The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:
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So, I did the stupid runner thing and managed to injure myself. Coming off an excellent spring where I knocked out personal bests at 8K, 10K, and half marathon, I started to ramp up for a marathon cycle, had a nice 80-mile week, a couple solid workouts, and then a quad that had been bugging me since before the last race I was in started to flare up a bit. Naturally, as an idiot, I ran through it, declared that I was optimistic that it wasn't getting worse, and it promptly got significantly worse. Weird injury too, I can't quite pinpoint where it is and it feels more like it's to the fascia than the muscle or any particular tendon - generally inflamed, non-specific, and soreness increases significantly when absorbing the impact of a stride.
So I'm going to get some more quality time with walking and cycling than I'd particularly care for in the near future. Such is life, but it sure is frustrating. On the flip side, this is why I celebrate PBs enthusiastically every time.
Summer + Lower Body Injury = Time for the bro split. Pull ups and Dips and Bench Press, Oh My!
Commiserating with you. Nothing more frustrating than an injury right before the fun part of the cycle. Last year I was doing Smolov Jr. working on hitting a two plate overhead press, and right at the end of week three when I was close to hitting my old PR for triples, I threw something out of place and had to stop. All that hard work out the window.
Yep, it's pretty frustrating. I'm having some luck coping by reminding myself that spring was a big success and a couple weeks of recovery isn't even a bad thing from a pure physiological perspective.
So yeah... way more time to go do the right thing in the gym rather than staying outside for runs.
Cheers!
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I'm a cycling nut - how into it are you? Doing just road stuff?
Yeah, just road biking. I actually have a pretty nice road bike that I got back when I first started endurance sports (Cervelo R3) and I've intermittently put some effort in when I was thinking about multisport or recovering from running. Honestly, I just don't like it as much. I think the biggest reason comes down to having an unshakeable feeling that some idiot's going to hit me with their car while they're staring at a cell phone or something, which keeps me from getting into as comfy of a mental place as I can running. I think the other big thing is that I just haven't invested the hours necessary to be any good. I do like group rides with friends though - way less mental stress than I put on myself riding alone.
So I'm sure you've heard this before, but...
I share an immense anxiety with road biking. At the same time I like going long distances uninterrupted and I like MTB but only as a complement to everything else (high injury risk, no real ability to actual travel).
Gravel biking is yes, largely a conjuration of marketing departments. But bigger tires on a road bike and more aggressive gearing allows me to (in an urban setting) handle sidewalk riding, curb hopping, and off-road detours with an extremely minor cost of spinning out on downhills above 30mph. While I don't have any KOMs I'm still coming in 2nd behind people with $10k road bikes. In my city there are quiet residential routes through a large chunk of it, along with a rich greenway artery, so it works out.
In a rural setting of course the bike really shines as long as things aren't too crunchy. Tires can only doo so much, and a gravel bike with a ton of suspension dongles too clearly exposes the absurdity of even giving a special name to drop bars and wider forks. I prefer keeping my gravel bike to single-day excursions and don't involve going completely off-road.
Finally it's not as related to the sort of competitive PR element you crave, but loading up a mountain bike with bags and humping through the mountains while camping will put hair on your chest. Flat ground with your R3 and grinding up steep dirt with a 50lb hardtail are wildly different animals, but it's also a way to connect with nature and see far more than you would by backpacking.
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I had to switch from running to biking after getting shooting pains in my ankles from the impact. It definitely doesn’t scratch the same itch, but it’s good cardio and I tell myself it’s better for longevity anyway.
80 miles a week is eye popping. Hope your recovery is quick.
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