Healthy Eating!

So I whipped up this awesome dinner tonight. Roasted chick peas and cauliflower, rocket, carrot and spring onion salad with tofu in a rub of fennel seeds, cumin and corriander. I have been driving a healthy diet as part of a focus on my nutrition for my training. I am always trying to mix it up and keep the meals nice and interesting. I have got a standard day down for me now that seems to work really well in terms of keeping my feeling well nourished and healthy.

-Breakfast: Green smoothie. This will generally contain some seeds, nuts, fruit and leafy green vegetables. A good balanced serve of protein, fibre, essential fats and nutrients.
-Mid morning snack: Bowl of muesli (raw, not roasted), with homemade rice or soy milk (fortified vitamin b12, no sugar added).
-Lunch: Salad comprising of leafy greens, some kind of carbohydrate, like sweet potato, some legumes and probably some seeds. Normally I'll have a dressing comprising of tahini, hemp seed oil and nutritional yeast (vitamin b12) for one of the basic dressings I do.
-Afternoon snack: Bowl of raw veg with a similar dressing, or maybe another salad.
-Afternoon snack 2: If I get hungry again I'll have a green Vega smoothie.
-Dinner: I try to mix it up with things such as a lentil curry with quinoa or salad. Veggie burgers, Vietnamese cold rolls, Veggie chilli etc. Just a mix of different things to keep it interesting.

Swimming

So this morning, at 6:30 am at Jericho I had my first open water ocean swim of the season with Fred and a few of his Triathlon buddies. It was fairly choppy and pretty cold, but it was damn good fun to get out in the water. Now I'm stoked to get back out there again. It's so much more satisfying than lap swimming indoors. My new Garmin 910XT is sweet and maps out my swim via GPS as well as giving me a reading on strokes, distance efficiency etc.

See ya out in the salt!

Achilles recovery

So I am working away with my Achilles Tendonitis. What an annoying injury. It is like a pestering little shitty dog always yapping at your heels - you never really feel the pain, but you know it's always there to trip you up when you least expect it. So the recovery was looking pretty good, so my physio gave me the all clear so start riding a bit harder, so last Saturday I went for a 45km bike ride. A nice spin around UBC, Stanley Park then home. The Achilles felt great throughout the ride. I stayed in the saddle for the whole ride and really just spun out a light gear. However afterwards the Achilles came back with a vengeance, becoming too painful for my physio excercises and showing some signs of having gone back to square one.

To say the least, I was pretty bummed about this, and my partner was as well, as I continued to whinge and complain all weekend about the face my Achilles was done and that I was not going to be able to make some important races that I hope to race in.

Anyways, it is now Wednesday and everything is looking a lot better. I am easily getting through all of my eccentric heel dips with very little pain (3x15 straight legged, 3x10 bent legged), morning and night. I am also on a hop scotch routine to start putting a bit more load on the Achilles ad giving it some more quick burst movements to cope with. To top off the Achilles injury I also ended up with a dodgy nerve in my foot due to the inflammation surrounding my Achilles, so this has added an extra set of exercises to "floss" my nerves, as with this pain it became increasingly difficuly to stretch out my calf muscle and Achilles.

So, luckily it has been raining this week, so there has been no temptation to get on the bike, however the next few days might be ok, so maybe a few light rides to work will give me a good idea of how the Achilles is mending up, and hopefully if I'm feeling good, the physio has me on some easy run-walk training of (3min run, 3min walk)x5, and then increasing by one rep per session until I can start linking runs together, with at least 36hrs rest in between sessions. Fingers crossed it all feels ok at my first run and that it is all forwards from here.

Swimming

So today I went for my first open water swim and tried out my new wetsuit. We hit Sasamat Lake and it was awesome. It was so nice swimming in the middle of this big fresh water lake surrounded by beautiful mountains and rainforest. My new 2XU wetsuit fit perfectly - pretty good for a suit bought online without trying it on :-/ - and it didn't restrict my swimming at all. At first I was a bit freaked by the depth of the lake and it took a while to settle into swimming in open water, but once I got into gear it was fine, and the extra buoyancy of the wetsuit made life pretty easy. I'm loving swimming at the moment with the Achilles injury as I am able to keep fit - however I really can't wait to get back to running and riding properly.

Running and Injuries cont...

So I am still in recovery from this Achilles injury. It is coming along well. I am seeing the physio once a week and he seems to think that it is going ok. I have been testing it out with a bit of bike riding, last Thursday with a few loops of Stanley Park and today with a ride most of the way to Horseshoe Bay (bout 40km). It pulled up a bit sore so I flagged the ride early and just did some exercises that the physio has given me to start strengthening the Achilles and to hopefully get me back into running again. Really hoping that the Achilles doesn't pull up sore tomorrow. Here's hoping.

Running and Injuries cont...

So I pulled everything together and races the BMO half marathon in a PB time of 3hrs 6mins 21secs, slower that my goal, but given the bad lead up to the race, I was pretty happy. I was also harassed by blisters during the race, with a huge blister forming on my left foot ball, which made the last 10km really painful and dropped my pace to ridiculously slow. Up until that point I was on track for a sub 3hr marathon with room to spare. However now I have pulled up with a fairly sore Achilles so I am back to the physio and am expecting about a month off running, but really hoping that I can get on the bike in a week or so. Until then it will be swimming and resting, with the October Victoria Marathon on the cards. __________________________

Running and Injuries Cont....

So after just over a week off running I finally took my first test run. The achilles definitely felt better, but it still didn't feel great. I'll wait to see how it pulls up tomorrow at the physio and then make a call whether I go ahead with the marathon this Sunday, or whether I call it. I really want to run, so I think as long as my physio advises that there is little risk of long term injury or recovery time, I will run and then just follow up with a few weeks off running. It may be optimistic at this point to be hoping for a sub 3hr race. Will post again soon.