Limboland

Hope I don't have to stay here for very long, but here I am. Waiting for a bone to heal, and I'm not a very patient person.

Got the "opportunity" to take my boy to his first trip to the emergency room and he had his first broken bone. His 6-yr old girlfriend decided after school when they were playing that he was taking too long to go down the slide and decided he needed a helping push. He flipped over, face planted, and jammed his finger - ended up breaking the end of his index proximal phalanges. He took it like a champ though and even asked when his friend could come over and play (wasn't mad in the slightest - God Bless the children!!!). So now when we way our evening prayers, we pray for both broken bones to heal - daddy's pelvis and his finger! He thinks his cast (soft cast for now at least) is really cool and couldn't wait to show it to the neighborhood kids to get some street cred (well, I guess he could leave out the part where a girl toppled him down a slide!)

Shoulder had been hurting a little after a relatively hard swimming week last week (14.5 miles), so I swam Mon-Wed but took off Thursday and Friday. Had a good long swim today - actually the longest ever. 4.03 miles (7,100 yds) with no breaks in 1:55:28 (a 1:37/100 yds pace). Very happy with that - feel tired especially in the neck and shoulders but otherwise OK. Swimming is much easier on me than running, but I like running much more. Anyway, I really have no idea what I am doing here, but I am training for an open water 5K in late May (probably) or early June (maybe). I miss competing and that is something to work towards anyway.

Hang in there John and the story about you boy well is funny to read now that I know he is ok. Darn girls!!

Oh by the way take it easy on yourself that bone will heal and everything will get back to normal you just have to let it take it's course. With that being said remember not to over do it with over things and injury yourself in other ways! Example the shoulder and also please yield to this advice from me when you do get back to running take it slow and let things build back up.

Remember that your cardio will be good and you will start to get your running lungs back real quick but it takes the muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and bones more to time to adapt to the stress of running again. Don't be like me and find out the hard way! Yep in 2008 I had the SF in my left foot, once healed I pushed to hard and did to much to fast and ended up with and second SF in my right foot within 1 1/2 months. So please be smart about your return back to running it will pay much bigger dividends in the end trust me.

Schuey wrote:Hang in there John and the story about you boy well is funny to read now that I know he is ok. Darn girls!!

Oh by the way take it easy on yourself that bone will heal and everything will get back to normal you just have to let it take it's course. With that being said remember not to over do it with over things and injury yourself in other ways! Example the shoulder and also please yield to this advice from me when you do get back to running take it slow and let things build back up.

Remember that your cardio will be good and you will start to get your running lungs back real quick but it takes the muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and bones more to time to adapt to the stress of running again. Don't be like me and find out the hard way! Yep in 2008 I had the SF in my left foot, once healed I pushed to hard and did to much to fast and ended up with and second SF in my right foot within 1 1/2 months. So please be smart about your return back to running it will pay much bigger dividends in the end trust me.

+1

And I bet your little guy is proud to be following in Daddy's footsteps.

Really glad to see you back, John. Please, please, please heed Schuey's advice. Give yourself a solid 2-3 months after your first step before you even think about "training" for something.

And your swim is absolutely crazy.

Cute story Dad - I can see he is already a ladies man at 6!!! Be patient, John - I know it is hard. I can tell you that a friend in Florida had a pelvic stress fracture 3-4 yrs ago and she has been back at it for quite a while and already running faster than she did before the injury.

Hang in there and remember the swimming is keeping you fit (and I hope at least somewhat happy). Don't push it or train for anything like the others have already said. Rest and heal up! You have plenty of time to train for whatever you need to later, you may as well do it healthy so you can do a complete, happy training cycle even if it means waiting.

Steady as she goes, John!
You might learn to like swimming - I did a lot of it years ago when I belonged to a club that had a lot of pool capacity, and I had enough flexibility that I could go over in the middle of a day and swim and it was uncrowded. I really liked it, especially because I didn't have to worry about it being hot out! Also, the zero impact nature of it was really great.
Hope your son heals, and you, too!

Hopefully your stay in Limboland is as brief as possible.

