Good Day!

Today I got my race kit and welcome box from Erin Baker's! It's awesome! It's a beautiful day in Chicago, windy but warm. I ran for 55 minutes this morning (YES!) and then biked 20 miles on the new bike! Gonna ease into it so I get used to the new positioning, but it is F-A-S-T!!!!

It's been a great morning so far... ready to swim tonight and start packing!

XOXO

Cori

Trial Race

Last Thursday I flew to Phoenix so I could participate in the Tempe International Triathlon, which is also the club championship race. I'd been planning on doing this race even before my injury so I already had the plane ticket. Whether my knee would let me race or not... I was going to Phoenix. Luckily my running has been improving little by little each week so I signed up for the sprint tri - a 400 meter swim, 12 mile bike and 3.1 mile run. Of course everyone knows I would have rather done the Olympic distance race even with 105+ temps, but I was playing it safe doing the sprint. I mean I didn't even know if I'd be able to finish the sprint without having to walk from the pain, but in the back of my mind I was wishing I could do the Olympic. So here it goes with the race report:

Race morning I got up at 4 a.m. ish and ate one of my Trader Joe's muffins (come on it's a sprint... breakfast isn't as important as a longer race right.. lol). Brian and I took the red van to the race and on the way I already had to go to the bathroom. The first gas station we stoppd at didn't have a bathroom and I felt sick driving to the second one. Even though this is gross to write, I was happy I had to go so early before the race to avoid potty lines. So when I got to the race I got transition all set up... man it was so crammed!!! I hardly had enough space for my bike shoes and run shoes next to my bike. I put everything else in my helmet on top of the aero bars. Speaking of the aero bars, I raced on one of Brian's old bikes that I used to ride around a year ago. Its heaver and clunkier then my wonderful Felt and new Kestrel, so I was very nervous for the bike part of the race. Especially since I hadn't ridden that bike in a year!!! I decided winging it on a random bike was better then spending money to get one of my bikes here for a sprint tri. Anyways.... I saw so many of my old friends before the race and it was awesome catching up with everyone I havent seen since Ironman in November or even before that! I was in heaven being the social butterfly in transition.

When it was time to head over to the swim start I started getting a little nervous because the swim was not wetsuit legal. It was my first open water swim without a wetsuit and in my head I was picturing myself drowning in tempe town toilet water as soon as I jumped in. So of course when I first jumped in I panicked a little, that is until I figured out that, yes, I can still tread water without a wetsuit. It felt so strange being in the water and doing a tri again because I've been injured for so long. I started in the front but very close to a lot of other girls... bad bad bad idea!!! The 400 meter swim was worse than the Ironman swim! I was trampled and stuck between people the entire time. It sucked!!!! I got kicked and smacked and who knows what else.. I was just glad to be alive when I got out of there!

I ran to tranisiton and felt pretty good. I haven't done a tranisition in a while and OF COURSE I didn't take any time to practice or anything (that would be too smart of me) but I think I did pretty good considering all that. When I finally took my bike out I was still so nervous that I couldnt get my foot clipped into the bike to take off and people started getting pissed off behind me that I wasn't moving already. Finally I got clipped in and off I went. I decided I was going to just hang out on the bike so that I would be able to run after without knee pain, but that bike is so hard to move!!! I felt like I was driving a semi truck compared to my nice little race cars (sitting nicely in my garage in Illinois BY THE WAY!!) and it was difficult for me to get into a groove. The bike felt short, and I was glad for that!!!

Coming into T2 I couldn't get my bike to stay on the rack so eventually I just left it hanging by one brake lever (I know I hate people who do that, so sorry everyone around me!!) I slipped on my heavy ass Brooks trainers which I used because I was scared to run in anything else with less support, and ran off with my hat and race belt in my hand. I put the hat on and clipped the belt while I was running. The run was hot and I definitely felt the extra pounds I put on from not being able to run. THAT SUCKED let me tell you... yep, that sucked. Anyway, I was hot as hell but just ran a normal pace and prayed to make it through. There were a lot of aid stations, but each time I passed one all I wanted to do was get to another one within one minute. I crossed the finishline happy and without pain in 1 hour and 11 minutes. Thank the lord in heaven!!! I walked straight to the massage table and got in line for a post race massage, where she could definitely feel my tight glute muscles and where my problem spots were. I couldn't shut up about how happy I was that I finished the race and ran the entire run without pain. Honestly... I hadn't ever done a brick before this race because I was too scared it would trigger my knee pain, so I really had absolutely no idea if I would even finish this race... but I did! I had a great (slow) time but am just on cloud 9 that I actually did it without pain and I can't wait to start picking up the training and doing more races... and actually racing them and not just doing them as a joke!

