Do Not Tell Anyone I Rollerblade...

The first, Brodacious is training, lightly. I have a had a few runs of 5-10 minutes, and 2 ten-minute trainer rides on the P3 with no issues. I have kept up on my swimming, and I have picked up a new secret weapon, rollerblading! I was a bit skeptical at first, yes it was cool in the '90s and yes rollerblading is not on the list of street cred items.

*Radical blades dude

However, it is a good workout. Rollerblading is not a hard as skate-skiing, but it is close. I can skate 800 meters in about two and a half minutes and end up with a heart rate of 165 bpm. Like skiing, it works your legs harder than cycling or running. After and hour of blading the section of muscles from my lower back to hamstrings are worked hard. Plus, blading is pretty fun, I have a pavement track I do laps on so it is sort of like speed skating at the Olympics.

*Here comes the hill

 *Aero tuck the downhill in totally radical fashion

*This is what a totally insande blading looks like at 160bpm  

*Don't tell ANYONE I rollerblade...I'm so ashamed :)

The second, what is it with sports cars? They are so finicky with their maintenance, high-octane gas, special tires, German sport tuned suspensions, and ridiculous prices. Apparently, my legs are like a sports car. The podiatrist told me when he looks at my Achilles tendon and feet "it is like looking under the hood of a sports car. Everything about your feet is built for speed." Unfortunately, sports cars are not the most comfortable rides, and like sports cars, my feet are prone to issues related to their "built for speed" nature.

The podiatrist told me, as advice, he would dedicate less amount of training to running, and more to non-impact sports like cycling. The first thing I thought of when he said that was this recommendation won't be a huge change for me, I have never been an advocate of huge run volume. When I win and/or do well, I do so with a fast swim, a super hard bike, and then a decent, top 5ish, run split.

Rarely do I have the fastest run split, but I can count on my bike and swim split to be near the top. My strength has always been riding hard and trying to slow down the faster runners by putting them through the "meat-grinder (Jens Voight style)" on the bike. The strategy has been proven to work, however, I have been run down by faster runners a lot in the past when my run does not come through.

So my sports car feet are getting a special set of custom treads to help with a few of my leg issues. It was refreshing to go to podiatrist and be treated like an athlete. The most brilliant medical statement I have ever heard was in 2007 when a doctor said, "you can't treat triathletes, runners, and cyclists like you treat a normal person. They live a different lifestyle and the normal rules of medicine don't apply to them." In my opinion the doctor is exactly right, the only treatment that I buy into is one in which my status as an athlete is considered. When I have triathlon related issues, I expect to have triathlon be included in the prevention and correction process.

I am hoping my cycling and run training progresses without issue and I can soon be back on track and ready for the spring and early summer races. I have had a pretty good winter of swimming so it will be interesting to see if I can break a few swim PRs this season.  I move into my "Tri Palace" next month, it would be awesome to utilize it to the maximum by being at 100 percent.