Getting back from injury/sickness, mental aspects and your experience

Triathlon Forum
1

I haven’t been able to train for 2 months due to all sorts of non-training-related medical crap happening (latest was a really bad flu + sinus infection + ear infection which knocked the crap out of me for the past 2 weeks, and I’m still taking antibiotics for it) which of course caused me to lose tons of fitness (hard to stay in good shape laying in bed).

I am finally getting back into things (swam today for the first time in 2 months) and despite being happy that I can actually DO things now, I am very discouraged considering how much fitness I lost during this time.

The fact that I am signed up for IMC (my first IM) is also not helping with the mental stress, as I definitely wanted to be in a hugely different place training-wise now (and I was well on my way to be there, I worked my ass off last winter) and I’m fearing that I might not even be able to get to the start line, or finish, let alone do decently there.

How do you handle feeling that your workout sucked b/c you’re so much slower/unfit than you used to be before you got sick and focus instead on the fact that yes, you’re slow but at least you’re not in bed anymore? Any tips that can help with bouncing back?

Thanks a lot for any info you might have.

2

Judging by the information contained within your post I take it you are not the same Marco that led the bike ride from Caps in Delta on Monday evening.

3

lol, no, I wish! first ride in a long while is probably going to be tomorrow… it will definitely take quite a bit before I’ll feel comfortable with going on some organized rides.

4

Let us know how your ride goes tomorrow. I, too am doing IMC and am 4 months behind with my training due to Spondylosis. Get your Peaceful tribe T-shirt for identification purposes in Penticton.

5

Marco,

Hang in there. Since last August when I did the UK 1/2, I’ve been thru 2 hurricaines, sold a house, moved, started a new job and endured my first winter in 10 years. I bailed on IMFL and basically didn’t do much from October until about a month ago.

One reason that it took me so long to get back into it, was that during the winter, whenever I would get in a session, I would struggle so badly (high HR, slow pace, discomfort on the bike…) that I got frustrated. Fast forward (or slow forward) to about a month ago, and the weather started to get nice, so I got back out there.

First few runs and bikes were frighteningly bad. Very slow, very high hr, very limited endurance. The approach I’ve taken was to focus on frequency, doing something every day if I can. At first, I was running for 25-30 minutes and feeling spent. After a week or two, it got better, and now I’m back to running for an hour pretty easily. I’m still running higher hr than last year for the same pace, but it’s getting better. Same thing for biking. What started out as 40 minute rides are now 1:45-2:00 rides, 3-4 times per week.

One thing early on was to toss my hrm out the window for the first few weeks. The data was simply too much of a distraction, so I just ran/biked on feel (holy shit, this feels bad…). In the last 10 days or so, I’ve gotten the hrm back on and have even gotten the gps thing going on my runs yesterday and today. I am still aiming to keep my hr pretty low AeT except for the hills, and I plan on keeping it low for another month or two at the least.

Good luck and trust that it will come back.

That said, I’m getting ready to bail from work early and ride home (2 hours), then ride back to work early tomorrow.

Cheers.

6

Marco,

I can empathize with you. Mid-January, I developed a running injury in my hip that kept me from running for a couple of weeks. Just as it was healing, my father-in-law died (unexpectedly), day after the funeral, I crashed my mountain bike and ended up with a concussion and bruised ribs. Then bronchitis the next week. Bottomline, no swimming for 4 weeks, very reduced running for 6 weeks. When I tried to run the first few weeks I was very discouraged by my total lack of endurance. I was forced to run a minute or two then walk, and repeat.

I had a half-marathon coming up on 3/20 and 4 weeks out I couldn’t run a mile without a walk break. So I basically ignored the HRM & stopwatch and just focused on building up my miles to my pre-injury level. I mentally decided that I would do the miles as scheduled no matter how long it took, nor no matter how much I had to walk. Each week got just a bit better.

On race day, I had only run 7 miles without stopping. My long run pace was a least a minute slower per mile than normal. But darned if I did run the entire race (which was very hilly) and I came within 1 minute of my 1/2 marathon PR! And I felt great the whole time.

I hope this encourages you in your return to fitness!