Sunday I rested.
Monday I cross-trained. I begged Jim to let me ride the stationary bike, which is hilarious since I hate the darned thing! But I really needed some exercise badly, and that was the option. I rode it for 30 min (all the time I had) and then I did a bad thing...I rode my bike to work, too :). I think it was OK though, as nothing hurt.
Today I was to do an 8K fartlek. As you can see by the title of my post, I didn't make it that far. My legs died. I decided before I started that I'd keep going until either 1) it hurt too much, or 2) I couldn't maintain 3:00 for the fast 500s or 3:15 for the recovery 500s. 1) never happened, thankfully; the worst the pain got was 1/10. 2) did happen - at 6K my watch read 3:02 for the fast 500 (and I felt I was really slow) and so I stopped. Looking at the graph on the Garmin website, my heart rate did decrease at the end. My legs just had no more to give after 4km.
Now, at lunch time, I'm having some minor pain in the hip/butt (Jim and I were discussing Aussie vs US use of the terms "hip" and "butt"...I feel like here we often say hip for the whole hip + butt (politeness? I know my mom never used to let me say "butt", though I do let my kids say it!) and that is confusing the issue perhaps?). Anyway, there is some pain pretty deep inside and some radiation down the back of the leg to mid-thigh (sciatica probably), and so I am pretty sure the piriformis is aggravated. Jim called me this morning and after hearing what happened this morning told me to take 2 days of x-training and then do a 10km kickdown on Friday.
I am OK with all of this, surprisingly, but I am pretty upset about my form. Kelly took some video of me today and I look terrible. OK, maybe not terrible, but not good. I'm leaning forward more than I should be from the waist and not using my back and lower abs enough to tuck my butt under, and so my knees are a bit soft. The thing that gets me is that I was trying NOT to do that and apparently failing. Usually I have good body awareness, but she took the video at almost 4km and I was very tired, so maybe that's why. Regardless, I absolutely have to work harder on this.
So frustrating. I feel I'm back to square one every week. On the other hand, I KNOW that is not true and I do feel I'm making progress, but it is really slow and that is hard. All I know is that slow progress beats the alternative of not racewalking at all. What alternative is there to slogging forward as best as I can? None, really. So I continue to press on.
The weather was beautiful this morning (49F (10C) and breezy when I walked; maybe 55F a bit later when I went to work), so I couldn't resist biking to work despite how tired I was after the workout. I'm glad I did.
Here's hoping a couple days of rest makes me feel better.
Garmin data here.
1 comment:
I have to laugh at this...not at your pain or the frustration you are feeling ... but at the part of language between Aussie vs Usa. Can you not remember the look of horror on both mine and Davids face when you got out of your car and loudly proclaimed that you had such a sore f***y. You were meaning your butt but we don't say that for our butts!!! eg we call them bum bags you call them fanny packs.
So yes...it will be tricky for Jim to figure out where you are hurting.
I so know exactly how you are feeling. I manage a walk then suffer the next day. While it aches during the walk it aches worse the next day. Perhaps I should get a video of how I am walking too.....hmmm Keep at it though as you and I both know you will get through this.
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