The Ironman Journey Part 4 - Phase I Complete: What I’ve learned

The Ironman Journey Part 4 - Phase I Complete: What I’ve learned

My training is broken down into 5 phases with a recovery week in between each phase. The first phase was called: “Adaptation Stage.” This stage was 4 weeks long, and when I compare to the conditioning miles over the fall, the mileage is actually lower. What is different though is the weight training, more pool time and the weekend mileage is higher while the weekday mileage is lower. There isn’t much running in this stage, and since I’m still in marathon training mode as well as Ironman training, I modify the schedule to increase the running mileage.

I’ve enjoyed this stage and I might kick myself later for saying this, but I’m ready to pick up the mileage. This week is a rest week, which I’m respecting the swim/bike/conditioning parts, but again, I still have the Boston Marathon coming up, so I’m not quite pulling all the way back on the running.

My biggest concern is the weight gain. As I said, the mileage isn’t as high as my fall conditioning. I don’t know if it is winter, or if it’s the additional miles in the pool triggering hunger but I am nonstop hungry- and if you know me, I tend to gravitate towards the sweets. While in my ‘rest’ week, I’m trying to focus on this and change my habits to include more value add food. Also, I wouldn’t call it a weight gain of muscle mass, the weight training I do is multiple reps and not about building, just toning (my pants and handles of love also verify the type of weight gain).

The remainder of this Blog is brought to you by the letter “P”


Pills Pills Pills
Though I haven’t been successful on my nutrition, my awareness of the value add items have increased. For a long time I have had a pain that comes and goes in my left foot. This pain became an extreme nuisance a few weeks back. It was so great I started to wonder if it wasn’t circulation/nerve issues, but rather a stress fracture. I am pleased to report it wasn’t, but this put me on a whole track of worrying about stress fractures. I’ve heard too many stories from people getting them, and the thing is, once you get one, your body breaks down and becomes prone to more. So, I just started researching about my bones and how to prevent them. My concern isn’t so much about getting enough calcium as it is absorbing it. So now, I’m becoming a vitamin freak. I haven’t been into vitamins in the past, mainly because they make me feel weird and so I give up before my body can adjust. I need the fear of a stress fracture to keep me on it. I’ve ordered up on drugstore.com and now my daily routine includes Vitamin D, Vitamin K-2 and Magnesium. I’m only a week into this, and I still get nauseous from them like I expected, but I’m hoping this will slowly go away.

Paying attention to Pain
(Yes that is my foot in the picture, the pedicure is a little outdated but I figured a picture for the next part would be helpful to understand- my big toe!)
So what about my foot? It wasn’t a stress fracture, it was just more pain than normal. I decided it was time I didn’t ignore it and start researching it. I have self diagnosed it which I’m pretty confident in my self-diagnosis. The pain is usually increased after marathons, but this time it increased more as I had a 12 mile run in my new trail shoes. My new trail shoes will not be purchased again because they are not wide enough in the toe and I believe this is what triggered the increased inflamed pain.

If you don’t know what Morton’s toe is, it is when your 2nd toe is longer than your big toe (or so I call it the little pig that stayed home is bigger than the one that went to the market). My piggy that went to the Market is actually the same size as the one that had none (roast beef that is). When I was younger my big toes weren’t really growing. The fix was to break bones in my feet to stimulate growth, and my mom didn’t like the sounds of that, so, my big toes just didn’t grow like most. I can’t blame my mom, who wants to inflict that sort of thing on your body especially when there were no apparent issues with my big toes remaining small except for looking funny. The problem is the potential of Morton’s Neuroma, and the amount of pounding I do on my feet, that’s what I believe my issue is.

What is Morton’s Neuroma you ask? It’s basically an inflamed nerve in your foot that creates pain - it can be described as an electric shock, and yes this pain has been in my life for a very long time, I’m just like my Mom: High pain tolerance and able to ignore. I think I’ve concluded that this can always be an issue, but I don’t have to worry about further issue just because I run a lot. Since I have avoided the trail shoes, the pain issue has gone away. I also read that walking barefoot (flat foot toes spread) can be good for it, so you better believe I’ve pulled out the vibram 5-fingers and I’m trying to walk around in those more again.


