I’m training for another half marathon; I’m also nursing a sore hip and tight IT bands, which means that after I run I spend a lot of time stretching and sitting on ice packs and slathering myself in NSAID gel. Fun!
(My hip is fine, really. I promise.)
I don’t want to stop running, partly because my whole training philosophy is essentially rest days are for suckers!* but mostly because when I’m not working out, my stress level goes through the roof. So I’m taking a lot of Anaprox and running slowly and thinking about ways I could cross train, because I need a way to keep pushing myself without winding up totally hobbled.
Which brings me to this.
No, I am not planning to do a triathlon (although the other night I made a joke about getting a time trial bike and Wade got more excited than I have seen him … well, ever, possibly. And then he started talking about how we could BOTH get time trial bikes and wouldn’t that be fun! and I passed out because OMG NO TRIATHLON. NONONO.)
Ahem. Anyway.
Over the weekend I suckered Wade into giving me a swim lesson, because while I am not worried about drowning it’s been a long time (like probably 30 years, easily) since I really swam, as opposed to just paddling around with my head above the water or sitting on a chair in the shallow end sipping a cocktail. He checked out my form and said I looked good, and then had Charlie show me how to do a flip turn. I was totally unable to master that, largely because I couldn’t remember how to do a somersault in the pool without getting water up my nose and also because I was wearing a two piece swimsuit and nearly lost the bottoms at one point. Whoops. I’ll have to work on that.
I’m hoping that a new challenge will take my mind off of some of my stress. I’m also hoping, as always, that I will not die. Beyond that, I’m just going to see how this goes.
What’s on your personal challenge list right now?
*Rest days are an important part of any training program, particularly if you don’t want to wind up sitting on ice packs and smelling like BenGay. So do as I say, not as I do, please.
Awesome. I, too, have taken up swimming for cross training and in part because I am nursing some achilles tendonitis. But I believe in rest days and still have awhile before my first half marathon so I am not pushing it. I AM however toying with the idea of a spring tri next spring. I swam competitively…in elementary school, LOL. Swimming is hard, yo. Right now I do a whole lot of breaststroke because I can’t breathe right when I swim freestyle.
I took up swimming earlier this summer in hopes of beating the heat and making the most out of days I wasn’t running. I don’t love it as much as I love pounding the pavement, but it is a good workout. Hope your hip and IT bands feel better soon!
I am running running running. But not racing, and not wearing anything to track my pace. And not training for anything. But planning to run my first trail half next weekend. I am so super excited about it, and scared to death. 13 miles on a road is fine, but on a trail? With mud and roots and rocks? Gracious! So my running is relaxed and slow and wonderful and brings me no stress!
Good for you!!! Have a great run — I think a trail half would be super fun.
Did my first triathlon this summer – and triathlons are fun! And require no flip turns!
And rinsing your hair before swimming should help prevent the green…
I just finished my 2nd (and last) half marathon earlier this month. I think doing it twice is more than enough for me thank you very much. I will continue to run shorter distances only a few times a week because I do love running. But lordy once you get over 8-10 miles I start to think of ways to fake my death in a ditch to get an ambulance to come carry me to the finish. My new challenge is a nice easy walk in the park called BOOT CAMP. Or, as my gym likes to call it, BOOTY CAMP. Same torture just a different name to make it sound fun and cute and easy. It is not. Having lost 93+ pounds in the last 2 years I thought I was Mr. Fit McFitness. Oh how I was seriously wrong. I’m cardio fit but my core is shot folks. Done, dead, done, gone. So my new challenge is twice weekly boot camp. It’s an hour of exercises and moves that I should probably just be doing on my own in the gym but I like doing it in a class because public humiliation is something I apparently need to motivate me. And, she pushes us to our limits. I know to get strong and fit, I need that. So I am at minus-square one right now in this class. I can’t even hold some of the moves she has us doing (like planks). It’s hard stuff. But I love it and it’s making a big difference in my body and in my mind. I like the challenge. I know….we’re a special kind of crazy.
“But lordy once you get over 8-10 miles I start to think of ways to fake my death in a ditch to get an ambulance to come carry me to the finish.”
Kelly, that made me laugh out loud, for real. Thank you.
I was actually thinking it when I was dying during my race. “If I just lay down in that nice ditch right there people will think I’m injured… but I’m not.. and I can rest and some nice man in an ambulance will come take me away.” Yeah, not my best moment.
Sore hip(s) and IT band problems are EXACTLY what have been dogging me since May 2011! I am so feeling your pain, Susan. (Literally, actually, since it just flared up again and I am off running again for awhile.) It’s the worst! It’s been on and off in one hip or the other for a year and a half. Oh, and remember how my handsome sports medicine doctor had to give me two cortisone shots in my ass? That was fun. I sincerely hope that does not happen to you.
However, I am totally impressed by anyone who can swim. Because I never really learned so I don’t do anything other than hang around the shallow end chatting with my mom friends. I blame it all on a water-scare when I was 2 or 3 that I can still remember. Early childhood trauma = water phobia!!!
Refraining from my usual level of physical activity is KEEELING ME, so that’s my personal challenge. I took a fall off a chair and landed on my back last week, and I’m getting random zapping pains in my low back that seem to be related to inflammation higher up (but it’s better every day). I have to be careful how I move and sit, etc., but I was going stir crazy after three days on the couch.
Unsolicited advice on your IT band/hip issues to follow (and it applies to Shannon as well): get a copy of a trigger point therapy chart and you will see that your pain is likely due to tight spots in your calves and hip/psoas muscles. Stretching alone won’t help, and icing will delay healing even if it does relieve pain–you need to deactivate the spots with a foam roller (it will hurt, I assure you) or a lacrosse ball. The pain is likely referred from somewhere else (in other words, it’s probably not actually your IT band that is causing pain but some place “up the chain”, i.e., our iliopsoas or psoas muscle). With the achilles, which I’ve just been treating, the calves are where it’s at.
I suggest the “Trigger Point Therapy Workbook”, available on Amazon. It never ever fails to properly diagnose the source of my pain. I feel for you and wish you happy healing!
I do not have this book–it sounds very useful–but I DID just recently buy a foam roller. It helps a LOT–but has not helped completely (but I haven’t had it that long). Another runner friend with IT issues recommended I get one. So, yes–I have to agree with the foam roller recommendation!
Wow. I felt like that last question was directed right at me. Personal challenge ? I’m going to think about that one. I’ll come back add a link if I post on it.
Thank you – I sort of need a kick in the pants.
Starting this summer I have aggressively begun the process of losing 80 pounds – down 20 and 60 to go. I will probably fall short of that goal as I am not just losing weight but gaining muscle but it is a goal and we shall see. I swim 1600 meters/1 mile Mon/Wed/Fri and am working through the Ease into 5K app Tues/Thurs/Sat. Sundays are those illusive rest days but not usually and I love a good sweat these days. So I think a challenge for me will be completing a 5K by the New Year.