Ryan Bickerstaff

I just finished up my second of three 4 week base building periods for the upcoming racing season.  Luckily, I was able to come back from the AC joint injury rather quickly.  At the end of the week after the initial injury I managed about 2,000m.  After that, I quickly went up to 12,000m, 32,000m, and 34,000m before taking an easy week at 16,000m.  I only did about 10 hours of training this past week because it was a recovery week, but I had weeks of 19 and about 21 hours before that.

The next three weeks should be a bit of a challenge.  If all goes well, then I’ll be doing 19, 21, and 23 hours of training.  Although I can feel a little soreness in my shoulder when swimming, it hasn’t been a problem, and I think it will just take a while longer to completely go away.  I’ve been extra careful with the weight training and am setting my shoulders properly before doing upper body strengthening exercises.  I’m a little weary of my left foot because it hindered my training much of last year, and I’m still feeling some sensations.  Nothing actually hurts, but I still feel “something,” although not in the exact spot that was hurt last year.  I had planned to do 4x(50, 55, 60) minute runs the next three weeks, but I think I’ll decrease all of those by 5 minutes to be on the safe side.  I’ll try doing one of the runs slightly longer and decreasing another run by the same amount.

All in all, I think the past week was good to take as a recovery.  It gave my body a chance to fully absorb the recent training.  I felt great after just a day or two easier, but that gave way to some feelings of sluggishness a couple days later, so I think it was pretty clear that my body needed some rest.  Also, it gave my foot and body a chance to absorb the recent training and get over any lingering inflammation or potential injuries.