My trip to AZ cannot be described in words but what I can say is that it was one of the most amazing, exciting and emotional weekends of my life. I started planning my move back and hopefully will be back the first week of June. Some of the details are too personal to mention yet on this blog to the public, but in time I'm sure they will all come out :)

I'm at the airport now waiting to board my plane back to Chicago. After I returned my rental car I had tears in my eyes because I didn't want to leave (even though I know I'm coming back very soon). I know this is my home and finally feel like my life is coming back together!

By the way I ran 51 minutes yesterday and am feeling great. When I break the one hour mark I will probably cry like a baby... just like I did when I broke the 30 minute mark. I will just say that my love of running has not and never will die, even if I can only run for 1 minute evey day for the rest of my life I will love that one minute more than anything in the world!

XOXO
Cori

Running Strong!

I had to write a short post to say I am FINALLY starting to feel good running again! Yesterday I ran 40 minutes pain free! AND it was wonderful! Today I ran a quick 20 minutes before my deep tissue massage and also felt fabulous! Tomorrow morning I'm attempting another 40 minutes. It's amazing because after biking 100 miles total over the weekend I would have figured I'd feel terrible this week... but I feel absolutely fabulous and have no complaints! Big thanks to Lindsay, my physical therapist, and August, my massage therapist, for tweaking my body back to where it's supposed to be and also putting up with me and all my ups and downs, smiles and tears.

XOXO
Cori

little by little

What's up everyone? The semester is coming to a close now and all my big projects and papers are due... hence the reason I have not spent any time "blogging." But I figured I should take the time tonight to give a little update on my crazy life.

I raced a 5K two weeks ago with my one of my best friends from high school, Danielle. It was her first race ever so I figured I should do it with her! I was up to running 29 minutes so I thought... no problem. Well, of course it was a problem... for a couple reasons. One: It was rainy and cold and just yucky that morning. Not the best weather to run it when you have an injury. Hello stiffness! Two: Not very many people showed up because of the weather, therefore when the race started I found myself in second place! Now, what do you think went through my head? Of course nothing that should have... like, "hold an easy pace, you dont want to get hurt" oh no, it was more like, "hell yeah I can win this thing!" haha, so of course what did I do... I picked up the pace and passed the girl in first and won the damn thing! Well, it probably wasn't the smartest idea, because after that my leg started hurting again... wtf! Stupid, stupid stupid! So right now I'm stuck around 30 minutes of running until the pain comes back. BUT... it is continuing to improve little by little.

Three weeks ago I started biking outside again on the weekends!!!! Oh the joy of biking outside! I missed it so! First I rode about 50 miles out to Sycamore and back on the farm roads by myself. I wanted to make sure I still had some skill on the bike before I joined a group ride... and I wanted to make sure my injury didn't hurt. Well, it did a little but not too bad. The next weekend I went with a group out in Crystal Lake, we rode about 60 miles to the Wisconsin boarder and back. It was a little cold and windy as heck! And today I rode with them again about 80 miles to Lake Geneva and back! I'm a little rusty out there, as would be expected for not biking outdoors for 6 months! But today my leg felt fine and the weather was beautiful. I will attempt another 30 or more - minute run tomorrow morning before physical therapy. Fingers crossed!

Speaking of therapy... physical theapy is going well. Apparently my leg is just all kinds of messed up! My IT band seems to be loosened up again, which is great, but my hamstring and muscle attachments by the glute and hamstring and in the knee are another story. I'm stretching like crazy, foam rolling, doing my exercises, icing, doing electrical stimulation and even started seeing a massage therapist at Lifetime who is AMAZING!!! That has helped tremendously, and I am feeling a lot better since that stupid 5K I decided to win... what the heck!!!!!

In a week and a half I leave for Arizona for Tempe International Triathlon. I'll be there May 14-19 and have two job interviews that I am super excited for. I can't wait actually! I'm praying everything goes well and I can plan to move sometime in early June. More details on this as it comes closer, but for now I am just trying to keep my mentality and attitude positive and stay happy. My new bike arrived last week and I will be fitted for it on Tuesday... so that is another awesome thing to be excited about! I'll post a picture of me with the bike as soon as I get it... it's a Kestrel Airfoil Pro, and looks pretty awesome... in the box! Here's a generic photo of it!

Time for more homework... I can't wait for this week and a half to fly by so I can be DONE with school and train, train, train!

XOXO

Cori

A fork in the road... which way to go?

It's been a few weeks so I'm very excited to write this post for a couple different reasons!

