The title of this post is the best way to describe the last week or so of my training. I’ve come to the conclusion that i’m totally obsessed with my training right now .. its really all I think about when i’m not working or spending time with my family. I find that i’m always looking back on the current days workout, or looking forward to tomorrows workout, or thinking about what kind of new twist can I add to some level of my training so I can get better… it just never seems to stop. I guess its not a bad thing in the end based on some readings i’ve done, but I seem to get to this point in my training each year and I just don’t know how to stop. I’ve even traded in my rest/recovery day each week to get an extra dedicated circuit workout in. I know i’m not the only athlete out there who gets like this because I think to some degree, we’re all obsessed with what we do, but this is my time of year. I love the summer due to the weather, the sunny days … I just can’t get enough of it.

Unfortunately, all the extra time i’ve put in to training causes me to overtrain, which is something I was just thinking about falling into the other day. I actually haven’t taken a day off from any kind of training since June 8th .. this is where the second word in my title comes in regarding my status. PAIN. Yes, after doing the Spartacus circuit workout last Tuesday, I felt a little right shoulder pain, nothing too serious but I think it was caused by using too heavy of weights on some of the exercises. I did get through that circuit 3 times and mixed in with a half mile run between circuits .. Thankfully the shoulder pain didn’t effect my swimming at all as I got in my Supermile swim workout in on Wednesday, circuit again on Thursday, a long 8 mile run on Friday, 28 miles on the bike early Saturday and then about 1.5 miles of open water swimming at Blue Marsh Lake on Saturday. By Sunday morning, I was pretty burnt out but I still had a 6 mile run and another pyramid swim workout scheduled to go, which somehow I got through. The shoulder pain has since subsided thankfully, although i can still feel it here and there when I move it a certain way.

So after all that madness this weekend and my shoulder feeling better, I planned to take it easy today due to the holiday by just doing my running speed workout (to go anaerobic). I got 23 minutes into the workout and my body just quit .. yep, I strained a muscle in my middle back and had to turn around to head home jogging. Its funny how these injuries happen at the strangest time though, without any warning. At first I thought I was really down for the count due to the pain because it hurt to walk or move, but has since subsided. I managed to jog my way back home since I was only about 1.5 miles out .. this convinced me it wasn’t too serious (or it could be the pain management i’m doing).

This has now forced me to make the change my plan for the week into taking it easy.. I found I can still jog, and still swim, I just have to take it easy doing anything to not further hurt my back muscles. I haven’t been able to test if I feel any pain when i’m on the bike yet since I don’t have my bike right now.. which leads me to the LAST word in the title of this post, REPAIRS.

It seemed like I was working REALLY hard on my last couple bike rides to get through the course. I hadn’t noticed until Saturday morning, after I changed my brake pads, that there was a dragging sound coming from my back wheel. I checked the alignment on my back wheel and it wasn’t spinning easily and getting hung up, it was actually spinning crooked and I had noticed there were a couple spokes that were real loose. It turned out that the back wheel was dragging against the brake pad on every rotation, which essentially was slowing me down when I was riding .. great. I also realized that I needed to get a general adjustment because the front derailleur was rubbing the chain pretty much in every gear I was in on Saturday, it was quite noisy and it can’t be good for the chain.

So I figured its a good time to take the bike to the shop for a tune-up and to get my wheel fixed.. i’m not sure if it needs to be replaced or if they can fix it, we’ll find out tomorrow when I get it back. Either way, she’ll be all cleaned up and adjusted when I get her back, so thats a good thing.

So i’m forced to take it easy right now with a sore back .. i’m doing my home pain management right now but can’t wait to get my chiropractic treatments and sports massage on Wednesday and Thursday… that should make it feel better. Dr Chris, Ruth and Diane do such a good job keeping me in top shape during training … I wish they were there today to loosen me up. I’m also hoping that the new shoes I bought (my first pair of Zoot triathlon shoes) will help support my back a little better and make my landing softer, i’m thinking my shoes were pretty burnt out since i’ve had them since the winter, so that may have contributed to the pain as well.

Lastly, it seems that the Tri-Rock Gettysburg Olympic triathlon has been postponed this fall. I planned to do this as the wrap up of my season on October 16th, but due to logistical reasons, they postponed it. I guess its a good thing if they didn’t think they could bring it together in time, but it left me with a gap after the Wilkes-Barre Triathlon in August. I had two options to replace it, the Chesapeake Man on Sept 24th or the Quakerman on Sept 10th. Unfortunately I can’t make the 24th due to previous commitments, so the Quakerman Olympic it will be .. it should be a challenge since the bike is 38 miles, which is kind of far for me, but its a chance to push myself in prep for next year. The swim isn’t so far, its only about 1000m, so not too bad…

Thats it for now … another update soon..