LONG-DISTANCE WORKOUTS CURTAILED

Other than a 30-mile bike ride in CB Smith Park this past Monday, this week’s triathlon training has been scaled back somewhat. We did manage a couple of workouts that included swimming, biking and walking, but those training sessions paled in comparison to our typical LD training.

Any why is that?

I regularly run, race-walk, bike, swim, lift weights, yet I throw out my back while leaning over tying up a garbage bag, and the bag wasn’t even heavy. It was one of those occurrences when you lean over just a smidgeon and suddenly the lower back tightens. There was no pain to speak of, just a tightening that wouldn’t untighten when standing upright.

This setback doesn’t come as any surprise, though. When a person is stricken with spinal stenosis, sometime the slightest movement can trigger a negative response from the lower back area, especially my lower back area. On top of the spinal stenosis, four out of the five discs in my lumbar area are herniated.

And it appears that I’m not the only one in this household with back issues.

Following this year’s Goofy Challenge in Walt Disney World, Janet has been experiencing excruciating discomfort in her upper back. The pain began during the last five or six miles of the second day’s event and hasn’t subsided since. She has since had an X-ray and all it revealed was arthritis.

What makes matters worse is the slight bending over that she must do while working at the retail store. Doing so is a necessary evil of her job, which makes her situation all that much worse.

I’ve been applying Biofreeze on the area followed by comforting back massages, and she does get lots of relief afterward. But as soon as she begins running and bending forward to any significant degree, the discomfort returns.

We’ll see how it goes, but for right now we are both considering curtailing all long distance training for similar reasons. It may be to our long-term advantage to return to moderate workouts accompanied by low-mileage training walks.

Running is completely out of the question.