Schuey wrote:Hang in there John and the story about you boy well is funny to read now that I know he is ok. Darn girls!!

Oh by the way take it easy on yourself that bone will heal and everything will get back to normal you just have to let it take it's course. With that being said remember not to over do it with over things and injury yourself in other ways! Example the shoulder and also please yield to this advice from me when you do get back to running take it slow and let things build back up.

Remember that your cardio will be good and you will start to get your running lungs back real quick but it takes the muscles, joints, tendons, ligaments and bones more to time to adapt to the stress of running again. Don't be like me and find out the hard way! Yep in 2008 I had the SF in my left foot, once healed I pushed to hard and did to much to fast and ended up with and second SF in my right foot within 1 1/2 months. So please be smart about your return back to running it will pay much bigger dividends in the end trust me.

Thanks for the words - I am accepting it will be best to gradually ramp back in when the time comes, but I still have a huge question in my mind whether I should attempt to train for the Fall IM that I'm signed up for - you have to register a year in advance and they are not cheap - money isn't the real reason though, I just really really wanted to do this. I guess it will hinge on what my doc tells me as I move along, but I'm still holding out some small hope... Of course to do it, I would need to train at a volume that would require me to ramp things up fairly quickly and would open the door to something like you just described. Still don't know what exactly to do.......

Mark B wrote:And I bet your little guy is proud to be following in Daddy's footsteps.

Ha - I don't know, but I sure am proud of him!!!

Mike MacLellan wrote:Really glad to see you back, John. Please, please, please heed Schuey's advice. Give yourself a solid 2-3 months after your first step before you even think about "training" for something.

Thanks Mike - see above comment to Martin - still don't know how to handle this "situation"

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Cute story Dad - I can see he is already a ladies man at 6!!! Be patient, John - I know it is hard. I can tell you that a friend in Florida had a pelvic stress fracture 3-4 yrs ago and she has been back at it for quite a while and already running faster than she did before the injury.

Thanks Michele - good words of encouragement. And yes, he actually is quite the ladies man - one thing at least that he DIDNT get from me!

Julie wrote:Hang in there and remember the swimming is keeping you fit (and I hope at least somewhat happy). Don't push it or train for anything like the others have already said. Rest and heal up! You have plenty of time to train for whatever you need to later, you may as well do it healthy so you can do a complete, happy training cycle even if it means waiting.

Thanks Julie - see above - I may have to sit one out but it will almost kill me if I do...

Michael Enright wrote:Steady as she goes, John!
You might learn to like swimming - I did a lot of it years ago when I belonged to a club that had a lot of pool capacity, and I had enough flexibility that I could go over in the middle of a day and swim and it was uncrowded. I really liked it, especially because I didn't have to worry about it being hot out! Also, the zero impact nature of it was really great.Hope your son heals, and you, too!

Thanks Michael - I like swimming, I just don't know if I like having swimming as my only option...

Dave-O wrote:Hopefully your stay in Limboland is as brief as possible.

Thanks Dave


For the week, swimming as usual - took it easier this week - don't want to burn out my shoulder and it was feeling pretty rough. Without swimming, I'd really be lost...
Monday - 2750 yds (1.56 miles), 42:49 (pace 1:33/100 yds)
Tuesday - 3750 yds (2.13 miles), 58:49 (pace 1:34/100 yds)
Wed - 4100 yds easy swim (2.33 miles), 1:07:13 (pace 1:38/100 yds)
Thursday - off
Friday - off
Saturday - 7150 yds (4.06 miles), 1:55:24 (pace 1:36/100 yds)
Sunday - 2650 yds (1.51 miles), 40:15 (pace 1:31/100 yds)
Week: 20,400 yds (11.59 miles)

Broken bones...a father/son bonding thing.
Like others already wished for you, I hope your stay in limboland is brief.

"6-year old girlfriend" Awesome. John, your insane swimming will help maintain fitness and then when you get to come back just ease back. Obviously you don't want a set back which is easy to do.

You'll be fine for the IM as long as you let your leg truly heal. They say a strong depends on a strong bike for the IM, so as long as you can start to train your bike early enough (4-5 months out?), you shouldn't have a problem.

