Living in Winter Park Colorado is great but it is certainly different from Boulder. In Boulder unless you are Tyler Hamilton or Simon Lessing someone will be riding by you during your training ride. I am sure Simon will not even let Tyler go by. In any case; I wrote a Blog on this before. Living in Boulder is not good for the ego.
However, in Winter Park I hardly ever find another road cyclist on the same route. And there are not many routes. Mountain biking is king here. I now know how a bear feels when he sees another bear in the forest. The bear would probably say “What are you doing here?”
Last Saturday I rode from my house to Grand Lake and back while my wife took the dog to the vet. I thought it may take me 4 hours but I did it in a quick 3:30. The winds were helpful. I felt a little sluggish but not the whole time. I got home and as my wife went for her workout I took the kids to the pizza shop. Our pizza shop is right next to our coffe shop and our bike shop. As I sat outside convincing Camilo to not only eat the cheese. Some rider rode by and parked his bike by the coffee shop. He looked real fit but with a road bike and no tri bike I just thought. “There is a roadie”. However, I noticed he had a PR Bar jersey. PR bars were very popular in the triathlon world many years ago. Weird I thought. Later I went into the coffee shop and started a conversation with the roadie. “That is one old jersey” I said. He turned around and looked at me. You are Luis right? I was a bit shocked and said “yes”. “I am racing in your age group at Vineman next weekend” he says. My head started to spin. How can these guys know this? Before I could even say anything he says. “I read your blog, I am not stalking you, I am just checking out the competition.” Kirk was a real cool guy visiting from California. We have now exchanged emails and if he comes back to Winter Park he promised to let me know so we can do some training together. If he rides like he looks he will be coming by on the bike at some point on Sunday. I am assuming I will be one of the first guys out of the water of course.
Right now I should be packing my bike as I have to catch a plane tomorrow to go to California. But I wanted to get a post in before the trip. The week has been a little hectic as usual but also because I had been having a case of plantar fasciitis. I have had some pain in the mornings that started almost three weeks ago. It never hurts that bad when I run but that is not the case when I get out of bed or after a long session on email answering. I even raced fine 10 days ago. However, after my long run Sunday it was real bad. I got really nervous. If a 90 minute run makes it this way what is going to happen after a 3 hour run. So I have been spending tons of time consulting all the experts. Now I am sort of an expert on this. Just a couple of hours ago I went on for a run and it feels real good. I feel real positive that it will be fine on Sunday.
I consulted all these people. Larry Frieder a chiropractor to the triathlon stars in Boulder; Shawn Frack formerly of ASICS who is the shoe expert; Danny Abshire of Active Imprints in Boulder who makes great orthotics and has seen hundreds of plantar problems over the past 15 to 20 years; Mark Plaatjes a physical therapist who won the marathon Gold Medal for the USA at the World Championships. Mark also works with hundreds of runners with similar problems; Last but not least my massage therapist Kevin Jordan from Boulder. He knows my body since he has been my massage therapist for the last 15 years.
So here is the bottom line. I need to stretch my calves, particularly the soleous. The calves pull up on the heel if they are tight and this causes the plantar tendon to be even tighter. I bought a tool to massage the calves using the leg’s own weight. It works great. I forgot the name of the company, PT something. In addition I got a 2 millimeter lift under my current orthotic. This will make the ankle angle bigger thus lessening the tension on the calves and plantar tendon. If you have orthotics it is real hard to get plantar fasciitis. But I have soft orthotics which I like as it allows my foot to absorb the shock. But of course, if the shock is too much (like in a long run) then you can still get plantar. The lift will help. Finally I got Mark Plaatjes to do manipulation of the plantar tendon to help it heal faster. This guy has the strongest and longest fingers in the planet. I was virtually crying as he beat the crap out of my plantar tendon. In the end he also applied some anti inflammatory drugs via the skin with a process called Iontophroesis. The process uses current and voltage to drive drug ions trough the skin and into the inflamed area.
So I think I did a good job educating myself and deciding what to do to make sure I can train properly. Boulder is a great place for sports medicine. But you still have to do your work. You have to cure the problem but also do something to make sure it does not reoccur. One option is not to run so long of course. But as you all know that is an option we rather not take. Wish me luck Sunday. Stress is down, hydration is good and I feel good so lets see how I do against some big (old) boys