Buttsweat Towel© season has begun

couple minutes on the TM in the evening to test my hip - maybe a little improvement but nothing major.  So much for keeping the momentum of my training going...guess I'm sleeping in again.

Sigh...went to the pool today at the gym on base.  Did a mile in 4 x 400m with a minute rest between each 400.  The whole thing took 28 minutes; I can remember doing a mile in 18 minutes in high school.  I guess 13 years of not swimming makes you slower.  Finished with 2 x 50m sprint in 38 each to get the heart rate going.  I had to ask a couple of pool/gym employees to make sure the pool was meters and not yards (a lot of short-course pools in the U.S. tend to be yards).  Thankfully it was meters...good ol' military sticks to what they know I guess.

There was zero impact to my bad hip in the pool, so maybe I'll swim every other day and try the...sigh...elliptical machine if I can figure it out tomorrow.  I see the doctor on Thursday morning.

30 minutes was all I could take on the elliptical which got me 3.4 elliptical miles, whatever that means.  As long as I didn't shift my weight, my hip didn't mind.  I don't think I got as good of an aerobic workout as running, but it crushed my quads which is good.  My legs were even shaking a little when I got off so I bet they'll be sore tomorrow.

The doctor visit went about like you would think - he did a few tests and concluded it was the hip flexor and didn't want to do any imaging on it, then wrote a rx for aleve or something like it and told me to not run for a few weeks.  He seemed sure, but I will keep the sfx possibility in my mind, especially since the article I read said that FNSFs are misdiagnosed as hip flexor problems all the time, but you need an MRI to tell.  I'm not ready to run yet anyway but I'll be taking no less than another week off, probably more.  My plan is to wait until I can't feel it anymore while walking, then test it jogging on the treadmill a little at a time.  I don't want to go backwards if it is a sfx.  He also suggested physical therapy at the wellness center for exercises but I think the elliptical is taking care of that just fine.

Swam a mile (1600m) today in ~27 minutes, so a little better.  I did a progressive effort for the last 300m or so.  Then 2 x 50m sprints in 38 and 37.  I wish the pool was yards since that's what I remember from HS.  I can recall doing 50yd sprint repeats from the wall consistently in 26 each back in the day which would be about 29 seconds in meters.  So that's how slow I've gotten.  Oh well, the pool is closed all next week anyway, then hopefully I'm close to being able to run a little. 

No cardio today.  That stupid elliptical machine gave me some super soreness in my calves to the point where I'm walking funny with calf pain.  Never got the least bit sore in my quads.  I'm sure I was doing the machine all wrong and favoring my hip because it's my left calf; I probably was unconsciously making it do all the work.  I don't really have time for anything today anyway so I'll try maybe the stationaly bike, cycle, whatever it's called on Monday.  Have a nice weekend all!

More good news yesterday - my marathon plans are on hold and Houston is out.  I'm being deployed again, this time to beautiful sunny Iraq.  Leave in July, back in January or early Feb.  Here we go again...  Not sure if I'll be able to keep up consistent training but I think I will still be able to run some, depending on where I go.  Either way, Houston in January is out, so maybe I can do OKC in April 2011.  I'm pretty sure I'll still be able to get on the blog overseas, but we'll see.

I think my hip is getting a lot better so I might try an easy mile on the TM toward the end of next week.