First, I started physical therapy last week and it has been going very well and I am finally feeling good! Lindsay, my physical therapist, is digging out my IT band that she said was incredibly tight, stretching me, giving me exercises and stretches to do every day, and puting electrical stimulation and ice on me. I'm happy to say that running is going really well now! I also went to Naperville Running Company and bought new shoes... AGAIN I KNOW!!!! Well first they video taped me running and I actually watched it this time where as at Road Runner Sports I just took what the guy said as the absolute truth and went with the shoes he recommended for me. On the tape I saw that I actually do pronate and am not completely neutral like he thought. I needed different shoes! I ended up trying on three shoes, a Brooks shoe, an Adidas shoe, and a Saucony shoe. I also watched myself run in every one of them. I ended up buying the Brooks Adrenaline 9 and drove off to run in them right away. They feel stiff as a rock since I'm used to less support from the DS Trainer and Newtons, but they worked like a charm and today I'm up to 28 minutes running comfortably with no pain! Next week Lindsay says I can start increasing my running time by 10 minutes and I'll be back to normal within no time and be able to do most of the races on my schedule no problem. THANK GOD! Can I say that again... THANK GOD!

Really, I'm saying thank God because I have some really awesome news! About a month back I got an E-mail from Jane Esahak-Gage in Arizona, she has been sponsored with Erin Baker's Breakfast Cookies for a while now and recommended I apply for a sponsorship from them as they were accepting applications. You can imagine the thoughts running through my head... oh no, I'm injured, I can't apply for a sponsorship! But then I sucked it up and told myself, injuries don't last forever and you'll regret it if you dont apply at least. So I mailed the application next-day air the day it was due! A week later I got a call from Bryan at Baker's who told me I was on the team! All I said was, REALLY???!?!? Haha but seriously this is one of the most exciting things that has ever happened to me so I am very excited! I have to get a new bike, since Kestrel sponsors the team, which is also awesome! I sent the application expecting nothing, but I think this is proof that good things happen when you least expect it and my life will turn around... things seem to be going my way finally!

Here's a link to prove I'm not lieing!
http://www.bbcookies.com/shop/pages.php?pageid=29

Speaking of things going my way, being home in Illinois for the past five months... aka all of winter... sigh... has really gave me time to be alone and think about my life, what I really want, and what is best for me. I have realized that I cannot possibly stay in Illinois after living in Arizona for the past six years. What is important to me is being outside, enjoying nature while I train and meeting and learning from people that share my strongest passion. I can't do that here... at least from November to April (6 months... really?!?!?) I can't do that and that is just not going to cut it. So I've started applying for jobs and thinking about moving back to Arizona. I'm young, I need to make the best decisions for myself in order to be the happiest and live my ONE life to the fullest... and I just can't do it here. I started running and triathlon in the warm weather where I could train year-round. Switching to this is not working and it has made me very depressed. So, school might have to be put on hold for a while, but in the big scheme of things, I have my bachelor's degree, and I am happy I gave grad school a try and will definitely have it on my list of things to finish, but it's not as important as my overall happiness. I can't do well in school if I'm depressed all the time. So, I'm moving forward with no regrets, just a positive outlook on the future! I'll let you know more details as the plan unfolds, but I will definitely be staying in Illinois until my physical therapy is over in the end of May because recovering completely and having a healthy body to train on is number one on the list of priorities right now.

Time to go out for my run!

XOXO
Cori

Road to Recovery

So I've been concentrating on new, different and important things this week since I am trying not to run or bike at all in order to start a safe recovery.

1) I've started prioritizing resistance training, and I actually like it. I've been doing some glute and hip exercises with resistance bands and lifting upper body on my own this week. Also, today I went to a Strictly Strength class at Lifetime in Schaumburg and it was great! Wow, I can't even remember when I last seriously lifted weights, so here's the first positive thing that's come of this injury. (As you can see I'm trying to find positives in a negative situation right now... can we say maturity? hahah I hope so cause that's what I'm trying to be.. mature :)

I've been spending at least an hour in the pool every day concentrating on two things, my breathing during freestyle, and then pool running.

