Rack 'Em Up

My running and cycling routine has been hampered lately. A bruised rib from basketball several weeks ago, a stomach flu since Thursday, and the occasional football (soccer) night ran the weekly miles down.

Well, I'm all better now and the inter-company football tournament will be all done by April 7th so hopefully the miles start racking in ---especially the running miles since the Milo Marathon 2013 training season starts after the 7th (for another 16 weeks of training). Mentally, I need to psych myself up as well, especially for the long runs.

I'll assess the first few weeks of that training to see if my body will be up for another 42kms of pain since base mileage right now has been null (a dismal 5km total run last week and 6km total run so far this week). The easy road to take will be to relax and take up all the duathlons lined up for the year (I'll be doing one by the way via the Duaman on Apr21). The hard road, of course, will be training for Marathon #5 (July 28).

Let's see how it goes in the next few weeks.

The (Long) Road To Recovery

A little over a week after my basketball injury, I can still feel pain on my lower left rib cage. After consulting our office doctor, she recommended me to have a chest X ray and an abdominal ultrasound just to make sure it's nothing serious.

I opted to skip both and told her I'd rather prescribe for pain medication first. Celebrex and pain gel have been helpful to relieve the pain but it's still a task when first getting up in the morning.

I came onto this page and found the most frustrating thing that many of us athletes despise:

I can still bike, but I couldn't run because of this. Probably the bouncing movement of a run is making the muscles around the affected ribs painful as they are still undergoing the healing process.

3-4 weeks?!!?!?! Darn it.

Hopefully this thing gets better soon.

Injured

I found myself by the side of the basketball court last Wednesday grabbing my lower left chest, and feeling all that pain.

It was a mid air collision with who I thought was an opponent when it turned out it was a team mate. Next thing I knew his elbow hit my rib ---hard.

Last Saturday morning I tried to run but it was too painful that I only lasted a little over 3km. It was a bad run.

Until today (Tuesday) I can still feel the pain so I guess it's still sore from that impact. Nursing it with Salonpas and Ibuprofen is not helping.

Hopefully this thing heals over time, especially before my April 21st duathlon.

Sigh.

Lezyne Femto Drive

    I bought one of these from Bikezilla last week, to address safety when I ride at night. On weekends when we're at our place in BGC I park the car a km away so I use my bike to go back. The road is not well lit so it's not that safe for me to be pedaling along with vehicles that may not see me.

The Lezyne Femto Drive I bought is for the rear and attaches snugly to the seat post. Pressing the lens for 1-2secs lights up the tiny LCD-battery-powered gadget, blinking in different modes as you continue to press the lens. I was amazed at how extra bright this one was compared to previous bike lights I owned years ago (the basic ones the are larger in size).

The tie that holds the lens to the seat post is made of rubber so there's no worry of getting that (precious) seat post from getting scratched.

The Lezyne Femto Drive also sells as a front light (high white color) which costs the same as the rear (PHP 580.00).

Definitely a safer way to bike at night.