Monday, February 14, 2011

Massage (9 weeks to go)

My left calf has been getting a harder and harder knot in it.  After my brick on Saturday, it was so tight I thought I wouldn't be able to do my three and a half hour ride Sunday.  So I went to a spa and got a leg massage.  I'm not a massage person and I was a little embarrassed to go, but I didn't have much of a choice.  It's tough to find an open slot on a Saturday so I started calling down the list in the Poynt application on my Blackberry.  On the 5th try, I got into Spa of Tranquility, drove over, left my man card in the car and went in.  It was a very foo foo place, as you could imagine, and very nice.  I got a message therapist named Melonie (sp?) and explained my dilemma.  She went to work on my quadriceps first, applying a lot of pressure.  It was kind of painful pushing on the muscles to the point I could feel them flipping from one side to the other of my femur.  I had to ask her to take it a little easier a couple times.  We made some small talk as she kept torturing messaging my legs.  She mentioned that she used to be a massage therapist in Utah and treated many more athletes out there than she does in the mid-west.  When she got to the knot on my calf, she worked on it pretty hard.  Overall the experience was painful, but got the job done.  I managed a 2 hour brick (1 hour ride, 1 hour run) Saturday and a three and a half hour trainer ride Sunday.

I also bought "The Stick" to massage my calf at home.  It is painful too, so it must be working.


The Stick
 
I'm still having trouble getting my morning runs in. I plan to rectify that this week by getting up early Tuesday and Thursday and if I don't, brick my run Tuesday and Thursday night. Bricking is not ideal, but I need to get my run volume up. Running once a week is not going to cut it.  At least the weather is a bit warmer so I should be able to run outside.


Another big training week this week, capped off with a 4 hour ride.  I hope I can do this one outside.

3 comments:

Kate Geisen said...

I don't know how you're doing all the training you get in. Good luck getting in the long run in. Last I heard, maybe rain on Sunday. Which stinks bc I've got a bike ride on Saturday and was planning on pushing the run til Sunday. Guess I'll play it by ear.

Thanks for the tip on the treadmill..,hope the weather stays nice enough I don't need to use it til next winter! :)

Amanda@runninghood said...

Glad the massage worked! I always feel uncomfortable at first with getting massages. Thanks for the nice comment. I wish I could have been wise to begin with but I guess I can only learn from here...and learning is something I've done a ton since writing and reading blogs. :) Good luck with your training!

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