The Pittsburgh Steelers won the Super Bowl last year and quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was on top of the world. Then a number of months ago he was in a motorcycle accident and his 'short' career was in jeopardy. Not only was he lucky to come back to the point last week that he was ready to start the season, he was very lucky to be alive. While on the football field, among mere mortals, he wears a helmit, while riding a massive motorcycle at extreme highway speeds, he doesn't. Bit of an idiot!





It looked like he was leading a charmed life, and fine tuning his skills to start the season this coming week ----then boom ---appendicitis.

I guess I was having sort of the same feelings, going from minimal serious training to pretty big amounts over a 2 1/2 month period---injury free--and using a much abused body at that.

While this morning I had my 'boom'

I was having some fun with my daughter's 80 pound Golden Retriever, 'Finzy the Wonder Dog', on our deck, our wet deck, our wet, slippery deck. Wearing my 'new' Brooks running shoes, I tried to come to a stop, no luck.

My left leg went under my body, in the wrong direction, hyper-extending what is already damaged goods. I did not (could not?) move for 5 minutes, part pain, part shock-----finally getting myself squared away and symetrical.

My first thoughts were I tore something but after getting up, I knew nothing was torn, maybe streached pretty good. I iced it down for a couple times during the day.

At the end of the day, after the shock has gone and everything settled down, I'm still not sure where I am:
-my neck is very sore and hard to turn.
-my left wrist is very sore.
-my left quadricep (Vastus lateralis) is very tight (slight strain?) and very sore.
-my left knee is swelled up pretty good, I think more from trauma than anything else specific---but what do I know?

Could be a test as to how good Ibruprophen really is?

Dipper, my reality coach, says I needed some time off. I'm not quite sure this is what he really meant.

I guess, as they say in MLB, I am Day to Day. Hopefully I don't get put on the 15 day DL.

Not a really happy camper.

Fourteen(14) weeks gone by the way, only Two(2) weeks left.

I'm finished with the 'Triples' and multi discipline days---found I was getting tired and listless, needed some down time, so took 2 days off, did absolutely nothing.

The timing was good, went to regular Labour Day, 'family' weekend at the cottage of Uncle Mack and Aunt Phyllis in Moser River.

Plans are to do 'specific' training in my weakest disciplines. Over the next 10-12 days, most of the time will be spent towards running and swimming. I will hopefully swim at least 8 times and run 5 times.

On that note, I joined Imax tonight (Monday), and as part of his training for an upcoming 1/2 Marathon, I did interval hills with him, within my comfort zone. I was quite pleased with the results. The hills hurt, but that was expected, and there were no ill results. The total distance, including warm up and recovery was 5.5kms---my longest run in this training schedule.

I will also try to get in a bike ride every 3 days--more speed work than distance, and as far as the paddleing is concerned, some fine tuning outings--again, more speed workouts rather than distance.

Still wondering about the last week and how to tone down to peak on the 17th. I am thinking of doing a couple of 4 discipline days with 'short' distances--say 300m swim, 10km ride, 2km paddle, and 2km run. Maybe less?

I do know after the 2 days off I was pretty switchy and wired to go.