Weekly Wrap-up 10-26-14 - The Highs & the Lows

Lets start with the highs.  The positive things.  My newest endeavor... coaching.  Things are progressing well.  I have a blog, a facebook page, a USAC Level 3 coaching license and a lot of enthusiasm.  I'm really starting a 2nd career on the side.  That's exciting and a little scary.  Fortunately, I'm not having to quit my day job to make it happen.  Could I do it full time?  I'm not sure.  It would be hard to leave the steady pay and benefits completely and to do nothing but live and breath endurance sports.  Having a "normal" job does give me a little bit of separation I think and a healthy perspective.  I truly do understand what it takes to balance a full time job, training, family and other commitments outside of work.

I currently have one athlete, and 3 prospects.  And I hoping I'm not too far from joining that mysterious coaching group that I've mentioned a few times now.  I feel like a NFL draft pick waiting to find out who he'll play for.  

My 1st athlete is very enthusiastic, willing to put in the work and learn, and I feel has a lot of potential.  He's could be the perfect client in a sense.  One that you have to may have to reign in more than push.  I'm really excited to see what he can accomplish.

Other good news, my weight gain has been reversed after a solid week of discipline.  I'm not sure how much i lost as I didn;t even want to weigh myself before I started.  It would have been too depressing.  I think I was up to 174lbs.  Now around 171... but I'll figure 1lb for lack of glycogen/water.  Remember, when your dieting or training hard, glycogen get stored with water.  I forget the exact number, so don't quote me, but I think a 1000 calorie deficit (your "tank" is 1/2 empty) is about 1lb.  So full bonked... you'd be 2lbs light.

The bad news... my ITB still sucks. I'm on call this weekend, so to top it off, my training has been lack luster and I was on vacation last weekend.  So what should be week 1 of Base 1 for my build towards an early season "A" race, isn't really building anything.  Just holding a plateau at the bottom of the curve.  I'm wondering too if I can in fact keep riding and have my ITB recover at the same time.  

Its pretty clear what my ITB issue is. 1) It's tight.  I'm rolling, stretching, chiropractor, but it's not getting much better.  I'll just need to bump up the frequency of rolling and stretching.  the result of the tightness is very clear swelling beside the knee.  This is the acute symptom.  It's just like other forms of tendinitis I've had.  Until I can get the swelling down, I'm screwed.  I'm wondering if the same type of eccentric motions that you use for Achilles tendon would work?  Maybe just stretch cords for leg lifts in all 3 directions.   Hmmmm... I think my wife has some cords, I'll give those a try.  I'm almost thinking it's a combination of my glutes, hip flexors and the medial... something or other (I'm not a physiologist) ... it's the muscles that the ITB helps control, the lateral/stabilizing motion of the leg.

By the numbers:

(assuming I go for a 75' ride on this gorgeous afternoon)

Swim: 14,400y, 3h24m

Bike: 157mi, 8h49m

Run: 5m, 0.7mi

Strength: 1h25m

Total: 13h45

TSS: 851