My training was real good to start the week. I rode long; I ran long and felt great. It was all going real well. I was feeling back on my rhythm after that crazy October. Then last Tuesday my family and I went on a road trip to the mountains to vote on some property referendum and do some shopping at a factory outlet store. That translated to about 6 hours of driving. When I got home I jumped on the treadmill and I felt real good. I was running real fast and my heart rate was real low. That was fun as that is my main goal. I kept upping the pace of my treadmill to the point that I had to change my stride to keep up. I was running about 7:30 miles at a 1% grade and my heart rate was barely over 130. Great! That was until I felt something on my hamstring. It was not bad and I just slowed down but after 2 minutes of easy running I decided to stop and not make it worst.
The all dreaded injury. People that carry additional weight like yours truly can have a disadvantage when it comes to injuries. Training just pounds the body even more if you are carrying an extra 20 pounds. However, I am thinking that what did me in was the long drive and lack of proper warm up. I should have stopped and stretch my hamstrings after 5 to 10 minutes on the treadmill. I think my hamstrings have been a bit tight from my lifting sessions and need better care.
Pains, aches, pulls and many other complications can be caused by our training. Being a triathlete usually means that your heart, your lungs and your overall body health is most likely going to be good. My doctor visits to an MD have been rare on the years that I have been in shape. However, that does not mean I have been totally healthy. Over the years I have been to chiropractors, physical therapist, massage therapist, acupuncturist, podiatrists, orthopedic doctors and a few visits to the emergency room after crashes. I have not been to witch doctors yet but I was going to visit a Big Kahuna in Hawaii once to get a good blessing before the Hawaii Ironman. Does that count? All of these visits have been related to my training. Am I really healthy? I heard a quote one time “runners are the healthiest but yet sickest individuals”. I think I get it but I still take the trade off.
Very often I get emails about what to do when an injury occurs. Here is what I do. If I feel that the injury is an overuse injury caused by training. I immediately apply ice and some self massage; I even take some over the counter anti-inflammatory medicine. If after one day I still feel that it is limiting my training I usually visit my chiropractor here in Boulder. I visit Larry Frieder who has fixed me up many times and seems to work with about every professional triathlete in town. A lot of my injuries are due to muscles imbalances or joints out of place. I sometimes also visit a physical therapist or a massage therapist. In Boulder I visit Kevin Jordan and his PT wife Christy Jordan. I also visit the longest most painful fingers in Colorado Mark Plaatjes who is a Physical therapist. If you visit him bring a towel to bite while he works on you. Physical therapy and massage help me a lot when the injury can be tender to the touch and is part of a specific muscle. Only after some of these do not help I then make an appointment with a regular doctor to get X-rays or CAT scans. In my case these have never helped but when an injury lingers one has to get these to rule things out and get to the cause of the injury.
I hardly ever visit an orthopedic or medical doctor when I feel the injury is overuse. For the most part they will just tell you to stop training and give you drugs. Then after a few hundred dollars they tell you to visit a Physical Therapist. I rather bypass the middle man.
Of course this process requires a bit of a guessing game and it may be very possible that some pain may not be from overuse and the regular Doctor or even the emergency room should be the place to go to. My friend’s wife had a ruptured spleen once which is definitely a bad thing to happen and no ice nor rest was going to help that. Be careful. When in doubt call your doctor or visit the emergency room.
My final piece of advice is that if you can choose between medical and health care providers choose ones that train like you do. They will understand your situation much better and in many cases they have been in the same situation with their own injuries.