The Good with The Bad

It’s been a weird couple of days recently. Ups and downs, more ups and more downs. Nothing too terrible though. The weird part is just that with all these swings I have no idea how to feel.

Remember that pain in my left foot I mentioned a couple weeks ago in my half marathon race report? Well it hasn’t really gone away like I hoped. It’s never more than an occasional ache or moderate discomfort, but I found out that I’m dealing with a mild case of plantar fasciitis. At first I was pretty upset about this thanks to the horror stories from my friends who’ve dealt with it before but now I’m just bummed. The wise folks in the DC Tri Club gave me some great advice and exercises to help with the pain and I’m ahead enough in my run endurance that it won’t set me back. Thankfully, I can afford 7-10 days off my feet and it’s just more frustration than anything else.

So with my current inability to lace up my shoes and hit the roads, I’ve had more time to test my fitness in the pool and on the bike. And here lies the up thanks to the down.

Friday night, I made my triumphant return to the water; and triumphant it was indeed. Because of the never-ending snowfall in DC and my strategically timed laziness the week before, it had been over 13 days since I did a serious swim workout. Before all you readers start spending all day worrying about my lack of swim workouts, I’ll calm your nerves. The water is the one place I feel the most confident. That’s not to say I’m Michael Phelps or anything like that, but I’m at least above average in my races. Now that we’ve got that covered, onto the workout. Friday nights are always the best at the pool because I get a lane to myself and I took full advantage of it. It started out with a couple intensity sets to get my rhythm back. Then it turned into more of an aerobic set. Then I just kept going. After all was said in done, I left that pool at closing time feeling like a million bucks. My arms weren’t tired at all and I just completed my second-longest session ever. Way ahead of where I need to be during this build period. Needless to say, I went to bed very happy Friday night.

Then came Saturday. Naturally, I slept in an extra hour because of another late night binging on the Olympics but once I was up and moving, I immediately hopped on the bike. My intention was to push myself and see what my legs could hold, knowing that my weakest discipline is the bike and I have plenty of work to do, and that’s exactly what I did. I pushed a killer pace thanks to some Olympic and BC basketball inspiration and hopped off the bike after a very sweaty 4+ hour session.

All in all, it was a successful weekend. Despite my annoying foot pain, I’m ahead of schedule for my build period and ready to ramp things up come springtime. Let’s just hope these tips for my foot and my time off allow me to get back outside next week just as the snow finally melts away.