Falling down

I had a short run scheduled Friday night. I was going to run it on the dreadmill again because I have no interest in taking a fall on the ice and breaking something. I’m not home during daylight hours on weekdays. But first I have to stop at Costco and do some shopping. Naturally almost everything I buy is packaged huge. I go home and unload the car. My final trip to the basement turns into a TRIP. I guess wet boots and my stairs, equaled zero friction. I slid down the stairs on my back. It’s pretty amazing how quickly you get to the basement if you don’t use the stairs properly. It’s a shame I didn’t have my HR monitor on, I think I would have found out what my max HR really is. All I could think was, what did I break? Right triceps are sore. Right glute took a massive hit. Left hand and wrist was hit by an 8 pack of progresso soup. Left elbow tried to catch a stair on the way down. How the back of my head escaped being struck on the way down is surprising to me.

I caught my breath and got up and found nothing was broken. Phew! Genine wasn’t home. Is it odd that what came to mind was the necklace button/pager they give to the elderly when they’ve fallen and can’t get up. Seriously! That was painful and more than a little scary.

Well that nixed the evening run. I figured I’d better wait and see how this is going to feel the next day before doing anything.

Saturday was a long bike. Fortunately the bruise on my glute was higher up than my sit bones so it was not an issue. My right calf and foot always seems to be an issue for me while biking. I spent a bunch of time focusing on what I might be doing differently than my left. It’s possible that I push more toe down on my right so I tried to focus on that. I also decided to order another set of cleats to put onto my older bike shoes. That pair is a bit wider and may be a better fit.

The funniest part about the ride was this. I have the front derailleur set so the chain will rub in the small chain ring on the innermost rear cogs, so the chain doesn’t drop. Well I hit the finish time, gear down for a cool down and… the chain drops. The K-Edge chain catcher did arrive this week. I just haven’t taken the time to try an install it yet. Honestly, I’d prefer not to use this thing but if it works, it’s going to be well worth it.

Sunday: Long swim day. (relative). I can feel where my right triceps took a hit. The short stuff went well. My pacing on descends is improving. I also focused on my exhalations. It’s funny that I seem to breathe well on race day, but when I train I often hold my breath. Reading this article helped me make this a priority today. The last set was an 800 and I was struggling. When I got out of the pool, my muscles were aching, especially up around my neck. I didn’t think too much of it.

I go home and watch part of the Bears/Packers game on TiVo. I get bored and head up to the dreadmill for a 60 minute run. It was an easy run but my breathing wasn’t feeling all that great. I had to really focus on it to keep my HR down.

I get a shower, make some dinner, start watching the Steelers game on the TiVo. It wasn’t too much longer before I realized I was burning a fever. That would explain the muscle ache.

I wake up the next morning and I realize I’ve got the flu. Sweats one minute, chills the next. The muscle ache was pretty bad. It’s times like this when you realize just how awesome being in good health really is. Tuesday was somewhat better but not much. Wednesday was less with the chills, more with the respiratory infection. Muscinex gets added to the mix along with frequent netipot use. Here it is Thursday and we are buried under 12+ inches of heavy snow. My fever kicks in if I don’t netipot often enough to keep the sinus infection in check. Maybe I should just go to the doctor now that the flu is gone and an antibiotic would actually be effective on the respiratory infection. I know the drill tho’. I’d go and they would say has it been a week? If no, then they tell me to come back next week if it’s still a problem and they will prescribe something then. (Or I lie and tell them it’s been over a week).

Obviously I’ve missed a few days of workouts. It may end up being 5 or 6. I think this bothers me less now that I have a training schedule. I know I’ll be able to pick up where I left off and it won’t take that long to get back on track.

If I were in the build part of my schedule, I might not feel this way. If I broke something falling down the stairs, I’d be much further behind so I’m not going to sweat it.

Also, I finally got my IR receiver working with my PC software on my mac. Which means I finally downloaded my Columbia and Mooseman race information from my watch. Pretty un-spectactular. The good news is I’ll be back at both those races again very soon.