Off day during an off week

Fridays are always my off days, lots of reasons why I chose Fridays. First it's the day after Thursday night where I sometimes go out with my friends, which makes it hard to get up early on Friday. And it's the first day of the week end and I like to have some wine with my dinner on Friday night, which makes it harder to go ride, swim or run after dinner ;) This week though I wish I could have go out to run when I woke up this morning, the weather was really nice. It was 0C or so, no wind at all, perfect conditions to run at this time of the year. But sadly I can`t run still, I won't be able to run at all before Monday's appointment with the doctor. Good news though, I don't feel any pain in my foot at all anymore. Those couple of days off were great to heal some little things I had since a while. Pain in one of my knee, calves were sore since a while now. That should all be healed up by next week when I will, I hope, be able to restart running. I had an appointment with my trainer today, had my body fat measured again. I am really happy, during the last month I went from 16.6% to 15.5% of body fat. Last month versus today

SKINFOLD	SKINFOLD
Chin: 7	Chin: 7
Cheek: 5	Cheek: 5
Pectoral: 7	Pectoral: 7.4
Triceps: 9	Triceps: 7.4
Subscap: 11	Subscap: 11
Mid-axillary: 14.6	Mid-axillary: 12.4
Supra-Illiac: 14	Supra-Illiac: 13
Umbilical: 20	Umbilical: 19.2
Knee: 7	Knee: 6.8
Medial Calf: 10	Medial Calf: 6.8
*Quadriceps: 10	*Quadriceps: 7.4
*Hamstrings: x	*Hamstrings: 7.4
STATS	STATS
Sum of mm: 104.6	Sum of mm: 96
Lean mass: 65.8	Lean mass: 65.9
Fat%: 16.6	Fat%: 15.5

I will update all the totals in the table as soon as I get some free times. Now I only have to keep working on that to get it down to 12% or so. Training for last week Running Time - 2:46 Distance - 27.28 km Swimming Time - 2:16 Distance - 4.8 km Ridding Time - 2:05 Distance - 65.9 km

I got a plan

I got a plan in case my doctor doesn't let me restart running because of my right foot. This might takes a couple of days to get used to it but at least it won't hurt my foot ;) My only problem is that running on the snow like that ain't gonna be funny. My right foot is getting better, the pain is almost all gone. But I won't be silly and go out runnign on it tomorrow ... At least I will work hard not to be ;) My head was not there yesterday night at master swimmers, I left the workout half way through it. I am not sure what hapenned, it's like I was really tired. But I didn't run in the morning so I shouldn't have been. Anyway I decided to take a couple of days off from work next week to get some rest and relax. And by that time my foot should be like a brand new one, so I should be able to run a little bit. This is except if my doctor wants to test my sanity and keep me from running for longer than a week. I hope it was nothing and that by next week life will be back where it was not so long ago and that I will still be able to go out and run for as long as I feel like.

Those words a triathlete don't want to hear

"You'll have to stop running" For my last two runs I had a pain under my right foot, I was not too sure if it was a good thing to run on the pain and just deal with it. So I went to a sport chyropractor specialist yesterday night. He checked everything, and he said that it's either a stress fracture or I teared a muscle under my foot. Then he looked at me and said that I would have to stop running for a week and then restart with a walk/run program if I want to make sure that I would get ride of this before the season really kicks in. That means that there's no way I will be ready in time to run my half marathon at the speed I was intending to run it. I should be able to complete it, but no way I will do it fast :( That probably also mean that running a full in July will be harder since I am getting back to the start of my training program. I don't think it will mess with my triathlon season too much since I am not planning anything longer than an Olympic which is a 10k run and that shouldn't be a problem. But I should say that when he told me that yesterday the feeling was not that great inside. The guy is a runner too, so he knew how I was feeling. That was weird when I woke up at 5:30 today, to realize that I wouldn't go out to run even if the plan was calling for it. I am a bit disappointed and unhappy with my body right now. I did make sure that I wouldn't push too much during my training. I also made sure that I didn't raise the distance or time too fast to make sure I wouldn't hurt myself. But after all that I still get hurt, it's just not fair in my mind. At least I can still bike and swim, did a trainer ride yesterday night to change my mind a little bit. And tonight is master swimmers, which will give me an occasion to move a little bit for today at least. Swimming Time - 0:45 Distance - 1.4 km

