Me at the start of 1st on the 1st!
February: Unfortunately about a month later I was diagnosed with a stress fracture in my tibia. It is actually amazing that I discovered it so early. You see, I wasn't really having any pain with running, walking, etc. I don't even know exactly when it started. I just know that one night in bed I rolled over and noticed my bone was sore, thought I must have a bruise there. Next morning I checked, nothing. But when I pressed on the bone, just above my ankle, it hurt. The PT in me decided this wasn't really a good thing, but since I wasn't having pain any other time, I just watched it for a few weeks. What I did notice was during my runs, my leg felt a little different...not painful, just weak. But I also noticed the bone soreness wasn't going away. So I consulted a friend, my fav running guy, Dr. Bright. I cornered him after a meeting at work. He agreed with me the signs were worrisome. Bone tenderness is a hallmark sign of a stress fracture. He suggested decrease running for a week, ice, etc. and then see how it felt. I did this and no change. So at this point I made an official appointment and saw Dr. Diehl (one of Dr. Bright's parnters). He ordered an xray, which was negative, and just looked at me. Finally he suggested MRI. He knows my history of training and also my goal of Ironman Arizona this year. He wanted to rule out stress reaction vs. stress fracture, as the treatments are a little different. So the following day I had an MRI scheduled late after work. And the MRI machine broke, while I was in the machine. And so my MRI had to be rescheduled...a few days because it was right before the weekend. Over the weekend I ran again. Hey, I decided that it might be the last I could run for awhile. And I noticed again that it didn't hurt while I ran. And I started to doubt myself and almost talked myself out of having the MRI done. But Monday morning I decided I needed to listen to my gut...it hasn't failed me so far. So at 7:45am I had my MRI done. At 9:15am my doctor called me. Bad news. Positive stress fracture, distal tibia, measuring 1.5cm, plus moderate bone edema (or swelling). I was to stop by the physican office for a boot and no running for at least 6-8 weeks. Fortunately, I was still able to bike and swim, but had to restrict myself to no pushing off the wall with swimming. For biking I could only spin, no speed workouts, no hills, no standing on the bike for at least the first 3-4 weeks, as long as there was no pain. Doc also wanted me to use an aircast for the bike. It was winter, so I did alot of indoor trainer workouts and caught up on my movie and DVR watching. Fortunately I had hired a coach and he had some really good workouts for me to do.
At my 3 week checkup Dr. Diehl decided since I was low pain I could come out of the boot. But still no pushing off the wall during the swim or any sort of hill work or speedwork on the bike. One-legged drills were okay on the bike as long as they didn't hurt. Then we talked about my race plans. Uh, doc? I signed up for a 1/2 marathon in California at the end of March and a full Marathon in Louisville at the end of April...what do you think? At this point it was mid-Feb and I hadn't run in 3 weeks. Doubtful was his response. What if I did half the distance for each (both had multiple races)? This would be a 10k and 1/2 marathon. Maybe. So, I contacted each race director and was able to change each of the races. And thus begun my love/hate relationship with one-legged drills. Since all I could do was bike/swim, coach Brett decided to test me. We started with 30 sec intervals and slowly worked up to 2 minutes. One legged, 5-10 sets on the bike. They sucked. They were hard to do. But they didn't hurt my leg. They also really helped my efficiency on the bike. And, as much as I hate to admit it, I will likely be doing more one-legged drills this winter when I start back into indoor trainer rides. In the pool, I was doing more mileage and more speedwork as well. Although I have to admit, pushing off the wall with one leg really is quite weird.
March: At the 6 week follow up doc decided elliptical was okay but still no running for at least 2 weeks and he gave me a plan to follow once I started running again. But I was not allowed to start running until all the bone tenderness went away. So I started the elliptical and hated it. I have no idea why, but I didn't like it. I don't like the treadmill either, but for some reason to me it was worse. I also re-evaluated my spring race plans and realized neither one was going to happen. Unfortunately, neither race would give me a refund or defer the race entry to next year. Oh well, in my reasoning the money is helping someone to make a living, I guess. But, this made me really cautious to enter any other races for the season...At the end of March I did get to go out to LA and watch my sister do a 10k! This was actually pretty cool as she has spectated for me many times, but I have never spectated for her, so that was fun!
My sister, Lora and her friends at the end of the race, showing off their swag!
April: At 8 weeks, I had no more bone tenderness, so with my running plan and coach's assistance, I started back into running again. Yay!!! I have missed it so much!! Unfortunately somewhere between weeks 2-3 I started noticing bone tenderness again and some pain after I ran. By week 4 it hadn't gone away. So, I went back to Dr. Diehl and he felt it was probably a reinjury. Unfortunately the area of the tibia I had fractured is the slowest to heal and has the highest risk of re-occurance. That combined with my asthma, raynaud's syndrom, and osteopenia, puts me in a high risk group. At this point I went back in a boot for 6 weeks and the doc added a bone growth stimulator to my daily routine. He also sent my MRI and notes onto a foot and ankle surgeon for a second opinion. Fortunately, surgery wasn't an option due to the location of the fracture and the surgeon felt this was the best course of action for me.
May: At this point I had to re-evaluate my race goals for the season (it was the beginning of May). I had signed up for Muncie 70.3 (1.2 mile swim, 56 mile bike, and 13.1 mile run) and IMAZ. Otherwise I had nothing else on the schedule. And I was itching to race. So I scanned the internet and found an open water swimming event in Columbus! I talked with my coach about it and he felt like it would be a good thing to try out and give me something to focus on during recovery. As far as Muncie was concerned, I knew I wouldn't be up to the run portion of it. So, I contacted the race director and they said I could transfer over to the relay if I would like. Great! All I would have to do is find someone to run the 13.1 miles for me. Easy enough, I put out a facebook message and in less than one day, found a running partner...Elizabeth Feltner was going to be there anyway to watch her significant other race, so it was a win/win situation for both of us!
