Green Light

Spondylolisthesis:
-anterior displacement of the vertebrae in relation to vertebral column, caused by stress injury or degeneration
-an awesome combination of a stress fracture and a slipped disc...I like to think of it as the Transformers of injuries
-the underlying cause of my reduced training and lack of racing over the past month, and what I'm referring to when I talk about my gimp back

So it's a funny sounding injury that I have, which unfortunately flares up from time to time when my training volume or intensity increases. It's something I've had to accept and deal with over the past two years, and will continue to do so if I want to keep racing.

Some minor muscle imbalances on the bike and poor swim form has caused it to flare up a couple times this year, but after a month of base training and no races I finally have the green light to hit the start line. Just in time for Elite/U23 Provincials and Kelowna ITU.

My patience has been tested the past few weeks but this week I finally got to test my legs instead...and it went well. Test #1 was an open water swim then brick into 2x20min intervals on the bike, and averaged 38.2 and 37.8 at tempo effort. Today was some brick intervals for test #2, and with a little help from motor pacing I did 2x 5k bike/1k run in 9:35 and 9:12. Fun stuff!

Unless something goes terribly wrong this week I'm going to race Multisport Canada's Bala Falls tri next weekend, and will enter my first elite race in Ottawa on the 31st. And despite the speed bumps lately things are still looking good for my A-races in Kelowna and Puerto Vallarta.