99 problems and a b*tch ain't one

The title of this post comes from the extremely eloquent Jay-Z, and it's in regards to my severely messed up bio-mechanics. But before I get to that because I'm sure everyone is on the edge of their seat dying to know what's wrong with me (okay, maybe just my family is wondering...) I'm going to talk about the weekend first.

Pretty much on Friday after having extreme pain in my foot, I knew I wasn't going to be racing on Sunday. I talked to my sister on Saturday who is a Physical Therapist and she explained some isometric exercises for me to do -- and my foot felt better! I called her back and told her this and then said, "but I probably shouldn't race?" big question of hope in my voice - she responded with, "Uh no, do not race. Go see that PT you talked about and see what she says."

We drove down to White Lake Saturday afternoon for a beginners clinic Marty and I were putting on. We had so many people who wanted to attend that we enlisted Alysia to help out. The clinic went really well (or is it good, whatever), then we went to our hotel and hung out with the Finley YMCA tri gang.

I had a great time cheering for everyone at the sprint the next morning. There were 3 former UNC swimmers who swim with our Master's group who were all doing their first triathlon. They did awesome, including a 4th overall finish by Erin! Becky and Kelly were cracking me up before the race as they had no clue what they were doing. Marty had an awesome swim and an excellent bike, and his run wasn't too shabby post-recovery from that very hard St. Anthony's one week ago. Unfortunately, he got dinged with the 'number not in the front' rule as he crossed the finish line. 2 minutes!! I'm not sure if this is a USAT rule or just a setup events rule, but man does it seem useless. I heard some reason about backup timing and that's the reason, but seriously, everyone has numbers marked all over their bodies, too. And 2 minutes? That is a crazy amount of time for a sprint for something that is not a safety issue or gives you an advantage. Rant off - I know a lot of people over the years have been dinged with this penalty so it's not like we aren't aware of it. In fact, at the clinic the night before I was sure to tell everyone about this rule.

Okay, so on to my problems (but a b*tch ain't one, hahaha). It took Lori quite awhile to even begin to understand what was going on with me since I'm apparently quite a case analysis for what should be happening but isn't and why? The major thing is my right hip is anteverted (turns out way more than it should), this had led to a lot of my problems on the right side. My IT band is super tight, my back, my calf and everything in my feet.

My cuboid is still sublexed.

Which is why my foot still hurts. The little muscles in my foot are not strong enough, and/or are counteracting to all my tightness so it won't stay in position. She couldn't even get it back in place last night.

"Tight heel cords, causing an early heel lift, disturb the normal weight transfer through the lateral column and initiate the syndrome. Because the cuboid aids the function of the peroneal tendons by stabilizing the tendons as they pass under the foot, the subluxated cuboid may disturb normal peroneal muscle function. This can lead to tendonitis and referred pain to either the lateral ankle or the plantar aspect of the forefoot."

An interesting thing I read on the internet about anteverted hips is in children you will see this as a toeing-in, or pigeon toed. I was pigeon toed as a child and even had to wear some sort of contraption on my feet in bed so my hips grew properly. At least I think that's what it was, I don't remember since I was so young, but I do remember my sister's telling me that they liked to stand me up when I had it on because I would immediately fall down. Oh being the youngest was so fun ;) Anyways, I'm wondering if my hip problem now stems all the way back to then.

So what to do? I'm supposed to concentrate on my gait while walking on my right side. I have a bunch of foot/ankle exercises to do to help strengthen my foot up and hopefully get that cuboid to stay put. I also have glute/medial exercises to help with my hip problem.

My sister the PT is coming into town on Wednesday so I'm going to have her help me make sure I'm doing all my exercises correctly, and maybe have her try and get the cuboid back in place. Maybe my foot will be stronger by then? Who knows. Lori also said that my body has compensated really well over the years for having this issue, but it's now hit a point where it's letting me know it's not happy putting up with it. I have a feeling it's also due to the fact that I've always been such a low mileage athlete.

So I can't run right now, but hopefully soon. I can swim and bike, though.

Sheesh, that was really long and probably not very interesting to most. Sorry about that.

Why do my feet hate me?

At the end of my last post, I mentioned that something was wrong with my foot. I kept hoping that it would miraculously cure itself and in the meantime, didn't run. Well, to be honest, I couldn't run because walking hurt so much! I'm talking very intense pain with each step. But what the heck could I have done? This happened during an easy run!

Yesterday I was still in a lot of pain, but interestingly it didn't hurt while swimming or biking. Okay, time to see a doctor - but who should I go to? A lot of people I know go to a particular PT who is apparently the one you see when no one else can help you. She doesn't just give you exercises, she is passionate about getting to the root of the problem and setting you straight. I got her email address and hoped against all hope that I could possibly see her today.

Unfortunately, she's out of town, but she did email me immediately back with what she thought was wrong with me. Her words, since I would never get this right:

"It sounds like your cuboid bone on the lateral aspect of your foot could be subluxed. When the cuboid subluxes, it will create lateral foot pain and can also create pain up into the lateral lower leg because the peroneal tendon crosses under the cuboid. If cuboid is misplaced, the peroneal muscles cannot function normally. The peroneal nerve runs on the lateral lower leg and if the peroneal muscles are affected and restricting mobility of your fibula, this can cause lateral lower leg pain. "

She said if I can get to a chiropractor they can do a 'snake whip' and I would have immediate relief. Wow, that sounds too good to be true! I got in to see someone this morning and after he did his little thing I DID feel immediate relief. No longer was I walking with stabbing pain. Unfortunately, the area around it still hurts quite a bit. I'm not sure if this is because of the manipulation (it was much more than just a simple little pull on my foot), or something else.