People
The third “P’ would be People. What about them? I’m trying to make it to more spin classes and to weight conditioning classes but the problem is: I’m picky with instructors. I feel like Emily is my guinea pig, she tries out classes and she tells me when she likes them, then I go to them. Prior to Emily’s introductions, I had one class I liked which was recommended to me a long time ago and at the Union Station FFC. The problem with this class is I don’t think the instructor likes me. Actually, I take that back, I now KNOW the instructor doesn’t like me or she’s threatened by me or a combination of both. Her class is always a good workout, and she’s more real to being outside on a bike which is what I like and need if I’m going to a spin class. She has her followers, and she has her randoms, and then she has me. I’m like a random that I don’t go all the time, but I’m also more fit like her followers. The truth is, I’m intimidated by her and the people in her class, and maybe her issue with me is because I’m quiet, she thinks I think I’m superior than her class.
But so here are the stories of why I don’t like her attitude:

Alexis once or twice joined me in her class. Now, Alexis is a hottie, she looks good when she’s at the gym and she wears her beautiful engagement ring. Spin Instructor (we will call her Dusty), had a problem with Alexis the minute she saw Alexis, and she totally picked on her in class. Now Alexis might be a looker, but that doesn’t discredit her athletic-ness: she’s a marathoner and a TOTI not a TOFI. I knew Dusty had her catty ways of picking on people, but usually it was stories of people in previous classes, talking about how they couldn’t cut it.

Over the summer, Alison and I would go riding together early mornings on the lakefront path. It was our time together, sometimes we’d go hard, sometimes we’d cruise, and other times especially in zones that are difficult to go fast, we would go slower and chat. Now, Alison and I have matching real nice bikes (see other triathlon write ups), and I have a feeling Dusty once saw us on the path because the next spin class I went to she started saying how she is disgusted with people who spend money on bikes but then don’t go fast on the path. Maybe it was in my head she was talking about me, but the next incident made me decide that her comment about expensive bikes was indeed directed towards me.

Before the next story, in October Sheila and I went for a swim in Lake Michigan, sure it was a little cold in the water, but it was an 80 degree day and we wanted to take advantage. Dusty happened to bike by and see me as I got out of the water and said hi. I kind of laughed at that, but thought; maybe it will make her respect and like me a little more.

I haven’t been to Dusty’s class in a long time. Since Emily introduced me to other classes, I decided I liked instructors with awesome attitudes, and if I had to modify their class to fit my needs, I could handle that. Then, about a week ago, I went back to Dusty’s class. She spent the class picking on ME, not directly but as the class progresssed, she made it apparent it was me she was directing the comments to. She usually picks on people for not working out tons, but this time, her remarks were more in line with “some people spend more time at the gym than me, and if you are doing that Super Athlete, maybe you should take it down a notch. I work here” oh and the comment of “if you think you can go running on a treadmill after this, then you didn’t work hard enough in my class” (I really wanted to say “some of us are training for ironman so it’s called a brick workout!’ But I didn’t). So the great part about this is, I love my nickname- maybe she was trying to use a negative tone- but, Super Athlete? I’ll take it. After class she came up and talked to me, like she was my friend. This is a first. So I mentioned Ironman Training and said I’m also training for marathons right now- which of course she thinks is crazy, but I dropped the word “Boston” and then she acted like she got it.

But the point of this whole story about Dusty comes to a head soon of what I learned about people. I have complained about her to some of my friends, and it turns out my one running friends (Steve) has been friends with her for 10 years, and he defended her to a certain degree. I will not disagree with him; she would be a good 1 on 1 coach and could produce some great athletes. But then he made a comment of the sort like “Prepare yourself for a lot worse when you get into the ironman community”

And here is the thing, which I’ve known for some time: I don’t like and will steer clear from the people who like to talk themselves up by putting others down. Many in the ironman/triathlon and even marathon community are like this. Not all, but many are. People complete Ironman races because it makes them feel superior. We (Ironmen and Ironmen in training) are awesome and we do work hard, but seriously if that’s your only reason: Get over yourself!

I think that’s why I’m so drawn to the DetermiNation Community. When you have a charity athlete, they have many more reasons to complete an ironman other than to fall further in love with themselves. I love the attitudes of my Ironman Network. And I hope Veronica, Daryl, Andy, Alison, Michelle, Kristin, Heath, Maria, Tony(s), myself or any of my other Ironman friends never get a complex so big that we become part of the Ironman Community Steve mentions I should be prepared for. I plan to continue to avoid them.