Tag Archives: Injury

Challenges with High Volume Training: Life.

I haven’t blogged for a while. The reason for this is my sense of humor took a temporary hiatus from triathlon training. I’ve reached the highest volume of hours / distance in the training program and I’m extremely frustrated that I haven’t been meeting my goals I set for myself each week. The rest of my life has this pesky way of distracting me from getting in the necessary time in the pool, on my bike and out running I think I need to stay on track.

I’ve also started getting lonely and kind of restless. Most of my training has been by myself partly because I need to fit in workouts at odd hours of the day and partly because I hesitate to ask my friends if they would like to join me in my 5:30am spinning class (I don’t care for getting laughed at). When I’m doing brick workouts over the weekend it’s difficult to time the transitions so that people can join me for just one leg. I’ve also had to miss happy hours, gigs my friend’s band played, and weekend camping trips due to long hours training on Saturday and Sunday mornings.

In addition to all this, I just found out yesterday that I need knee surgery. My gross little lump in my knee has turned into scar tissue and will need to be removed surgically. Simply draining my knee again won’t work as it’s not liquid anymore. Fortunately, my doctor said that the procedure  is minimally invasive, he can put the stitches under my skin (really?!), and dress the incision so I should be able to start training 48 hours later. This is amazing, but I don’t feel like I have 48 hours to lay on a couch recovering from knee surgery.

My body composition quest is progressing acceptably. I’m currently at 23% (down from 24%). I usually get stuck at 23% so I’m going to have to be good for a little while to see if I can break through this plateau.

All that said, I am starting to feel better, the weather is finally getting (and staying) pretty nice outside and I’ve broken through some stuff going on in my personal life to a place where I am ready to redirect my efforts back to training. Hopefully that means blogging too. Hope you are all doing well in your training, you life, or wherever your focus might be. Lindsay Brust

Knee Draining (not for the squeamish)

A couple of days ago, I mentioned the fact that I have an ugly bump the size of a golf ball on the inside of my left knee. (Don’t look! That’s not polite.) My orthopedic surgeon had some guesses as to what it was but thought it might be a good idea to double check his thoughts with a MRI. The results confirmed what he had been thinking (a trauma induced hematoma). Lindsay Brust

Yesterday, I had an appointment to get it drained. I don’t remember the fancy word for the process, but it sounded more sophisticated then “draining.” I think it probably takes a bit more skill to do this procedure than it takes to “draining something.” I have no idea. I didn’t watch.

Here’s what happened. First, I was stabbed (slight dramatization) in the thigh with a local numbing agent that is not the novocaine they give you at the dentist but it was similar. Call me a wimp, but that was pretty unpleasant. It burned when it when the agent went into whatever tissue is surrounding the cyst and continued to burn for about a minute (gasp!) before the area went numb.

Then, my doctor drew the fluid out with an additional needle. I felt a little pressure during this, but it wasn’t painful. The whole procedure probably took about 10 minutes. He wrapped me up and sent me on my way with some extra gauze and an extra wrap.

I took the opportunity to not feel guilty about not working out last night. I had a glass of wine (or two), watched an obscene amount of TV and read a book. I’m not suppose to do anything strenuous for 48 hours. Funny how once I’m told I shouldn’t train, suddenly I want to. (Note: Talk to therapist about this the next time I run into her)

I started considering swimming and just working on my pull. If I don’t kick, it will be fine, right? I probably won’t actually do it, because I strategically planned a night out with entities some people who aren’t working full time and training 15 hours a week call “friends” later tonight. If you are at Ignite Boulder and the after party at the Bitter Bar, I’ll see you there! Order me a Pisco Sour.

MRI Results

I heard back from my orthopedic surgeon / physical therapist and he said that the results of the MRI confirmed what we’ve been thinking. For those of you super squeamish, I would recommend skipping this post and checking back some other time.

The bump on my knee is a trama induced hematoma that has turned into a cyst, probably blood filled. It’s trying to form a capsule around it. It’s really gross. He said that he can drain the bump using a local anesthetic and needle and there is an 80% chance that will take care of it once and for all. I will need to give myself about 48 hours without working out. Naturally, I planned the procedure during swimming week. So, think about me Wednesday afternoon when I go under the… needle. Uck.

The good news is that it’s completely separate from my knee joint and my knee looks “very healthy.” Lindsay Brust