The Sun Rise by itself is worth it

It's that time of the year where the sun is rising early enough so I can see it while I am running, today just just beautiful. The sky was perfect, not a single cloud in it, it was like orange and slowly the sun appeared. Those are some awesome moments, outside running and seeing something that beautiful. I wish I would have had my cell phone with me to take a picture of it, I will try to think about it tomorrow and post a picture here. Today's run was a tempo run, 10 min warm up, 40 minutes tempo and 10 minutes cool down. 5m 9:08/km walking 10m 6:14/km warm up 40m 5:14/km tempo 10m 6:20/km cool down 2m 10:14/km walking By the end of the 40 minutes I was getting tired and my pace was slower, but overall I stayed at the pace I was aiming for. My goal for that tempo run was 5:17, so 5:14 is not too far off. When I ran my Sunday's long run I hurt myself, not too sure how but it started hurting under my right feet every time I pushed while running. I was feeling better yesterday so I figured I would be ok to run today, finally it started hurting again after 45 minutes or so today. I am not sure if I should go see a doctor of some kind or if I will just get over it after a couple of days ... I hate when it happens to me, my body should know better than anybody that I don't have the time to get hurt with the tri season coming soon. I was surfing on the New York City Marathon web site today and I saw that the lottery application is finally open, so I did apply. Now I only have to hope that I will get picked :) Running Time - 1:07 Distance - 11.57 km Riding Time - 1:00 Distance - 31.1 km

Swimming for lunch

Since I skipped my trainer ride yesterday I had in my mind to do it today. But when I saw that my legs were still sore from yesterday's long run when I woke up I figured that just skipping that ride was the best thing to do and I did. I went to the pool during my lunch time for a quick swim, since I had a meeting at 1pm I only had time to swim for a short period. There was not too many people, which was fun because I hate fighting while in the pool. Swimming Time - 0:36 Distance - 1.4 km

Sunday's pleasure

Man I love long run, going out for 2 hours of pure joy running in the street and relaxing while spending some real quality time with myself. It's hard to explain to someone who doesn't, but those runs are probably the best stress relief that I can find in my life. Every time I go out and run I just find a way to relax and get in peace with myself in a certain way, which is nice because lets face it, life is stressful. Now if only the snow was all melted it would be so much more pleasant to run than it actually is. The snow is now half melted in some place, so it's almost impossible to push while running because my feet keep sleeping. at least there's more pavement visible now than last week, and it will only get better ;) Today's run was my longest this year, last time I ran that long was at the half marathon last October. I am happy to see that I am in that shape so early in the season, I plan to run that kind of run at least every other week for the summer so I will always be in a half marathon shape. At least this is my plan for this summer, so if I decide myself to run a marathon along the way I will already be in a good starting shape for it. Today's split were 05m - 8m31s/km walking 30m - 6m16s/km in Z1 45m - 5m51s/km in Z2 15m - 5m29s/km in Z3 15m - 5m41s/km in Z2 02m53s - 9m10s/km walking The path was hilly so it messed my speed a little, not that easy to find a flat road around here when running for almost 2 hours. I was supposed to hit the trainer today after my long run, but my legs were so tired that I decided to pass on it for now. Here are my week-end's total. Running Time - 2:46 Distance - 27.5 km Swimming Time - 0:55 Distance - 2 km

Off day ... not so off

Today is my usual off day of the week. But since didn't run yesterday morning because of the snow storm I went out to do that run today. First of all, let me tell you that it was not better today. There was still a lot of snow on the streets and it was painful to run today. I usually enjoy my morning run, today was not as enjoyable as usual. The weather was ok, something like -9C or so with 20km/h winds or so. It was a ladder run, 15 minutes in zone 1, 15 minutes in zone 2, 10 minutes in zone 3 and then 5 minutes in zone 1. I did ok, but not as fast as I usually do on those runs because of the snow. 15m - 06m07s/km in Z1 15m - 05m17s/km in Z2 10m - 05m11s/km in Z3 05m - 06m15s/km in Z1 Here's my training for the last week Running Distance - 49.25 km Time - 4:50:00 Riding Distance - 104.7 km Time - 3:25:00 Swimming Distance - 2.3 km Time - 1:06:00 Looking at those numbers I see that missing master swimmers Wednesday night and the Aquathlon last week end cut my swimming distance for the week drastically, but I will get those number back up in the upcoming week :)