Good Day for Biking and Swimming

Posted on January 26th, 2009 by Ryan Bickerstaff

I managed 40% of my total volume last week in one day…today!  It was a good start to this final base phase of training.  I started with a 2:30 ride (55+ miles) on the CompuTrainer in the morning.  I don’t feel like switching gears all the time, so I just set it at 100 laps of the half mile flat course.  When I ride in the morning, it takes a while for me to get up to a steady state speed/power.  The first 25 miles were in around 1:13:35 and the second 25 were in around 1:08:20 I think. 

After the bike ride, I went to work until my 6pm swim.  I need to do 32,000m this week, and I try to front load the volume slightly so that I can take it a little easier on the weekend or at least Sunday before starting up for the following week on Monday.  I started with a 5000y straight swim (really exciting, I know).  I wanted to do the first 4000 in around 50:00, averaging 6:15 per 500.  The first couple of 500s were in around 6:02, so I was happy, thinking I could ease up later on and still average 6:15.  Then, I put in a 500 that was under 6:00, and I thought, well, I might as well go a bit faster.  I went through 2000 in 23:55 feeling pretty good, so I picked up the pace a bit and did a couple 500s under 5:40.  I finished the first 4000 in 46:43, which meant 22:48 for the second 2000y, a nice descending split!  That was nearing a threshold pace, so I did the last 1000 easier, finishing 5000 in 59:45.  Then, I finished up the 8000y total swim with 2000 paddles and 1000 normal swimming.

I’ll probably be a little tired tomorrow, but I have a 45 minute run, some strength training and plyometrics, and another swim planned.  It should be a little less than the 4 hours of training I did today, but it’ll still be good.

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Base Phase 2 Complete

Posted on January 25th, 2009 by 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.

 

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2008 Training in Numbers

Posted on January 11th, 2009 by Ryan Bickerstaff

I just finished logging in my workouts into PC Coach, the training log software I use, from when I was home over the holidays.  Here are some approximate numbers over the past few years:

For years 2006, 2007, and 2008:

Yearly Swim Distance: 550,000m, 940,000m,  1,080,000m
Yearly Bike Distance: 4425 miles, 3450 miles, 4015 miles
Yearly Run Distance: 1025 miles, 1105 miles, 990 miles

Yearly Swim Hours: 161, 238, 270
Yearly Bike Hours: 236, 181, 208
Yearly Run Hours: 131, 130, 120
Yearly Strength Training Hours: 38, 25, 26
Total Hours (doesn’t quite add up right due to approximations): 568, 579, 626

A couple of things to note: I really started to swim a lot more at the end of September 2007 - about doubling what I had done in years past.  For biking and running I normally just go by hours since comparing miles between the CompuTrainer and the road or the treadmill and the road doesn’t work out quite right.

This year, I’m hoping to at least hold steady my swim volumes, be more consistent on the bike (near 300 hours would be good), and if my feet stay healthy, hopefully put in 180 hours of running.  I also want to be more consistent with strength training throughout the year as both a means to increase my athletic capabilities and to remain resistant to injury…that should put me at around 100 hours by year end.

If I do all that, I’m looking at probably around 800-900 hours total for the year.  That’s a fairly large jump from years past, but in years past I’ve also had some injury issues.  I think I can prevent what caused the injuries in the past, and so it should just be a matter of staying mentally focused and consistent throughout the year.

 

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Back from Oklahoma

Posted on January 8th, 2009 by Ryan Bickerstaff

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.

Sunset Next to My House in Alva 650 feet underground in the salt mine

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


 

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AC Joint Injury

Posted on December 16th, 2008 by Ryan Bickerstaff

Last night my shoulder was getting progressively worse even with just minor movements, so I set my alarm for 8am this morning to call the Sports Medicine department at the Palo Alto Medical Foundation when they first opened.  This is a really good place to go and the doctors are all experts, but my past experience trying to get in to see Dr. Saxena about my foot in a timely manner seemed to indicate they are booked solid weeks in advance.  In any case, whether I plead my case really well (the fact that even rolling out of bed was painful) or they had some open spaces, they said I could get in to see any of the three shoulder experts they have.  I ended up seeing Dr. Colin Eakin at 9:15am, and I was really happy because when I go home to Oklahoma there won’t be any specialists available.

Normally, I really like to talk to the doctor and get an understanding of what caused the problem, how to prevent it in the future, and how to best deal with it right now.  Dr. Eakin must have been in high speed mode today, though, because literally within 60 seconds of him walking into the exam room, he asked how it felt, did some range of motion tests, and then goes, “You injured your AC joint, and I’m going to give you a cortisone injection.”  I was like, whoa, whoa, normally cortisone injections are a last resort, and he said, “you could have surgery instead.” haha And when I asked if it would get better on its own, he said “maybe, but you need the injection if you want the pain to go away.”  So, since I’m going to be gone for a couple of weeks and the pain was pretty bad, I went ahead and got the injection.

In addition to the cortisone, he injected some lidocaine, which acts as an anesthetic.  Immediately afterwards he did the same range of motion tests, and I had almost no pain.  I was thinking wow, that was fast!  But apparently lidocaine wears off fairly quickly, so by the time I got to work it was hurting again.  The doctor said the cortisone will kick in by around Thursday, so I’ll have to endure some discomfort in the meantime.

It was hard to get much out of him as to what could have caused the problem, but he said it was likely a weight lifting injury.  I didn’t think I was using too much weight, but I can think of a couple of exercises that may have aggravated it.  Add sleeping on my shoulder funny one night and perhaps too much paddle use in the pool, I think it could have just been a combination of things.  In any case, the doctor said no paddles or weights above 10 pounds (I probably won’t do any) for two weeks.  After a couple of days, he said regular swimming should be fine.   All I know is that there is no way I can possibly swim with how it feels right now…it would be unbearable.

This of course throws a wrinkle into my training plans.  Swimming makes up around 40% of my total hours of exercise per week.  I’m going to have a lot more energy in the short term.  I tend to want to make up for it a bit by doing extra in something else.  However, I’m pretty much maxed out with lower and core body strength training as well as running (due to wanting to go easy on my foot).  I may be able to squeeze in a bit more biking, but again, I don’t want those muscles to become overly fatigued.  I might just have to live with a little extra rest for the time being, which isn’t always a bad thing.

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