Random reflection on 2006

I am not happy with this training year. I have some big races coming up in the next 10 months and I have people depending on me to do well for them and I of course have my own expectations to meet. But thus far 2006 has been plagued with injury, illness and struggle.

My hamstring has still not healed and I am about half way through my modified rehab. The true course was to take 3 months off and focus strickly on re-hab exercises with low impact on leg exercise like oh say biking, running and the occasionally kicking in swimming. Well that really didn't fit the plan, so we designed a modified routine that allowed me to training and still get better.

Somewhere in here is a lesson as Benny would so aptly write.

The hamstring tear which is very high up in the origin (a muscle has a top and bottom, the top is called the origin-where it starts, and the end is called the insertion-where it attaches to another body part for lack of a better term). The origin of the hamstring is deep under the butt or glute so the tear is under the butt muscle so its hard to get too without some painful manipulation. The effect of the tear right now is twofold, lack of power and knotting up of the hamstring in the bigger belly area of the muscle, which you would normally associate with that muscle if someone mentions it. It has affected all my training but really affected my running speed and distance. My ego is not blown by this, put the process is a limiter.

The other big problem, short term, is I am not acclimitizing to the heat well this summer. Normally I would do this through my runs, but my running is not as consistant. This has caused me considerable issues in getting runs in. I suffered heat stroke in 1993. Any person who survives a heat stroke can tell you that the body truly never recovers. Any person who tells you they have had heat stroke and treat it like its nothing, just part of a conversation, never had it, they had dehydration or maybe exhaustion. Heat stroke kills people. It put me in a coma. I began to vomit my instintines, stomach and lungs out. Not what was in them, but them. My core temperature was over 107* and my kidneys and liver started to shut down. It makes a person become much more suceptable to dehydration and exhaustion down the road. I have learned to adapt as best as any person can in the heat and do quite well when my body accepts the temperature, but this year has been a strain. So that's not helping.

Had a great winter and now summer is getting to me. My spirits are still high and I will get through these two macro issues of the training season, I just wish this year, of all years, I didn't have to go through it.

Perhaps this is a cautionary tale for the rest of you, spefically about heat injury. Stash water or have a SAG vehicle. We were lucky enough yesterday to have someone on a motorcycle who brought us water at the turnaround instead of us having to split up the run going into a General Store all sweaty. Be vigilant of your self and watch your buddy. Have the wherewithall to shut down the engine when you have reached a critical point. Have that crucial conversation with your partner, much like a drunk with keys.