be buggered if I don’t – so I’ll have to).

Swam for an hour last night. Biked 30 miles this morning. Going to bike another 30miles on the way home this evening.

80 miles last week

Banana Pepper plant with peppers growing on it… woo hoo… I might actually have to eat one of them soon… maybe make some salsa or just have it in tomato pasta type dish. Bell peppers/ tomatoes/ jalipino peppers are all close behind… little bits of fruit on all of them, but nothing of significant size as of yet. I should also eat some of my arugula ‘cause it needs trimming back.

Anyway… full week of training last week and all in all I think I just has the best weekend of exercise I’ve had in maybe 4 months. Glorious summer weather with 95F type days with quite low humidity. Great stuff.

Right shin has continued to be a little weird through the training week.. not painful, but I’m constantly aware that I just feels a little off. I think that might just be normal – I’m getting used to using it all again, and the muscle is getting used to me demanding lots out of it. I’ve been icing it twice a day anyway, and see PT Barb again on Thursday for more work. The ankles both feel weak first thin gin the morning (just like the good old days through last summer and autumn and winter when the training was everything). The right shin (and left too really) both feel tight and a bit over stressed when stretching into the front of the shin by bending the knee with my body weight directly over the bent knee – i.e. up against a wall stretching the shin by bending the knee into the wall and stressing the ankle/bottom of the shin/anterior of the shin. But complete day off today – no cycling no running no weights no nuffin. Turned off the alarm clock and radio alarm and just let myself sleep in as long as my body needed. Turns out it needed about 10 hours before It wanted to get up and turn the kettle on for a cup of coffee.

Mileage last week = 80 miles
Planned Mileage this week = 104 miles

reasons i've come up with for why i'm so slow

1. I'm coming back from injury
2. I'm carrying too much body fat and my legs aren’t used to the extra 5-8lbs
3. I've put on some muscle mass on my legs which makes them heavier each step
4. I've not adjusted to the heat increase that is summer in dc
5. I've not adjusted to the humidity increase that is summer in dc
6. The cycling is taking a lot more out of me than I realise or will admit to
7. The mileage I'm running is taking a lot more out of me than it would have done pre-injury
8. After cycling around loads running just feels slower
9. I've lost all efficiency in my stride and form
10. My body has lost the ability to recover quickly from workouts so I'm still not recovered from last nights 6mile run or this mornings 4mile run

there might be more... or some above might be rubbish (the first one doesn't really make sense as the rest all all products of the first point... stupid hugh)

Fact and science? Stuff made up in my head? Just ran 10mile outside at noon in 85F and it just felt much tougher than it should. I can only hope that i get some speed back in my legs and long runs in the next three weeks (the amount of time I've scheduled ahead and given myself to get in shape before I start hitting the track and doing quality workouts again and using a stopwatch properly again).