It’s hard to believe it’s been nearly 3 months since my last post and my last race in Kona. After a few weeks away from training to let both my body and mind recover from a long and intense race season, I finally felt the “itch” to start training regularly again in November. It’s always surprising to me how tough those first few weeks are, to get back into a regular training routine and how quickly all that fitness can decline. The message always becomes clear: Consistency is key, especially for long-term performance improvement.
As the December holiday season rolled in, all the other commitments that go along with that also took their toll in completing every training session. I know this conflicts what I just wrote, consistency being key, but at the same time the 2012 race season is still very far away so as long as I hit my key sessions for the week, I was okay with skipping or shortening some of the other “base” sessions I had. With that said by the end of the month, I was feeling happy with where my fitness was in all 3 sports. I am not at the peak fitness like I was during the season last year, but I feel that I am building a strong base to build on next year as the training picks up.
As good as my training was going and as good as I was feeling, I still hit a minor roadblock on December 23: a back spasm. What was a simple and easy task to bend over to talk to my 3-year old son in his stroller, I immediately felt a “zing!” up the lower right side of my back. I didn’t lift him; I just bent at the waist. That was it and it was locked up. In the typical “committed” triathlete approach, it was sore, but not tight enough to stop me from swimming, biking or running for the next few days. So I kept training. It wasn’t until about a week later, when I woke up and could barely stand up that I finally realized this was more than just a minor inconvenience.
The next thing I did was go to my local chiropractor for an analysis. The good news was that it is not my back itself, but the connections from my pelvis to lower back. When it happened, those connections had locked up causing my pelvis to rotate forward, pulled my right leg up and twist it forward. Again, hard to believe all this happened just by bending over. It’s amazing to me that as strong as we may think our bodies are, they are still relatively fragile and always need to be taken care of. After an initial adjustment, then a follow-up adjustment and massage, I am now getting back on track. I spent that past few days testing my back to normal, but light, training. So far, so good….
Besides that, I have lots of exciting news for 2012! Stay tuned for updates! Happy New Year!
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