Carbon copy

Another good ride this morning. I was just looking through the data for the ride and it was almost identical to my ride from last Saturday which is interesting. Save distance, average speed, average power, average heart rate, everything. Not sure if that is a good thing or not. Perhaps it is just a thing.

Today's ride was quite different last week's though because today's ride included a bunch of 10 minute intervals. Pretty much the entire session was filled with them. Up until now my long rides have been mostly, go out and ride type affairs and so today it was good to go out and do a long ride that had focus. The efforts went reasonably well. As is often the case with this type of session by the time I got to the last couple it was starting to sting. Plus like last week most of my return trip was into a raging headwind, which meant I was pushing more watts than I really should have been just to make headway. The headwind might have contributed to the stinging too. Still it was good to get out and get some more miles on the TT. Also nice to be out on the final weekend before Busselton 70.3. Lots and lots of nervous looking triathletes out putting the finishing touches on their race prep. Kind of fun to be out and about in that kind of atmosphere. Felt like I was part of the action even though I won't be out racing next week.

I also had a swim planned today but in the end I have made the call not to do it. I have had a nervous kind of day shoulder wise. Yesterday I convinced myself that my collar bone had shifted a bit and my shoulder was looking worse. Now I don't even know if that is possible, but I convinced myself that it was. In my head I have this image of the ligaments in my shoulder letting go, even though I am fairly sure that isn't what the situation in my shoulder is. What prompted this is that during the swim session yesterday morning I thought I felt a little pull in my shoulder and since then my shoulder has felt a little funny. I use the term funny rather than sore, because that is what it is. It isn't sore, not at all, it just feels a little different, perhaps tight is the right word, during certain movements. Talking to my Doctor, if it doesn't hurt and there is no movement restriction (there isn't) then there is no real concern. Basically there can be movement and stretching of the scar tissue in the shoulder and so the collar bone can move about. In fact this is one injury where they consider functional to be the same as fixed. It can never be healed properly back to 100% so the Doctor's look instead at whether the shoulder can do what it is supposed too. Mine still can.

So anyway, in short my shoulder started feeling a little different yesterday and I freaked out. I am slightly calmer now, but I still thought that not swimming today was not a bad idea. The thing is though that from what I can see swimming won't hurt either, in fact nothing really does. As such I am probably going to give swimming a go tomorrow. Gently to start with of course. Might be time to leave off weights though.

Speaking on injury, sad knews on social media today that a mate of mine young WA Pro Triathlete Allister Caird is going to have to pull out of Port Mac Ironman with back problems. Allister is a massive talent and a great guy and so it sucks to hear that he is having trouble. Having just come through an injury I know just how frustrating it can be, particularly if it is long term. Hopefully for him it isn't though and he is back kicking goals in no time.