Up early to bed late...

This morning I had to get up early, 7 am, which is early for me. I had to go to the physiotherapist to get laser treatment on my foot. Just behind my big toe, the orthopaedic surgeon thinks I have a stress fracture. He knows I'm not going to stop training until the end of the racing season and figured the laser treatment may help. I felt like a rock start during treatment because I don't think they get a lot of athletes coming in. When I looked around it was a lot of workplace related type injuries on sedentary people. One older gentleman was doing leg exercises pulling on an elastic band. I'll take the laser and ultrasound, but I don't think I could stand paying for the elastic band or exercises that I could do on my own at home.

My therapist was quite excited about using laser therapy on me while I maintained training. He's curious to see if it can heal the problem without me having to stop training. I got the impression that laser was a newer technology to them. I also laughed when he told me it will help heal my blister quicker. My blister is right underneath the bone that is fractured. When they did the assessment, I didn't know if it was the bone hurting or the blister hurting. They've booked me for 3 appointments every week as they say laser works best with 3 quicker blasts back to back. I'm a cynic and in the back of my mind I wonder if this works or not or is it just a placebo that helps them make money?

I'm driving to Michigan tomorrow to visit a printing company. The sales rep, Craig Swayze, is also an Ironman triathlete. I'm going to tour his plant and then stay the weekend and compete in the Steelhead 70.3 Ironman Series race. He's doing it also. Because I had so much to do before I left I couldn't get to the pool at noon. Then in the afternoon I had another doctors appointment with the research study I'm part of and that also prolonged the start of my day's training. Turns out I have one more official visit and it completes the four year study. Which is good and bad, I enjoy the visits and feel like I'm helping future generations, but they take up an hour a month.

When I got home I was going to do my 90 minute bike right away but then I realized that I need to put my racing wheels on the bike. The wheels were deflated and up against the kitchen wall for the past week, I was trying to evaporate the water inside them. On my last ride on them it rained and water got into the wheels and was sloshing around. I was told to deflate the tubes and the water will drain out. Most of it did but not all, so I decided to take the tire off and dry off the inside. I was nervous about doing it because I've never changed a tire on my carbon wheels. Once I got started it was tough. The tire was so tight around the rim it was hard to get off, then it was double as hard to put back on. Once I put it back on and tried to inflate it, the stem broke, so I had to take the tire off again and replace the tube. Putting the tire on the second time was even harder.

I tried to inflate the tire but it wasn't working. I had Alice help me with the pump while I adjusted the head of the pump on the stem and it still didn't work. As a last resort I tried my CO2 cartridge and it worked. I then thought it might be a pump problem. I tried to pump my regular wheels and it didn't work. I looks like I need a new pump, and I just got that one less than 2 years ago. Then as I was putting my new wheels on I couldn't remember if I had the right brake pads on. When I took the race wheels off after Winnipeg, did I take the carbon brake pads off or did I leave the steel wheel ones on? I couldn't remember, but I think I left the carbon ones on as an oversight.

Both pads look identical. There is no markings to say with is for the carbon wheels and which is for regular wheels. I called the bike store and they said the carbon is lighter in color, but it's very, very slight. I looked and couldn't tell the difference. I don't think I did replace the brake pads when I took the carbon wheels off because the brake pads on the bike looked really worn and I'm told that the carbon brake pads are softer and will wear out quicker on metal rims. I guess all that downhill stopping and slowing down in Lake Placid really wore them down. I did one last seat adjustment before I left the house. This is probably the 6th adjustment I've made and the irony is that I'm slowly going back to it's original position, which feels most comfortable.

I finished my ride and then did a brick run. On the run I felt a slight twinge in my right lower back and thought, "oh no, not this again", "another race, another sore back"? I just relaxed and when I got home I stretched. Then I had to pack because we were going to drive part way to Grand Rapids tonight. I'm normally anal when it comes to packing, in order to make sure I don't forget anything, but this time I decided to relax and not cause any additional tension in my back. I calmly got ready, which I'm sure my kids appreciated, they tell me I'm not fun to be around when I get ready, and we were in the car and on the road at 10:30 pm for a late night drive.

One highlight of my day was that I weighed in 2 lbs lighter at 183.0. I guess the salt from that Dairy Queen burger flushed through my system.

Mod Bike - 1:31:26 / 49.86 km / 32.7 kph

Brick Mod Run - 30:38 / 3.83 miles / 7:59 pace / 134 avg hr