My first tri injury

On Friday while doing my last long hard run before my full blown taper I pulled my left quad. This surprised the heck out of me. Up to this point my body has been virtually bullet proof. After 6 years of hard training & racing I've only had one other injury, back in 2006. At that time I had just starting putting in some long runs of 15-18 miles & I wasn't tracking the miles on my shoes. An endurance athlete should always retire their shoes at the 500 mile mark. I didn't & put way to many miles on a pair, which caused an ITB injury.

Today I was able to bike comfortably, but unable to run without some pain. The pain wasn't intense but I could tell there would be problems if I pushed it.

To be honest with you, I simply don't have a metabolism made for endurance athletics. I'm naturally slow & fatigue quickly. My body was designed to be big, heavy, & strong. It was made to lift heavy objects, not for endurance or speed. Back in high school football I was one of the slowest runners on the offensive line. When in the military, & while on the prison CERT team I ALWAYS finished each run close to last. Without fail.

But once I did my 1st triathlon I knew I found my niche & passion. I also knew because of my lack of natural ability to be fast or have endurance I'd never be any good if I trained like everyone else. I had to learn the way my body worked & how to get the most from each & every training session. How to make my body recover faster, to learn about sports nutrition- figuring out the diet part of triathlon was a LONG HARD process filled with MUCH trial & error:'(. I've done my best to not just live an athletic lifestyle, but to become a student & practitioner of triathlon.

Injuries was never something I had to learn about, so right about now I'm feeling a little unsure of how to move on with my training. How long do I rest? Do I keep biking & swimming as planned or allow the quad complete recovery? When do I start running again? How quickly do I progress? I have a lot of unanswered questions with this pulled quad.

My next A race, the Patriot triathlon is in 3 weeks but isn't all that important of a race to me, so I'd rather be safe than sorry & make sure I'm able to race the Silverman half Iron in November.

Any suggestions & prayers would be greatly appreciated!

As always, thanks peeps. I'm always very grateful for your support & interest.