Sunday, February 24, 2013

End of a Brief Chapter

In this photo, I am concussed.
Last Saturday, I scored my first try in a rugby game!

And I got my second concussion. In six months.

This second concussion felt worse than the first. I heard ringing in my ears like a gong had gone off in my brain. I went down and stayed down on the ground; I knew exactly what had happened. The official stopped the game and came over to me to see what was wrong. My teammates helped me up and off the field. After 5 or 10 minutes, I lost vision in the left half of my left eye. It was as if I saw the kind of aura you see before you get a migraine. I had a splitting headache, and I started to feel nauseous. My vision cleared up after another 20 minutes or so, and a friend drove me home. On the way back to Jamesport from Kansas City (it's about 80 miles), I asked her to stop at the ER in Cameron. I felt that badly.

The doctor gave me a clean bill of health, but he also said, "Your rugby days are over." So my rugby days are over. Maybe I'll coach or ref.

That puts me in need of a sport! I've decided to sign up for the Shawnee Mission Triathlon again this year. This will be my fifth time for this race. I need something to light a fire under my butt for training. I'm coming back to the triathlon fold!
I also kicked my first conversion in this tournament! Drop goal!

Monday, February 4, 2013

My Variation on Recovery

A couple weeks ago, I posted about how it makes sense that individuals (being individuals) need variations on how much recovery they need, relative to how much working out they do. One-size-fits-all training plans don't. Fit all, that is.

Through trial and error, I've found that they don't fit me. Three weeks on, one week off training plans are so nice and neat and tidy . . . they segment your days and weeks and months so well! But that doesn't work for me. This time around, I at least didn't develop an overuse injury. Instead, I lost all motivation to run. I still did yoga, and I started indoor cycling again, but I had absolutely no interest in running. So I didn't run. And I haven't run for three weeks, now. And this is why I need to remember that dividing my days and weeks and months into tidy, four-week blocks doesn't work for me!

With that in mind, I've revised my half marathon training plan to recover every third week. Small change, really. And I'm pushing the bounds of safe progression, here, especially since I haven't been keeping up with the plan for the last three weeks. I'm relying on my youth to keep me healthy through the extra miles.


Half Marathon training 2013

Ex: Week 1 includes a 3 mile fartlek, 2 mile tempo run, 5 mile long run, 10 miles weekly total

11. 4 2 10 (16)
12. 4 2 11 (17)
13. 3 2 6 (11)

14. 4 2 12 (18)
15. 4 2 13 (19)
16. 0 4 8 (12)

17. 4 3 13 (20)
18. 4 3 15 (22)
19. 6 3 15 (24)

20. 3 2 10 (15)
21. 2 2 13.1 (17.1)