IronMatron

I spend my summers in Maine (or as much of my summer as I can, anyway!) but I conduct most of my business in Massachusetts. When in Boston I see Margaret Karg for body work. She is amazing, and I have gone to her for years. I like her so much I have been reluctant to try anyone when I'm in Portland, even if I really need work done. I finally ventured into the unknown last week, and set up an appointment with Kevin Mackell of The Athlete's Touch in Portland.

Wow.

I love my Margaret, but next to her work, this was the single best massage experience I have ever had. Kevin spent 15 minutes talking to me before the massage, detailing what he could do, and asking me what I needed. He then spent over 90 minutes doing deep tissue work, ART, and traditional massage.  It was beyond awesome. I highly recommend! I convinced Alina to visit him the Monday after my Friday massage. She was equally-- if not even more --wow-ed than I was. Then I got Angela to make an appointment, too. She goes at the end of this week. I'm not one to advertise on my blog... but I had to say something here. The dude is amazing.

After my awesome massage I rested a day and then, as I reported in my last post, I raced a little sprint in Cape Elizabeth called the Tri for Preservation. (Absolutely awesome race, btw, if you ever happen to be in Maine the third weekend in August...)

I had a decent race, one which I am definitely not ashamed of, but I also experienced the same lack of verve that I have been dealing with all of this season. My run has suffered the most during this time. I think it requires a sort of desperate and frantic energy to really really go hard on the run of any tri, because if you have done it right, you do not come to the run fresh as a daisy. I usually have that energy. I usually kill myself to run girls down. But like during my other races this season, I let two women pass me that had (in my humble opinion) no business passing me. And I didn't hunt them down. Only when I saw my friend Anne who had to DNF b/c of her broken chain/derailleur and she shouted at me to run them down did I find a little spirit to do so, and that ended soon after Anne was out of earshot.  I ended up running those three short miles in a SLOWER pace than I have run an entire half marathon in past races. Not good.

I have been looking for a reason... a reason why my verve has been less than stellar for months now, and why my run has been so dramatically affected by it both in training and racing. The only thing I could come up with is that I have trained too much and not given myself a break. And that's true. But I now have another theory. I think I have been injured for quite a long bit of time, but I think I did not allow myself to recognize this. My body knew it, though, and it refused to work at its usual "level" until I acknowledged and did something about the injury.

I tell my athletes to tell me when something hurts. The fastest way to get through a potential injury is to catch it early and rest it. However, I also know that if we all stopped short whenever something hurt, our consistency in training would be ridiculously abysmal. The trick is to know when something is serious, and to take charge of it when you have a feeling it is.

The problem really comes when you have been training for so many years that you begin to have trouble distinguishing between pain that is going to lead you down a path of peril, and pain that will resolve itself within a couple days or weeks. I have run through so many injuries at this point, and usually come out on the other side somewhat intact, that I have stopped believing that internal sensor that fires when I have a "hurt" that should stop me short.

My foot has been hurting on and off for many months now. This is nothing new. I have bunions and big callouses, and have had neuroma and metatarsalgia pretty consistently since I started doing endurance triathlon. So my feet are truly ugly and they often hurt. But the pain I had early this summer was different, since it was on a bone and on top of my foot. Still, it didn't hurt so badly. It was tender. It was inconvenient. But it didn't' need to shut me down.

After my race on Sunday, though, my foot was more than just tender. In a few hours it was swollen on top of the foot and really quite painful. Still, I wasn't incredibly worried. At least, I wasn't incredibly worried until later that night when I realized I couldn't walk on it without wincing. And then I became more worried when the pain kept me up that night when I wasn't even putting pressure on the foot. I knew I had to have it checked. I knew this was a foot that would be really hard to run on in a half ironman--and I had a half ironman coming up in 6 short days.

So I had it checked.
And it is a fracture of the second metatarsal. And actually, it is likely a re-fracture of a bone that has seen better days and has fractured before.

So sighhhhhhhhh......

I can still swim. And I'm hoping that soon, like a in a few weeks? I might be able to bike. Not sure on the running. That is a big question mark. I'm trying to be patient. I'm trying to deal with the fact that I feel klutzy and heavy when wearing the damn boot they gave me.

Some seasons you rock. Some seasons everything seems to go awry.
I was due for a season gone awry. I've had a bunch of really good ones in a row.
The good thing about having this not so stellar season is that I really feel like I learned a TON in the last few months, and I have knowledge that will not only help me in the future, but also those I coach. And after I heal this damn foot I am so excited to get strong. I will take my time, and not overdue it. And next season is going to be a good one. I just know it.