Holy Mother Of All Things Of Searing Pain...

First off a wee recap....hmmmm...what did I do Monday??? Right! I swam AND ran! The swim was absolutely brilliant. Coach Greg and I worked on some swim time goals (along with the running time goals) last week and so now I actually had a time to aim for whilst swimming. I gotta say, this makes a big difference.

I'm used to training on my own, but last year had a swim coach so finally learned how to use those big darned clocks with the four 'seconds' hands. So confusing when you don't know what you are doing. Unfortunately though, this year I pretty much forgot what my times were so never really used the clock. Now I am back in the game and if yesterdays swim is any indication then there is the slighest possibility that maybe...just maybe... I might actually become a faster swimmer! How cool would that be?!

I did a warm up, then jumped into 12 x 50 m, then 6 by 200 m. The 200m intervals were cool as I was swimming at varied paces - 50 easy, 100 moderate and 50 as fast as you can (or "almost puking" as I like to refer to them). I got to mix these intervals within intervals up too so it made it even more interesting.

I did well keeping the pace I was trying to achieve and was ever so happy I took a couple of puffs of the inhaler in the morning!

Later on in the afternoon I went out for an easy 45 minute run. I was quite thankful it was easy because as it turns out I was feeling my 55 km ride from the day before. Nothing painful, my legs just felt a bit more leaden than they had the past week. It was a gorgeous run - the sun was out and I actually went out with just shorts and a tech shirt. Well, and sneakers and sunglasses of course. I mean, gotta have the sneaks and I wouldn't be cool without the shades now would I??

It was a tad bit windy out (read 30km/h winds) and I was really feeling it as I ran up the bonus hill. Not just that I was running full on in the headwind, but I had my hair in the usual braided pigtails and these were getting whipped around in the back of my head like someone was there whipping me to go faster! I would have laughed, but I was sucking wind as I ran up the hill. I checked out the Garmin and it would appear that I run up the hill faster than I run the flats. I'm going to assume that was an error on the Garmin's part...either that or I'm a sucker for punishment!

Today I was scheduled to go for a bike ride. The weather report was sort of all over the place and I had a physio appointment at 8am so I figured I might still be able to go outside, but it would have to be before the 70km/h winds kicked up...

I hadn't seen Janice in a couple of weeks and as I have been running much better without little to no arse pain I mentioned I was a bit worried that my other muscles were back to compensating. She did a series of range of motion exercises with me and was quite pleased with the improvement! I can even lift my leg off the table about 3/4 of a inch now, which means the arse is definitely building muscle!! Woohoo! (Yes, I'm shaking it like I won't break it right now!)

That was the fun stuff...then she started the physio part. Seriously, she needs to get a piece of leather that I can bite down on! HOLY HANNAH it was not fun. My hip flexors are being very disagreeable and Janice said if I don't start doing hardcore stretching of them I am going to limit the degree of strength I can get for the old buttocks. So she worked on the hip flexors and IT band. It was as if someone was running a hot iron down my legs!! At one point I had to grab the leg that wasn't being worked on because I thought I might inadvertantly kick her. Honestly, Janice is a super super kind woman and an amazing physiotherapist. She's helped me out a ton already, which is why I let her torture me....because I know it's going to make a difference.

Sure enough she checked things out after the muscle burning therapy and I could actually lay flat on the table! My low back was down and my legs were too. (Before she did her thing you could fit a half basketball under the small of my back and my legs were somewhat arched. It was rather odd.)

I felt really good afterwards too. Like I could move more easily. The only bummer was that she recommended I not bike today in order to give my legs a rest as they'd been through the wringer. (Really? So my trying not to kick and sucking air rather than breathing normally kind of hinted that I was going through the wringer eh... heh)

I was bummed but not too bummed as I'm heading to a cycling camp for the long weekend and I plan on doing some serious miles there. I'll try to add on to Thursdays ride as well. I have a feeling that one will be indoors as it's supposed to rain. Bascially I'll make up for it.

I'm still feeling good, and already I've done the two stretching exercises. I'll try and get two more in before bed.

It will be intersting how this season feels as I get my hips and muscles etc doing what they are supposed to be doing. Janice figured it'd be next year when I see the full results, but so far things are looking better, so for that I'm very grateful!

Peace out my friends!