Wrightsville Beach Training

I am running again! ... sort of...

I'm currently in Wrightsville Beach for my two weeks of active duty training for the Coast Guard. The Friday before, I was finally cleared by the doctor to start running again. Obviously full force was not advised, so I started kinda of easy. However, even that seemed to be a bit much and right now my knee has flared up and the running is being sidetracked again. I'm able to make it through the 2.5 mile run we (the Reservists) do a couple times, but some times it was worse than others.

However, the time here in Wrightsville has been fun and interesting. Usually when I'm out of town, my swimming and biking are sidelined because the logisitics and hassel of carrying the extra equipment. However, being here for two weeks kinda of nessicitates making the attempt.

I'm extremely lucky. A small group of triathlon stores, TrySports, has a location in Wilmington. I visited the store and was able to hook up with a few group workouts. This included a Wed. night ride. However, more exciting and novel was an open water workout! While there is a group that swims from Jordan Lake; it's usually not at an opportune time and, well, it's a long drive. The Wrightsville Beach group is great, swimming in the channel, between the Coast Guard Station and the Blockade Runner hotel (direction depends on the tide). Besides great workouts themselves, it's always fun to have training plans successfully fall into place.

The recovery continues. I'm out of the boot, but still not running for about another two weeks. This has pushed me over to the elliptical trainer. I used it a lot during the winter when I had IT band issues, and it seemed to stall some loss of my base mileage, so I'm hoping to still have a decent base when I can get back to running.

I've mainly been using a Precor brand elliptical which allows for adjustments in resistance and incline. This weekend while drilling with the CG I used a LifeFitness model which does not have an incline adjustment. Both had their plus and minuses. Without the incline, the LifeFitness was good for a constant lower turnover with high, high resistance. The Precor could give me a high turnover, but still elevate the heart rate with big changes in the incline.

Another 1 mile swim next week. And my dad will be doing his first 5k!