Injury, weight update

Well, I've mentioned a couple injuries in my recent blog entries, so I thought I would post an update...  First, the crash I had during a training skate that led to the Tegaderm experiment...

At first, I was relatively unimpressed with the Tegaderm.  It didn't really seem to be staying in place as well as I thought it should.  (I wanted that wound to be hermetically sealed!)  Of cours,e part of this was my own fault -- I think the Bactine left a bit of a film on the surrounding healthy skin that prevented the Tegaderm from sticking very well.  (Combine that with the hair, and it really didn't stick well at all.)  I also had wrapped that leg with a self-adhering bandage (the kind that allegedly only sticks to itself).  Well, that stuck just enough to the Tegaderm to make it shift on occasion.  So after a couple days, I removed the Tegaderm, cleaned the wound again with soap in the shower, and let it air dry for a good 20 minutes.  The Tegaderm stuck much better... This time, I used a foam "pre wrap" (like what someone would use under sports tape to keep it from ripping the hair off when you removed it) to wrap around te leg -- after verifying that it would not stick at all to the tegaderm of course!  That worked MUCH better...  Although the foam wrap was probably not necessary...  After a few days, I stopped using the foam and just had the Tegaderm on there.  The extra padding was largely unnecessary by that point.  After 10 days it was prtty much healed over with new (very sensitive) skin.  I decided to keep the tegaderm on until after Northshore, just in case of a crash (having a tiny bit of protection there.)  By then, it was a little annoying because it was itchy...  But the Tegaderm is gone now, and I'd say the roadrash is 95% healed.

Now, my post-NYC injury...  I still don't know I pulled my shin muscle, or strained the tendon that runs along it, or what.  But that's been very tender for some time now.  The first week after NYC, I did nothing.  Just tried to stay off it and hoped that the inactivity would allow it to get better.  I call this the "United Nations Approach" and, as you would expect, it was pathetically ineffective...  :)

So, then  started the "shock and awe" campaign with an overwhelming force of Ibuprofen.  (800mg 3x a day...  Basically the maximum dosage for prescription.)  Within a couple days, I noticed a BIG difference.  It would still be tender after walking around on it all day (still as little as possible) and stairs would aggravate it pretty quickly, but it was definite progress.  I did a training skate a week before TTT and afterward, it was tender again.  But it recovered quickly (~ 2 days max) to its pre-skate condition, and actually got even better as the week progressed.  So much so, that I decided to try for the 100 mile option the first day of Tanglewood.  (Which didn't happen, as you know from my trip report.)

Anyway, it was definitely sore after that first day, but I skated the second day of TTT and it seemed to loosen up a bit.  It took a couple days to get back to the skate it was before the weekend, so pretty much the status quo.  Even through the Northshore marathon, it was about the same -- didn't bother me at all during the race, but was tender afterward.  Took much less time to recover from that one though -- maybe just a day.  And this week, it seems to be making more progress.  As a result, I've backed down on the ibuprofen a bit (600mg twice a day) to hopefully give my liver a little break...  For the most part, I don't notice it at all unless I go out of my way to clench that muscle - then I know it's still got a little ways to go.  I'm hopeful that it will be more-or-less healed for A2A.  I plan to bump up the ibuprofen again the weekend of A2A though, just to keep a strong occupying force during that part of the campaign...  :)

Now, as far as the weight goes...  The story there isn't quite as good.  The week after NYC when I did nothing, I somehow managed to lose a couple pounds!  (That was pretty cool.)  The second week, though, the weight started creeping on.  (Still no exercise...)  I think I actually put on a pound at Tanglewood...  (See - I've always said it's possible to gain weight at that event!)  I think I was up about 8 pounds at one point (in about a month -- ouch!!!), but it has come down a couple pounds from there...  So maybe 6 pounds heavy right now.  It would be nice to get some of that off before A2A, but I think it'll be tough.  So I may just be trying to maintain this weight now, which is still lighter than I've ever been when doing A2A, so that's not bad...  (And still 28 pounds lighter than I was in March...)

My weight goal now is to maintain this weight over the winter.  If I can take off some of the pounds I put on recently, that would be great, but I'm not going to worry too much about it.  I just don't want to put on any more.  Then, come springtime, I can train with a much milder diet and try to lose maybe 10 pounds next season.  Losing 2 pounds per month ought to be a lot easier than 2 pounds per week...  :)

- SM -