Super Bowl, Knee Struggles & Swim PRs

Happy Super Bowl Sunday! What a great, American spectacle. I was rooting for the Colts (Manning is the man), but I am just happy it was a great game. We had some teammates over — Darius Terry, Joe Withers, Simon Gilna and Eric Lynch — and we all made and ate lots of food. My contribution was my Mom’s chili recipe and Trader Joe’s cornbread. Both were delicious.

Knee

The knee troubles continue. As of now, I am able to run 10-20 minutes without pain. As I go longer or increase pace it begins hurting. I have been icing, ultrasounding, and strengthening for over a month now with little improvement. It is getting pretty frustrating. And to frustrate me further, I have been trying to get a CD with my MRI images mailed to NAU’s team doctor for over a week now. Patience is a virtue, I guess.

Once the doctor receives the images, we will have some orthopedics take a look. Depending on their suggestions, I may end up undergoing arthroscopic surgery on my knee. I have read and been told that, as far as surgeries go, arthroscopic knee surgery is about as noninvasive as it gets, with reports of people back running in a couple of weeks. The quick recovery time makes the surgery very appealing. Frankly, I don’t see myself back running full strength in a couple weeks without the surgery anyway. Why not get it fixed?

But I am getting ahead of myself. For now, I wait to see what the doctors say.

Swimming

Today I did a time trial as prescribed by USATriathlon. The protocol for the test is a 200 (yards or meters), 1 minute rest, 800. I did this test a month ago and, converting from yards to meters, 2:45 and 12:45 equivalents. In today’s test I swam a 2:39 and a 12:13, 6 and 32 second improvements, respectively. I plan to continue to do this test once a month to measure my improvement.

Needless to say, swimming is going in the right direction. Still, I have a lot of work to do. For 2010, I want to be under 2:30 for 200m and 11:06 for 800m (at sea level). I swam over 20,000m for the first time this last week. I am hopeful that many more high volume, high intensity weeks will get me closer to that goal.

Indoor and Outdoor

Because of my recent setbacks, running the 2010 indoor season is out of the question. There are but a couple meets left before the conference meet and there is no way I will be ready. Outdoor runs into the middle of May and beyond, so I think if I continue down the road to recovery, I should be able to salvage a decent outdoor season. After the improvements I made in cross country, I think even a mediocre season for me should yield some solid PRs.

Time Trial and Brick Action

These last few days I have done some tough workouts that should be good indicators of where my fitness is at. Monday I decided to go for a 1650 yard time trial in the pool (~1500m which is my race distance). The goal pace was 26:00 and I was happy to see that it wasn’t too bad to hold this pace. I finished at 25:55 with some energy to spare.

Tuesday I decided it was time to see where my run fitness is at with a 10k tempo. I ran 32:53 (5:18 pace) and felt decent at the end. I am hoping that I can run at least 34 minutes with an all out effort at the end of the race.

Today I did a modified workout that we do at NAU a couple times of year. It consists of 4×400, 10 minute LT (a bit easier than tempo), 4×400, 10min LT, 4×400. The idea is that both systems, aerobic and anarobic get worked. In the triathlon spirit, I modified this workout to make it a brick. After a 2 mile warm up, I went for a 10 mile bike. Once back at the track, I ran 3×800, headed out for about 12-13 minutes on the bike, 3×800, 12-13 minutes on the bike, and 3 more 800s. It was hot, but I was really happy with how my legs felt coming off the bike. 800s were 2:27-2:29 with a 2:18 last one.

I am going for a long run with teammate Myles Kloer tomorrow off Mulholland drive near UCLA. I have never been there, but I have heard it is a nice place to run. Other than that, next week should look pretty easy. A couple bike rides with some “race pace” riding, maybe some strides or shorter reps for running, and in the pool a few times.