Injury Prevention and Weekend Training

Welcome back to another week!

Ontario has been hit by a wave of amazing weather. Seriously. I was training and racing in bare hands this weekend and it was amazing.

Saturday I headed out for a morning run on the trails with these amazing people.

 

It was a lot of fun to discover new-to-me trails in the area and after an amazing brunch, I headed to Hamilton to spend some time with one of my best friends from university and her dog Riley which I affectionately call my niece. I have watched Emma raise her and as dogs can be legitimately as much work as children (I speak this as if I would know), I feel a strong sense of family with this animal.

On Sunday morning, I met Dan and Brad from Ripkin AR in Dundas and we completed the RAID THE HAMMER race together. This was by far my most successful adventure race and I felt strong the entire time. Brad had me as co-navigator which was a first for me and it was a good challenge. I will be working on my navigation skills this winter to prepare for next season. RAID THE HAMMER race report will be coming at you soon.

I am starting to get antsy to get back to training which is a good sign. It is way too early to do that so I am trying to be conservative with my activities and make sure I am resting, relaxing, sleeping and restoring for the next season. Last night, I was talking with my coach about what I can do in the meantime and he is letting me do strength training, cross training and easy running. My races are completely over for the year so I am going to Goodlife Fitness a bit more to build up some muscle, taking some spin classes and joining in a triathlon clinic, going back to Muay Thai for some plyometrics and strength building and doing some night trail running with my friend Charlotte. Basically, a no-pressure schedule where I am just having fun.

I am also shopping around for a new bike. I am waffling between a triathlon bike and a road bike and having a hard time deciding which route to go. I know without a doubt that I am ready to get back to riding but I am glad I took a bit of a break to work through the psychological stuff of road biking again. I was talking with Brad about my cycling performance at Wilderness Traverse this year which was 2 weeks after my accident and how my mental fortitude when it comes to pushing through the scarier technical bits was at a complete low. There is totally psychological hurdles to overcome after something like that and I am stoked to finally feel as if I am past that.

My main performance goal for 2015 was not to get injured and although I am adding to it for 2016, I am keeping the same goal underlying all of my training. I found this awesome article on how to avoid running injuries which is completely timely. My head is already focused on what I am planning on accomplishing next year and injury prevention starts now.

How was your weekend?

Would you recommend a road bike or a triathlon bike?