Thursday

I was nervous heading out for a short jog this morning with Maia- I think I knew deep down that it wasn't going to be all good. And indeed, I felt my hip with every jogging step. :( We jog/walked 2.2 miles really relaxed/easy and while it never got worse, it definitely didn't get better as I went. I guess in good news, it didn't hurt anywhere near as bad as it did last time I ran (Saturday), and the pain didn't cause me to limp the rest of the day. Prob not fair to compare the two runs since today I went so much shorter and easier. I'll guess that had I run the same distance/pace as Saturday (6 mile progression), it would have ended up hurting just as bad. Shit.

My latest hypothesis is that it's something to do with iliacus muscle. Maybe some psoas involvement as well b/c I feel a pull on my lower back as well. Zen taught me yesterday how to find the spot that really hurts by digging into around that ASIS bony spot and indeed it almost feels like a muscle spasm or trigger point in there... and the research I did to find out what muscle that is points to iliacus.

Anyway, I'm doing all the soft tissue stuff I know to get that muscle to relax. I don't think I'll attempt running again tomorrow.

I procrastinated my swim about as long as I could today. The pool closes for lap swim at 1:30pm which meant I had to be swimming by noon (latest!) if I was going to have time to get the full 5k in. Again it was a gorgeous day. We have seriously been spoiled by good weather recently.

I assumed I'd just swim slow/easy today, but my 1000 warmup was a full 40" faster than it was yesterday even though I'd say it felt the same. Interesting. Mostly made me think I have lost my sense of pace! Did a further w/u set 4x250's kick w fins, mostly just to add volume (while saving my poor tired arms) so I could do a shorter main set, which I was still deciding on. Came up with this 1800m main set, which turned out to be pretty kick ass.

500 strong/fast pull @7:30
100 easy easy swim @2:00
2x250's strong/fast pull @3:45
100 easy easy swim @2:00
5x100's strong/fast pull @1:30
100 easy easy swim

To be honest I wasn't sure I'd make those send-offs, but once I got going had no problem. Basically held 1:27's for the 500, 1:26's for the 250's, then 100s were 1:21, 1:24, 1:24, 1:23, 1:23. That set completely thrashed me and I still had another 1200 to go to make the 5k. Ugh. I started to do a 1000 fartlek with pace changes, but was so tired I cut it at 500 and then just did an extra long flop type cool down to finish up the volume.

I needed to get more work done when I came home but was so hungry and tired that all I could manage to do was stuff my face(!) then lay down. I guess that's part of the beauty of my job is that I can work a lot on my own schedule so if I have to work at night because I didn't during the day, well, no worries really.

I've spent 5-10min in this position every day of the swim challenge... Lots of grunting involved but it actually feels quite good. Maia is always by my side.