I was thinking bonding, too! There are better things to bond over, but oh well.

Great time to work on your swimming.

KathyK wrote:Broken bones...a father/son bonding thing.
Like others already wished for you, I hope your stay in limboland is brief.

Thanks Kathy - he is doing great!

Alex Kubacki wrote:"6-year old girlfriend" Awesome. John, your insane swimming will help maintain fitness and then when you get to come back just ease back. Obviously you don't want a set back which is easy to do.

Thanks Alex

Mike MacLellan wrote:You'll be fine for the IM as long as you let your leg truly heal. They say a strong depends on a strong bike for the IM, so as long as you can start to train your bike early enough (4-5 months out?), you shouldn't have a problem.

Thanks Mike - I am throwing out any kind of time goal and my new goal is to simply complete the damn thing, get healthy, BQ next spring, and work up to actually racing the Florida IM next year. Unless of course I get hurt again.....

Liz R wrote:I was thinking bonding, too! There are better things to bond over, but oh well. Great time to work on your swimming.

Thanks Liz - I am grateful to at least have a pool in the area that I can utilize most days.

Saw my Doctor last week and got some really good news. The bone is healing faster than expected (from looking at another x-ray) - I am due back on April 20th to see him again and he thinks if things stay on track that it should look good enough to start running again. OK, there was some bad news. I haven't ran,lifted weights, cycled, or anything using my legs at all and they feel great, but he was able to reproduce some pain when pushing a certain way. The pain is better than it was, but that still means in his opinion no cycling or weight bearing stuff until April 20th.

I will stick with swimming in the meantime. It is nice to see myself actually getting a little faster - I have learned that gains in swimming are slow to come by, but they are slowly ticking in the right direction. I did a 4.57 mile swim on Friday, which was my longest ever swim. I wasn't totally zonked and I think I could actually maybe do a 10K swim race if they had one close to me (which they don't). There are not that many overall open water swim events in the US (nothing like triathlons or road/trail races) so my options are limited. I read somewhere that a 10K swim is considered a marathon, so it would be fun to try it out sometime. I looked back over my previous workouts (from last year), and back in July of last year I would swim a mile in roughly 29 minutes and now I'm swimming them 26-28. Again, not a huge improvement, but I am swimming longer distances now than I used to on a regular basis. I was able to nail a 25:40 mile pace (~2.4 miles) on Sunday, but only because I was swimming with a triathlon friend and the competitive edge got the best of me. I got him in the pool, but payback will be rough when we are able to cycle again (he's much stronger than me cycling). I do open turns (no flip turning here) in the pool, so I am curious how this might translate to an open water swim - the few other swims I have done have been in a triathlon where you are sort of pacing yourself for the other 2 events and can't leave it all out there on the swim. I thought it would just be something to do, but the more I think about it the more intrigued I am about swimming in my first open water swim-only event.

Mon - 3150 yds (1.79 miles), 47:36 - pace=26'36"/mile
Tue - not able to get to the pool
Wed - 4600 yds (2.61 miles), 1:10:19 - pace=26'54"/mile
Thur - 4100 yds (2.33 miles), 1:03:24 - pace = 27'13"/mile
Friday - 8050 yds (4.57 miles), 2:09:57 - pace - 28'28"/mile
Saturday - worked from sunup-sundown. Didn't get to swim
Sunday - 4150 yds (2.36 miles), 1:00:31 - pace = 25'40"/mile

Stay thirsty my friends!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

So glad to hear that you got good news from the doc! I'll be April 20th can't get here fast enough for you. But, in the meantime, your swimming is looking strong, and all of that work will pay off!

After you get back to running, I'd be curious to know how your swimming helped (or did not detract from) your running.

+1 to what Schuey and others said. Let the sfx heal. The swimming you're doing is really going to make a difference in getting you back to running form once you're ready.

I had a sfx in my 1st metatarsal back in December of 2010. The toughest part was waiting but I was patient and was able to begin running again in 4 weeks. It seemed like forever, but in hindsight it wasn't that bad. You'll look back on it the same way once you're back out there competing again.

