Back from Oklahoma
I just got back from a 17 day trip back home to Alva, Oklahoma on Tuesday. It’s always really noticeable how different Alva is from where I live now when I take longer trips like that. It’s not really better or worse, just different. The trip was good, and it was also nice to take some time off from work. I still have more than 5 weeks of vacaton time saved up, so I’m thinking about taking a trip a bit more exciting than Alva sometime this year. I went out a few nights and met some new people, played with our dog, Ginger, and went on a field trip to an underground salt mine in Hutchinson, Kansas. I’d seen the salt mine on Dirty Jobs on the Discovery Channel so it was fun to see it in person. Despite catching my first cold in a year, my training still went well.
The ac joint injury scared me a bit because it was really painful, and I wasn’t sure if it would take a long, long time to get better. Luckily, the doctor was pretty much right, and after a few days it started to feel better. He said swimming wouldn’t hurt it, but I was still having some pain, so I waited a bit longer before jumping in the pool. Still, in less than 10 days I felt good enough to give swimming a try. It was a little scary starting out, and I only did about 1000y every other day for about a week, but now, after about 3 weeks since the injection, I’ve done three 6000+ yard swims in a row with only a very minor sensation. I started doing some upper body strength training again on Wednesday, as well, but I’ve cut way back in the weight level and am focusing on having a proper scapular setting when doing lateral shoulder movements. I’ll be trying out the swim paddles on Friday, but I don’t think it’ll be an issue. It’s not a lot of fun to take a couple weeks more or less off from swimming, but I think within another week or so, I should be back at my pre-injury level.
Biking went great while I was at home. I did two longer 2.5 hour rides on the CompuTrainer during that time. I just did the half mile flat course 100 times and then added on a bit. The first day I did it I was still a bit sick and split 1:17:10, 1:09:38 per 25 miles. The other day I went a nice steady tempo that progressively became harder and split 1:07:04, 1:03:30. I got a late start with biking consistently last year, so if I can keep things up like present, I should be in a lot better biking shape once the racing season starts.
I’m up to four 45 minute runs in a week (next week will be 50 minutes), and I haven’t been experiencing any problems. This is really great news, and hopefully my problmes earlier in the year will stay in the fast.
These are two of the silly videos I created with my dog Ginger while at home. The first is just of her breathing and licking her lips (exciting, I know), and the other is her reaction when the doorbell rings…she gets a little confused when it rings and no strangers are at the front door. I don’t have a video, but I also taught her a trick consisting of putting a treat in one of three overturned cups, mixing them up, and then having her figure out which cup has the hidden treat. She got pretty good at it, but eventually started figuring out it was easier and faster to just knock them all down. haha
Filed under: Uncategorized