2) Freestyle breathing - Since I've gone to masters in Elgin twice so far, they keep telling me I am breathing wrong and that is what's slowing me down because it throws off my body alignment and makes me zig zag down the lane. I heard I'm breathing too late and my head comes too far out of the water. So I've been trying to fix this, but it has proven to be one of the most difficult and frustrating things for me. So for the past month all I've been thinking about when I swim is breathe early and keep my head down, but I have felt SO OFF and just really funny when I swim. I knew I was doing it because my right lower back would always hurt a little because it pinches together when I twist my body too much to breathe. So I've been youtubing it up lately watching a million videos on breathing drills and freestyle swimming (the ones Dave Scott made are awesome btw). Today I spent a half hour doing breathing drills. I swam in the "kiddie lanes" as I like to call them at Lifetime, or the lanes they randomly put up in the kiddie pool with the slides. These lanes are super short and they don't have a line drawn on the bottom of the pool so you know if you're going straight or not. This is actually really helpful for me though because if I end up hitting a lane line I know I'm doing something wrong again! I left the pool feeling like I accomplished something today after I actually concentrated on fixing this breathing problem instead of just thinking about how much I wanted to run or bike instead... cuz I can't right now. So there, positive thing number TWO!

3) I don't really know much about pool running, especially like what depth the water should be when you pool run, but I've been doing it back and forth in the lanes at the pool and it mentally, and probably physically, makes me feel better about not actually running for real. I actually worked up a sweat today pool running for 15 minutes! I'm going to have to do more research on this though because I don't want to be doing it wrong and end up hurting myself... which would be so stupid!

4) Tonight I also went to Bikram Yoga, which is AWESOME! Let me just say that again... AWESOME! I know I should be stretching, and believe me I am doing that multiple times a day and am pretty much married to the foam roller both at the gym and at home, but nothing, I repeat nothing, feels better than Bikram Yoga. I haven't gone in about two years, but now I remember why I used to be an addict! Bikram is kind of like Catholic Church... the exact same sequence every time, but I leave feeling like a new person with a brand new body! It's a 90 minute yoga class in a studio heated to about 105 degrees. You will sweat more than you've ever sweat before, trust me, and your heart rate will be very high at times even though it is yoga. It's crazy awesomness and I plan on going at least twice a week for now because I know it will help me not only just for recovery, but mentally and physically for the future as well. I like to think of Bikram as endurance Yoga in the desert. You have to be mentally tough to do it, and you know me, I thrive off extremes.

Well that's all for now. Life is crazy right now with work and school and obsessing over this stupid knee issue. I bought a ticket to go to Arizona May 14-19 because I planned on doing an Olympic distance tri there to kick off the season. I'm bummed because I have no idea if I'll even be able to do it now, and the thought of not being able to do Ironman in November makes me just sick to my stomach. But I keep telling myself to think positive thoughts, that I will recover from this and become an even better, faster triathlete because of all this mess!

Bedtime!

XOXO
Cori

Seriously?!?!??!

So I've put off this post for long enough. Yep, I can't run again.

It started right before I went to Minnesota two weeks ago when I started feeling a little pinch toward the end of my runs, but I didn't think much of it because I thought my body was just telling me it was time for new shoes again. No worries, I told myself, I have my new pink DS Trainers waiting at home to be worn! So I went to Minnesota and on Sunday ran on the bike paths for an hour. About 15 minutes into my run I randomly, yes completely randomly, fell. My knee cap hit the cement and blew up like a tennis ball. Now, I've fallen many many times so I again brushed this incident aside and figured I'd be fine to keep running like nothing happened. So Monday when I got back home I laced up my new shoes and tried em out. I lasted about an hour and 20 mintues, but still felt the pinch at the end of the run but no big deal. On Tuesday I wanted to do some speed work so I ran down to the park do do some speed laps. About 20 minutes into the run it hurt really bad. I stopped and stretched out my IT band and continued running, but it was bad news. Eventually it hurt so bad I could barely walk and I ended up limping home, cutting through my neighbors yards in order to get there as fast as possible. I threw my shoes against the wall asap. Since that day it's been horrible, I'm still the 20-minute wonder and cant get any farther than that without pain and having to walk.

SERIOUSLY?!! WHY ME?

So I've pretty much been doing anything and everything to help myself recover again. I really don't get it! I was fine! And then out of the blue this happens? So last weekend I went and got my running analyzed and a gait analysis at Road Runner Sports in Naperville. They said I have a high arch, but that it doesn't matter because I run perfectly neutral and stable. So I tried on a million different shoes and ordered the Mizuno Wave Riders, hoping they will help. I got them today, ran in them, and yep, still 20 minutes and then I had to walk... and CRY! I've been icing, taking ibuprofin, sticking to swimming and biking, taking Calcium, glucosamine, and my normal suppliments, foam rolling and even doing glut and hip strengthening exercises with a resistance band to strengthen the muscles that support the knees. I seriously will do anything for this to get better. I really just dont get it.

I want to crawl into a ball and not talk to anyone until I can run again because I am so depressed. :(

Not happy... AT ALL.
Cori