Four and a half miles of swimming!!!! Wow.

I am hoping you heal quickly and get out on the road, but if you want a long swim event, you should check out usms.org and look under the postal events. There is a series of longer and longer pool swims you can do. The 10K is the max. You swim on your own in your home pool with somebody counting for you. Not super exciting, I know....you get a shirt!

Great news! April 20 will be here soon. Next week is April already...glad to hear swimming is going so well, too!

KathyK wrote:So glad to hear that you got good news from the doc! I'll be April 20th can't get here fast enough for you. But, in the meantime, your swimming is looking strong, and all of that work will pay off!

Thanks Kathy - if you think my swimming is strong, read below.

ounce wrote:After you get back to running, I'd be curious to know how your swimming helped (or did not detract from) your running.

Ha - so will I! I really don't think it will help me much, but will help keep me from going loco in the meantime and keeps me from getting too fat, although I have gained some weight.

Don S wrote:+1 to what Schuey and others said. Let the sfx heal. The swimming you're doing is really going to make a difference in getting you back to running form once you're ready.

I had a sfx in my 1st metatarsal back in December of 2010. The toughest part was waiting but I was patient and was able to begin running again in 4 weeks. It seemed like forever, but in hindsight it wasn't that bad. You'll look back on it the same way once you're back out there competing again.

Thanks Don - hopefully I have 4 weeks and then can start to slowly run again. That is the good news - the bad news is that I did this back in mid-late December and haven't been able to run well since. But maybe my time in purgatory is coming to an end. We shall see...

Liz R wrote:Four and a half miles of swimming!!!! Wow.

I am hoping you heal quickly and get out on the road, but if you want a long swim event, you should check out usms.org and look under the postal events. There is a series of longer and longer pool swims you can do. The 10K is the max. You swim on your own in your home pool with somebody counting for you. Not super exciting, I know....you get a shirt!

Thanks Liz - but read below if that is a "long" swim - it is actually for me, sort of like the first time I remember running 5 miles. That is funny about the 10K in the pool - I agree with the boring part. I would really like to do one in the open water though given the chance. Even though I am SLOOOOWWWWW.

Julie wrote:Great news! April 20 will be here soon. Next week is April already...glad to hear swimming is going so well, too!

Thanks Julie!


OK, so the reason I'm weighing in is that I talked with the local YMCA aquatics director that is also a swimming coach for local kids. There are about 10-15 kids that swim 6 days a week, usually doing 2-a-days at the Y. I know that two of the girls in the group (early teenagers maybe, 13ish) are ranked top 10 in the country for their ages and are eyeballing the next (another 4 years from now) olympics or at least collegiate competitive swimming, travel the country competing, you get the idea... Really nice kids and I hope they do awesome. Anyway, I don't know exactly how fast they are, but I know they are much faster than me. So... I asked their coach just out of curiousity, what a "good" time for a mile swim should be. He thought about it and said 18-19 minutes would be solid. Oh. My. Goodness. I swim a really really fast pool mile in about 25-26 minutes or so. That was like me thinking that I was sort of a fair runner, had just finished a 5K in 24 minutes or so, and found out that the reality is a 14-16 minute 5K would be solid. Ouch!

So, I then asked them about how much they train. Consider first that I excitedly told one of the swimmers moms that happens to go to my church (I taught her son Sunday school) that I had swam 4.5 miles and was really proud of myself. She very politely told me wow, that is great, good job. OK, back to the question, how much do those girls train. Well, their last peak training was December and they swam about 200. Miles. Yes. 200. Miles. In. The. Freaking. Pool. In. The. Month. Of. December. When I was their age, lets just say that physical fitness was the furthest thing from my mind - more like where could I get some cigarettes and beer without my parents knowing and how could I get Amy and Cindy to like me. And the girls are 12-13 years old. Wow. OK, so now I feel really inept! They typically swim probably 6 miles a day or so, 6 days a week.

Oh, and I did learn something else that was interesting, the coach told me that swimming 500 yds was the equivalent of running about a mile. I figure, then, that I have been swimming the equivalent of about 45 miles running a week. Nothing to get excited about, but keeping me honest anyway.