I focused entirely on improving my bike and swim. Oh, and I decided to buy a new bike. A fast and cool looking bike. A bike that would help me with my triathlons!
My new bike, I call her "Shiv"
June: I did my open water swim event. The event was put on through Greenswell. When I initially signed up I thought I was signing up for the 2 mile swim (you could choose from 2 miles, 1 mile, or .5 miles) you could also sign up for a series of 3 races. Great, I thought this would give me 3 separate weekends of a 2 mile swim! I found out later, that I hadn't signed up for 3 different days of swimming, but rather all 3 distances. In one day. This would total 3.5 miles of swimming open water! Well, I had wanted a challange, so I did it. Race day came and there was a staggered start for the races. At 7am there was a race for the 1 mile swim. We then waited until 9am for the .5 distance. And then another hour or so for the 2 mile distance. It was windy and somewhat cool outside for June. So wetsuit legal, but my times were really slow. On the flip side, I have never swam that much before in the open water. So, I was really pleased to be able to finish the 3.5 miles (this is a little more than 5k distance)! Good experience, but not sure it is one I want to try again!Another thing I have worked on this year is spectating. I figured since I couldn't race, I could put extra work into volunteering at different events and also cheering on my friends that could race. I volunteered at the Columbus Half in the spring in the medical tent. Kind of ironic since I was in a boot. I also spectated/cheered at the Wendy's Triathlon, the Tri Tech triathlon, and another triathlon put on through Greenswell. Muncie spectating was also on the agenda since I would only be doing the swim and bike. So, my good friends Tani and Susan came up with the idea of making tutu's for the Muncie race. Since I wasn't doing the run, I decided I could do that too and just change into the tutu after getting off the bike. They were a huge success (more on this later) and we had a lot of fun making them!!
July: The week of Muncie we hit record highs in the weather and the week of the race the temps soared to the low 100's and the heat index was predicted to be well over 100 degrees on race day. Still, we had all trained in the heat and wanted to race, we just knew we would have to lower our expectations for finish times. So all 25+ central Ohio atheletes (plus friends/family) traveled to Muncie for race weekend. And, during the afternoon athlete briefing, it was announced that they were going to shorten the course because of the heat...1 mile swim, 30 mile bike, 10k run. Great. A glorified Oly distance. Needless to say, this upset a lot of people. I felt bad for my race buddy. She paid $125 (1/3 the cost of the relay) to run a 10k. Fortunately for me, my race plan pretty much stayed the same. Practice siting on the swim course and "go balls to the walls" on the bike to see what I could do. My personal goal was to also improve on my swim time from last year.
Race morning rolled around and I have to admit I am very glad they shortened the race. It was the kind of weather that even at 4:30am, you walked outside and "ugh" is the only word I could think of...the air was so hot it was hard to breath. The relay group had the last swim wave. So I got to wait around for 1.5 hours while everyone else started. By the time we got started, I was ready to go. And I have to say, this was my best triathlon swim. Ever. I got right in the water, found my line, and got into a groove right away. I had none of that initial panic, no madly trying to get away from swinging arms/legs, and I found my breathing rhythm right away. The water was gross and felt like bath water, but for whatever reason it didn't bother me. Then I came up with an idea. I wanted to see how many wave groups I could catch up to during the swim (each wave had different colored swim caps). So I swam, stayed on course, and counted caps. By the time I finished I counted 5 different colored caps, not including my own. And I improved my swim time (44 min last year for 1.2 miles, 33 min this year for 1 mile)!! Out of the water I jogged to my bike. And got really winded. I did a longish transition and eventually got on my bike and went. I pushed on the bike as hard as I could and used breathing as my guideline. My HR was high the full time. And my breathing was restricted almost the whole ride despite using my inhaler. By mile 20 I started to get chills. Hmmm, that isn't right. And it dawned on my I was getting dehydrated. So I started chugging my bottles and had to slow down slightly. My last few miles I just kept focusing on moving forward. Finally found the finish. And my running buddy. I expected Elizabeth to be right there, but she wasn't. I didn't realize for a few minutes that they had the runners in a separate area by the exit, eventually I found her and handed off our timing chip. Then quickly changed into my tutu so I could cheer on the rest of my friends as they finished. Oh, and my bike time was the fastest I have ever done...avg 18.9mph!!! And I did discover I was dehydrated, didn't pee for nearly 6 hours after the race! So, definately have to work on this for future races. And, all of my friends did finish the race that day and only one ended up in medical for an IV!
Base Tri Team Members after the race: Julie, me, Coach Lauren (aka LU), Richard, Tommy, Tony
Transition Race Morning
End of the bike!
Waiting for the swim to start with Tim
Elizabeth and I after the race!
August: I spent time training alot on the bike, completing both Pelotonia and a fantastic ride through the Colorado Mountains for the US Pro Tour via Lizard Head Cycling Tours (378 miles of riding in one week). For all 250 pictures of my Colorado riding adventure, you can look here. The trip was fantastic and I really can't put into words how awesome it was. You can also check out our itinerary and daily rides on the Lizard Head Cycling website.
My jersey
Tani and Jeanne, my riding buddies for the day!
My Aunt Debbie and I at the finish!
Michelle, Barb, Jim, Susan, Jeanne, Rocco, Tani...we all made it through the ride!
In August I also was cleared to start running again! Coach LU and I have been really conservative with it, but so far so good. Happy to report that this past weekend I did my longest run in over 6 months, just shy of 5 miles! So, at this point in time, I am still on for IMAZ...
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