Track & Field injuries from University, Core/Weights, ITB syndrome and oh yeah.. Week of 2/22

Long story short, when I was in college I did a VO2 Max test on my own, (because I was pretty far behind the curve coming off active duty military) and proceeded to use the data to attack my weaknesses.

I figured out what heartrate and for how long I needed to be operating at that intensity to increase my VO2; instead of doing this sanely I decided "more is more" and hit the track 3x a week.

Eventually disaster struck. I tweaked my ITB on a recovery run on the trails..

Fast foward to the late 90's.. I'm running faster then ever, living and training on the Central Coast; manage to get myself invited to some good track meets where I can jump into some heats with faster athletes in hopes of getting pulled to a fast time..

All of that entailed super intense track work in spikes, that quite frankly, fit like horseshoes..

And when I say intesne I mean just absolutely drilling it.. One of my training partners was a 1.46 800/46 pt sec 400 guy from SLO.. He never ran anything longer than a 300, everything else was 200's or 100's.. Managing those sessions was a handful.

Well, none of this was really great for my left leg which has a couple of issues off and on over the years.. Turns out all of the ITB and lately, random pain in my hip is from years and years of intense use..

I've recognized the problem and I'm lifting light weights again (I did in early 90's to correct the issue the first time around).. Just lower body stuff to get the hip abductors square, it's made an immediate impact and I feel fine currently.

And, as many of you know, I'm not an advocate of weights or core work unless there is an injury present or a person has a known issue where weights act as a hedge against future problems.. I can safely say, at the moment, I fall into this category.

Thank goodness I took up Triathlon when I did.. I don't know how much longer I could have tortured myself as a runner.

Ah, so this last week I had a good solid 14hr -ish week.. Managed five swims, four rides (outdoors even!) and a three runs..

I've been back at the track doing longer "L" pace workouts and they feel good; plus, I'm ahead of goal in terms of what "L" looks like in any random Feb year over year...

Bike wattage seems good and swim velocity is holding nicely..

I'm not sure I'm really jonesing to race just yet but happy to be fit in winter for sure..