Anyway, it was a humbling conversation that left me in awe of those athletes, both physically and mentally. I can't even imagine going close to that. I think to do something like that I would need a coach, years of swimming under my belt, and a heck of a lot more time than I have right now. Swimming is a bummer in that you need a pool - running is so much simpler!!!!

Stay thirsty!

Some of those kids are really dedicated! A few of my running friends' kids are state champion swimmers and they do spend almost every evening in the pool during swim season. Running is simpler, but I'm glad you have swimming, too. I really can't swim despite taking lessons and everything.

Wow..those young athletes are certainly impressive! 6 miles a day, days a week. Holy crap.

Yes, they are dedicated - but do they really like it?????? I just often ask myself if they wouldn't rather be chasing boys, trying to sneak out to read Cosmo and all the other crazy things I did at their age. I swam competitively in high school and college (Division III), and due to lack of pool availability, I only swam 2 nights per week during the school year and every afternoon for an hour in the summer. I don't consider myself to be at the level they seem to be, but I have gone to a few local high school meets to find that my then high school times are really still comparable and we swam yards rather than meters. My 2:25-2:30 half miles (880 yds) also would hold up today amongst all but the "to be elite" runners and I only ran in the Spring and dabbled with it in the summer.

So I guess I'm saying that it is sad that we don't always let "kids be kids" anymore.

Julie wrote:Some of those kids are really dedicated! A few of my running friends' kids are state champion swimmers and they do spend almost every evening in the pool during swim season. Running is simpler, but I'm glad you have swimming, too. I really can't swim despite taking lessons and everything.

That made me laugh, Julie. I'm not a head-turning swimmer to be sure, but I think I am sort of lucky in that I can't ever remember not being able to swim. It sort of freaks some of the triathlete crowd out and I never have been able to understand why? It is only swimming after all. Now, swimming fast is a whole different thing...

KathyK wrote:Wow..those young athletes are certainly impressive! 6 miles a day, days a week. Holy crap.

Yeah, tell me about it!

Michele "1L" Keane wrote:Yes, they are dedicated - but do they really like it?????? I just often ask myself if they wouldn't rather be chasing boys, trying to sneak out to read Cosmo and all the other crazy things I did at their age. I swam competitively in high school and college (Division III), and due to lack of pool availability, I only swam 2 nights per week during the school year and every afternoon for an hour in the summer. I don't consider myself to be at the level they seem to be, but I have gone to a few local high school meets to find that my then high school times are really still comparable and we swam yards rather than meters. My 2:25-2:30 half miles (880 yds) also would hold up today amongst all but the "to be elite" runners and I only ran in the Spring and dabbled with it in the summer.

So I guess I'm saying that it is sad that we don't always let "kids be kids" anymore.

I agree, but I also respect what they are doing - as a parent I only want my kid to be able to grow physically, socially, and spiritually the best that he can but that can probably come in a lot of different shapes and sizes. One of the girls also has a little brother who swims, but is more of the clowning around type so I think his older sister just genuinely loves to swim. She seems like a really nice kid so all I can do is wish her the best either with swimming or whatever else she decides she wants to do.

For the week:
Mon: 3150 yds (1.79 miles), 28:11/mile pace
Tue: 0
Wed: 4500 yds (2.56 miles), 26:58 pace
Thu: 3150 yds (1.79 miles), 27:36 pace
Fri: 0
Sat: 8800 yds (5.0 miles), 28:38 pace
Sun: 3600 yds (2.05 miles), 27:08 pace

Week: 13.19 miles

New longest swim of 5 miles. My neck and shoulders had been hurting quite a bit and still do to some degree but are beginning to feel better. I also realized this weekend that I have had some hair fall out on my back, chest, and arms and the hair that is there seems thinner. My head hair has also lightened a little. I googled it and it appears time in a chlorinated pool can do that. Who knew? At least my head hair isn't falling out - that would be sort of a bummer!

I can't even imagine 5M of swimming at once. I'd drown. Great job.