First week of training

So I'm halfway finished with my first week of training. And it's my first week of training with a coach. Unfortunately I'm being a terribly high-maintenance athlete because we're trying to work through what I can and can't do yet given an injury, plus I'm getting a remedial grade on knowing how to read my swim workouts. Last year was my first year swimming, and all I did was swim back and forth. Boring! Now I get to decipher the use of all these fun pool toys and secret swimming code words. Sometimes quite unsuccessfully, but I'm getting there.

Which reminds me of a very funny comment that Jeff left on Jason's post about how to tell someone's a triathlete when they're in the pool:

Here are how I tell if someone is a triathlete at the pool: Multiple tan lines, numerous swim toys (pull buoy, fins, kick board), mp3 strapped to Aqua Sphere googles, wearing jammers, not doing flip turns, wearing swim cap with a Tri name on it, some type of s/b/r tat, smell like chlorine before you get in the pool, swimming 2:30/100, a Total Immersion book at end of lane, grease on right calf, dirt underneath finger nails, drove to gym in a hybrid hatch back with a 70.3 bumper sticker, a bike bottle at end of lane for hydration ... or (drum beat) the number one reason someone knew you were a Triathlete? You told them (-:

What really made me laugh is that I just ordered a waterproof MP3 player. And I do bring one bike bottle for hydration. And I have the Total Immersion book (and video) although I don't bring it to the pool. Too funny.

On a positive note, I am on the road to health. I went to a PT on Monday who determined that I've been a biomechanical disaster waiting to happen, and that if I don't hurry up and realign myself, I'll get the same injury on my right leg. So it's all about the glute medius right now to get my knees and ankles in alignment. If you're interested, check out this excellent article on the role of the glute med in running and how to diagnose and correct a glute med weakness.

I also discovered that while I was all proud of myself over the past few months for getting up to fairly high reps of a couple glute med exercises, I've been doing them wrong. No wonder I ended up injured. So today I went to the gym with PT exercises in hand and struggled to get through all of them correctly. It hurt so good.

And the best news: my hamstring is almost entirely healed and I could do an exercise pain-free today that I couldn't do at all last week. I suspect this could be due to the bodywork and acupuncture I got yesterday. So now I'm primarily just dealing with piriformis pain... but I think I've figured out how to banish this pain for good. I decided to cut out the one thing that aggrevates it the most: sitting. Yep, I was bed-ridden all day with my computer on my lap. Thank goodness I work for myself. I think I sat for a grand total of 15 - 20 minutes all day, and that was just for meals. And although I woke up with big-time piraformis pain, it had almost vanished by the time I got back from the gym tonight. I think after a few more days of bed rest, ice, stretching, and foam roller, I'll be good to go.

And meanwhile, I'm back to pool running tomorrow. It's actually kind of fun.