Pain in the Butt

So tired tonight.  The week has caught up with me.  Poor sleep the last couple nights has caught up with me.  Perhaps not eating enough has caught up with me.  The result was a slower than usual swim session tonight with the Fortius team.  I think I just bonked, but it's also hard to go faster in the water when you're trying to constantly implement all the feedback from each drill.  Flutter kick to avoid crazy legs.  Make sure you're making a bow like an archer on your upstroke.  Keep your arm out wide enough so as not to cross over your body on the downstroke.  But not too wide!  Relax!  Your shoulders are tense. Just listening sometimes is exhausting!

Is it possible for words to physically weigh you down in the water, like a rusty anchor?

The one buoyant bit of news today came from my ART guru, Dr. Ben Kleinbrodt. We're getting close to isolating my leg problems.  It seems my right gluteus medius (not quite your butt, but the side part of your butt connecting hip to butt) is puffy and swollen.  It's easy to see when I'm wearing tight shorts.  (Not sure it's appropriate to share a photo, it's not that kind of website haha!)  Dr. Ben thinks it's because I lean to the left, and my skeletal structure forces extra pressure on the right side of the body.  This hip/butt pressure tightens my psoas, which tightens my hip flexor, which in turn can tighten the IT band.

It's kind of a big deal.  Dr. Ben told me to focus on foam rolling my right hip/butt area for at least five minutes a night.  He also told me to increase my running mileage a bit, that my body is responding well to the treatments and exercises.

I'll have plenty of time tomorrow to stretch.  I missed a cycling workout on the trainer today to accommodate my ART session.  And since I'm a bit overtired from the week, there's no making that session up.  I can't stand missing training sessions.

Ah well. In reading this post I sound a little cranky and whiny. Let's call it a night.

Hope everyone's training out there is going well.  Hang in there!  There are days like this that dot all of our training cycles.  It's just part of the journey.  Part of the process.

159 days and counting.