Been Away A Long Time

OK Sorry bout no updates.

I have an appointment to see an Orthopedic Surgeon regarding back surgery on Jan 3.

Year and a half is too long for pain in my opinion.

I am going to start it all anew once I find out the course of treatment and recoup etc. I have gained a few pounds and lost some fitness so it will be a complete trek back from obscurity.

I guess my New Years resolution is to fix everything wrong with my body and then tune it back in and race again.

Sprint Is out in September 07 - Iornman Muskoka 70.3 September 08 IS in!!!

Well I am still behind in some training basics and am having bouts with sciatica, sometimes quite severe, but I ma now with an ART(active release technique) doc and have now deceided to focus my attention to the Ironman Muskoka 70.3 next September 14th.

This will be my A race next season and I will plan on also doing at least 2 sprints and an olympic in July at some.

The race in Muskoka looks pretty good with an overall loss in elevation on what looks to be a very challenging course. They are actually paving new roads just for the race, which is super cool.

I think if I ease my training and try not to increase my weekly volume by too much I should be able to get a personal best at the race barring any further injuries or deployments to Afghanistan.

This blog will act as my training blog for the Muskoka race.

Still Chugging Along

Even with a trip to the drinking land of Hamilton Ontario, I was still able to keep chugging along with runs.

Anyways I am up to 7 runs in August so not too bad... and thats with one night of drinkning thrown in there.

I have a good little running route from my office along the Ottawa River and do about 5.5k almost every day.

Life is good, albeit still a bit tender in the back and legs.

Going Pretty Well

I am now fixated on "competing" again. I think I should be ready for the Canadian Sprint in Ottawa.

I am running and biking as often as I can without pain. Swimming, well I have only been out once in the last long time, but I have never worried about it anyway.

I am doing consistent 5-7km runs and 15-25km bikes to attempt to get into some sort of shape, other than a pear. I am also currently committed to one of Devashish Paul's 'challenges, a 31 in 31. That's run 31 minutes everyday for the month of August. There are certain "awards" (no one really gets anything except motivated) for how much you actually do (platinum, gold etc etc).

Well thats how things are going as of now. Check back for updates.

New City, New Routes, Same Problems

Well to start, I am still in a fair amount of pain. That being said I am trying to get through it.

I am still not traing a great deal, just enough to get by without a great deal of pain. I am doing about 5-6 hours a week right now and the pain seems to be subsiding, even though the epidural shot I recieved at the end of June did nothing to help. I am doing more and more stretching and a bit of yoga.

Ottawa is a great city filled with cool folks and a great tri community. A lot of the drivers are bit oo agressive for a guy thats been living the relaxed West Coast lifestyle. The roads are also a bit treacherous in parts due to the cold, I am guessing.

I have a few short routes laid out around my house and near my work and I will be mapping all of my workouts on mapmytri.com .

I have it in my head that I will be able to accomplish my Ironman goal by summer of 2009. This season it is looking like I will only be doing one race during the labour day weekend (somersault.ca).

I am thinking that with the IM USA just down the road about 3 or so hours, I will make that my goal. Next season I will count on doing at least one early season (June) Olympic distance and one Half Iron (again) in September, perhaps late August.

Til next time. And really I should be posting more often than this.

New Blog, New Training, New Pains

Well I have decided to stop posting on the milesnmiscues page and start a new one with all I would like to say about training and life in general.

For those that don't know I am Brian Boake, a sometimes triathlete, sometimes writer, Air Force man and all the time trying to be a good guy. I am also a new member of the 2007 Javelin Triathlon Team.

For the past year I have been recovering from a very bad back injury, wherein it is almost impossible to train, let alone race. I have a compression in the L5 and L4, with spinal stenosis with a splitting of the S1 nerve root causing bilateral pains within my legs. What does that mean? It means I am in pain almost the whole day and have tried just about everything.

I have decided to 'suck-up' the pain and start triathlon training again. Albeit this training will be a lot less than what I had been doing in the past. I am going to start out with 5-6 hours a week and by end of season possibly get up to 9 hours or so a week.

I will be attempting do this all while moving across Canada from Victoria to Ottawa with the whole family in the car for the trip.

What am I thinking?

I have gained a bit of weight back from my last years racing weight of about 195lbs and am up to 210lbs.

So that is first on the list. I have to start eating right again and walk more. Injury seems to be the root of laziness.

So, last week I really started back at training with 3X 1500m open water swims, 2X 20 min runs and one 30 min run. When I tried to go out on my trusty training bike for a ride, I discovered that I somehow broke my left STI shifter. So instead of freaking out, I took it as an opportunity to switch out my 9 speed kit for 10 speed and all is ready for this week.

I will try to do updates as often as possible and hopefully help or encourage someone else to get up and go.