Regardless, uhhhh, I'm supposed to do a race this weekend. Not one that I'm all that concerned about so if my foot still hurts I probably won't do it. If it feels better (I'm icing religiously now as he prescribed) than I'll race. No biggie.

And the PT? She is going to meet with me on Sunday evening to go over everything to try and pinpoint my biomechanical issues that could have caused this. Yes - Sunday evening!! How nice is that?!

Coming Home

Here's Tassie, after a happy reunion with Marty in Jacksonville. My sister and brother-in-law were nice and let Tassie stay at their house, so Marty just dropped her off on his drive down and just picked her up a few hours ago. They should be home late this afternoon - yay! The pink part of the mohawk seems to have faded.


Yesterday I did an easy run and my foot decided not to cooperate. The outside of it was killing me to the point that I had to walk a lot of the return trip and today it is still really, really hurting. WTF?

St. Anthony's Race Report

The weekend was tons of fun - we saw SO many people that we knew from our Florida days, and Alysia is an A+ buddy to have for all of our pre-race, race-day, and post-race antics. I'll just move right into my race report.

It was a humid and windy day. We had our rockstar parking courtesy of my dad and the 3 of us got set up in transition and then made the 1 mile walk to the swim start with our friend Kathy. Got suited up in the wetsuit and headed out for a warmup swim. The bay was choppy and the kayaker gave me an enthusiastic "Oh Yeah!" when I asked if it was rougher out passed the pier. The pro's went off, then the elite amateur men and then my wave (elite amateur women). I have to say - I am AWESOME at beach starts. I totally won the first 10 yards. I can high step and dolphin dive really well for some reason, then I start swimming and all the real swimmer zoom by me :) Unfortunately, NC hardly has any beach starts, so this is usually my one go at it. I saw Alysia swim on by and I tried to stay on her feet but it was rocking and rolling and it was tough enough to just try and sight the buoys. Our first left turn had the waves pushing us and then the final left turn in was really, really tough. Big waves and the current was pushing you the wrong way - but I managed to swim right next to Alysia and we came out of the water right together! I tapped her on the shoulder and said good job and then got through T1 relatively quickly.

The bike was tough - very windy and the way the course is designed it ended up being a crosswind or headwind except for the final 5 miles which was finally a tailwind. I caught several girls and some went flying by me. I felt pretty good but knew that it was not going to be a fast day - and that the wind was going to be quite a drain. But all in all I felt pretty good about my ride.

Off onto the run and I'm not feeling all that great. My run isn't feeling that strong right now, although it is definitely coming around. I just missed quite a lot with the pseudo hip injury and early year sickness. I was telling someone that I feel like I'm in about March shape, not late April shape, but the good thing is there are lots of races to go! The run was just plain hard for me; I really think I am not quite fit enough to handle that rough swim and all that wind on the bike and be able to get off and run fast right now. I had some major low points out there and really wanted to just stop and walk too many times to count. A few girls passed me and there was nothing I could do. So I just kept trudging forward. I finally (finally!) was near the finish line and thought I was in tenth when I saw my mom and sister and very pathetically asked them, "is anyone close?" they said no and I breathed a sigh of relief as getting into the top ten is always my goal here. I barely made it this year, but still, I'll take it!

Funny thing, Marty also imploded on the run . When I saw him after the race I said, "Marty! My run was HORRIBLE!" he said, "Oh yeah? I ran 48 minutes." I responded with a very gracious, "I didn't run THAT bad!" Sorry, honey, where is my filter?!

So yeah, I had a great weekend and have lots of room for improvement on the triathlon front. Now it's back to real life for a bit and then the White Lake sprint this weekend. Here are some pictures (thanks, mom!)

Very beginning of the run:



Marty starting the run.



Post race with Scott and Alysia.



Getting my award.

Florida - here I come!

I'm flying to Florida this evening with one of my besties, Alysia, to race in St. Anthony's triathlon. If I'm being completely honest, I'm not feeling super great right now with my training but no matter what, the race will go MUCH better than last year when I was very, very sick. I'm going to go out there and go as hard as I can for as long I can - how's that for a strategy?! The weekend will also be a lot of fun, as it always is down there.

Here's a picture from the start of the women's elite amateur wave in 2008 - just a portion of the wave as it was pretty big. I'm in the lower left corner.


And in keeping with the St. Anthony's theme today, here's a nice article about my dad that was in the St. Pete Times.

Q&A with president of USA Triathlon board.

Article in St. Pete Times

Here's a good article that captured Wendy's personality.

Wendy Johnson, longtime triathlete, race promoter and take-charge good Samaritan, dies at 50.

On to greener pastures

10 years ago I was having a really rough time in my athletic life – some influencing people were basically killing anything I enjoyed about running. I was finishing up my junior year, on a full scholarship, and pretty much wanted to quit and walk away from it. That’s how I ended up getting back into triathlons after having doing a bunch as a youth. My dad suggested participating in some of the central Florida sprints as a way to have fun again while competing.

I did have fun; a lot of fun. I met some new people, including a husband and wife that my dad had recently met. I was finishing up the run of the first sprint triathlon in Clermont when Wendy gave me a shout as she was starting her run. A local elite stud was cooling down chatting with her as they had gotten to know each other through some triathlon forums over the past year. She turned to him and asked if he was single – he was, and she told him that she knew a girl he should meet.

So yes, that was Marty, and we have Wendy to thank for setting us up. Her and her husband, Al, were so in love and such nice people – good people, genuine people.

I remember when I first met Wendy she said something that stuck with me. As I said before, I was going through a low point – as I was talking to her about what was going on she said, “don’t let someone so unworthy take up space in your head” I could really relate to that and tried my best to stop worrying about someone who was causing me so much anxiety.

Wendy lost her battle with melanoma last night. She was 50. She will be missed greatly by many, many people, including Marty and I.