“Mr. Rolf...my coach quit at Purdue and I don’t know what I should be doing. Can you coach me to be ready for cross country season?” Marie asked.
Can I coach her to be ready for cross country season? Do black bears shit all around my campsites whenever I go to the Adirondacks? Do squirrels make good school crossing guards?
“Marie...I’m there,” I said.
She’s been struggling with extreme pain in her right hip and the fear was that she had another stress fracture. All indicators are that it is not, and the physical therapy stretching and strengthening seems to have her on the road to recovery. The challenge will be to get her back to running form in the limited time left to us. There is no rushing this though, which would only lead to bigger problems. It will be an interesting challenge, but she’s a first-class Division I collegiate runner and I relish the opportunity to help her prepare to be ripping up the courses this fall.
We had parts of this conversation on a 30-mile bike ride. She was riding without the benefit of drop bars, clip-in pedals, or ultra thin road tires. She also had her seat too low and wasn’t getting the full benefit of the strength in her quads. We stopped at one point and I raised the seat.
“Wow...what an amazing difference,” she said as we rode on.
“Yeah...my neighbor calls me ‘the bike whisperer’,” I said.
She is a tough rider and stayed close to me for most of the ride. On the down hills, I speed easily ahead because of the differences in our bikes. I lose some of that edge in climbing because one of my legs weighs more than her body, but again...equipment wins. I hope she never gets a good road bike because I’ll be eating her dust when it happens.
I’d put in 10 miles before I’d met her, so I’d managed another 40 miles in the saddle. I was struggling with low back pain from all the miles I’ve been riding and a new level of irritation in my elbow from yesterday’s Survival Workout. Like the meniscus earlier, I think I’ve really messed it up now. I was having troubles on every climb because whether in the saddle or standing on the pedals, when I climb, I use my arms to pull against the handle bars as added power on the uphills. Every pull hurt, though I kept pulling. Later that night, as I sat in my recliner with an ice wrap on my knee and another on my elbow, I wondered whether I looked very manly...or very old. I’m going with manly.
Bike Duration: 2 hours and 30 minutes.
Training Heart Rate: 120 bpm.
Calories burned during workout: 2400.
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