About IMRoycer81

Richmond, Virginia, United States
Thanks for visiting! I'm a civil litigator at KPMLaw. I attended Cornell where I swam IM and Breastroke. In 2007 I filled the void of swimming retirement with triathlon. In my first tri I thought, "holy sh*t this is painful" and "when can I do it again?" Things escalated quickly and my first half iron was in Augusta 2009 and my first full iron was Louisville 2011. Since 2007 I've been chasing a dream of qualifying for the World Champs in Kona, Hawaii. Prior to September 2017 this blog focused on attempts (and failures) to achieve an elusive KQ. I got the monkey off my back in my 10th Ironman at Chattanooga in 2017. I was fortunate to qualify again in 2022. There is always room to improve, and I look forward to putting in the work to become a consistent podium finisher. I couldn't do any of this without my amazing family. I am lucky to train in a fantastic triathlon town with inspirational athletes. My job, training, and daughters keep me busy, but I update as often as I can. I'm always willing to share the knowledge I've picked up along the way. Thanks for reading!

Tuesday, February 19, 2013

I Suck at Being Injured and Being Injured Sucks

After a long break, it's time to get back in the blog game. Over the last few months I have been crushed at work and I haven't had time to write about what was going on in my life.  Besides working for what felt like 20 hours a day, I spent a ton of time working on my tri weakness, running.  I was running all the time which reaped huge benefits for my run speed (5 min half mary PR from March to November) but also caused me to be in my current injury predicament.  I was surprised at how easy I was able to log mega miles by simply doing double runs on a daily basis.  It's amazing how much you can run when you don't have to worry about pesky biking or swimming.  In September I ran 208 miles, in October 267 Miles, and in November 246 miles...700 miles in 3 months.  The amazing thing was that I never really ran super far during any single run.  My longest run during this period was 15 miles, but I did a shit ton of 8 mile runs.  There were many days where I did 8 at lunch and then 8 after work.  I tried to run easy when I was tired and run hard when I felt good.  I never did any dedicated speed work or track workouts.  My whole goal was to run as much as possible while maintaining as much frequency and consistency as I could handle.  When you do that the mileage really piles up quickly!!!!

Unfortunately, because I am a bonehead and stubborn a-hole, I let my physical therapy home exercises slip by the wayside.  In early December my left foot started getting sore.  I ran through it for about a week or two but realized quickly that I better shut down the running for a bit given the huge run block I had just put in.  My foot pain ended up being a case of plantar fasciitis and after a few weeks of conservative therapy I had a cortisone shot in my left foot.  The relief was immediate, but shortly thereafter I started to experience bilateral forefoot pain.  As near I can tell I have developed a case of nondescript metatarsalgia.  My understanding is that this is a "garbage pail" ailment and is really just a generic term for forefoot pain when it is not exactly clear what it is causing the pain.  Essentially I have not done any significant run volume since mid-December.  In one sense it has been good because it has allowed me to fall back in love with my bike (which I didn't even want to see by the end of September) and with the water.  For the first time I got over my hatred of the trainer and I have spent significant time riding in the pain cave.  I actually think this will reap huge benefits in the spring for my cycling ability.  I was also able to do some pretty nasty short interval sets well above my FTP.  The other good thing is that I am in my best swimming shape since 2005.  While I am nowhere near my competitive swimming days, my swim fitness is leaps and bounds ahead of any other time since I started competing in tris.  Unfortunately, the mega hours on the trainer have led to a third foot problem, posterior tibial tendonitis.  When this flared up last week, I finally decided that I need to start listening to my body and I have decided to shut it down a bit. 

In looking back, I essentially have not taken any time off for the last two years with the exception of forced time off when I broke my wrist and had surgery last July (and that was less than 4 days).  In hindsight this is probably not a smart long term plan for success.  My problem is that I have so much difficulty turning "it" off, even for a week.  I am addicted the highest level of fitness.  I am addicted to the daily suffering, and I am addicted the constant improvement I have been fortunate to achieve across the bike/run disciplines.  Improving at races and in my daily work outs keeps me coming back like a crack addict day after day after day.... I have come to rely too much on running and riding as my sole avenue of stress relief.  When these activities are off the table, even temporarily, I suck (mental note...I need to work on this).

I have been injured in the past and I am always terrible at it.  I am a grumpy bastard when I can't run/ride.  Britt can attest to this.  This particular injury has been especially frustrating because it feels minor but it is significant enough where I know something is wrong.  I have this low level ever present foot pain and I am really tired of it.  The best way to describe it is that my feet just don't feel right.  I know I could continue to run/ride but I am going to do the right thing so as not to jeopardize IM CDA and my lofty goals of getting to Kona this fall.  I am particularly frustrated because I have actually been listening to the advice I have been given without any significant results.  Usually I just ignore everybody and keep hammering through the pain.  This time I am actually listening, doing all the therapy, icing, meds, PT, stretching, etc....WTF, why isn't it working?!?!?!

I have been off riding/running for a week and I have been focusing on swimming.  I am feeling small improvements on a daily basis (but not fast enough).  I am going to take another few days of just swimming and hope that I continue to improve.  On a positive note it will give me more time to blog....coming up soon is a new post about my tri bike overhaul courtesy of Andrew Swenson Design and Coqui Cyclery.  Thanks for taking the time to read.

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