Wailing, Spanking, and Slapping

Paul has long referred to his lifting sessions as "wailing;" for example, "I'm going to wail on my pecs." After this weekend's long ride and long run, I tried to use wailing to refer to how my legs felt; "that ride really wailed on my legs." Paul, however, maintained that because these activities were much longer in duration than the normal lifting session, they required different terminology. So we came up with a continuum of physical intensity and pain: wailing, spanking (as in how my legs felt after the long ride), and slapping (how my legs felt after the long run). I'll keep you all posted as to whether these terms actually catch on.

With that introduction, there has been a lot of spanking and slapping going on for me in the last couple weeks. I decided yesterday that given the aimless nature of my life right now (in limbo with a finished but not defended dissertation and no job in sight), I was focusing all my energy on training and avoiding the world by training instead. Case in point: after the trip to Phoenix, I did 11 workouts in 6 days (5 swims, 3 rides, 3 runs). I've eased up a bit since then, but did a solid 48 miler on Saturday (that felt like ass on a cold, foggy day) and a 70 minute run on Sunday.

In other training news, I've ditched my physical therapist and his exercises. After almost 9 months of regularly seeing him and doing the exercises (he was also the 4th PT I'd seen), my hamstring still wasn't cured. In Phoenix, I thought things were great, but it turns out that really just going slow makes my leg feel 10 times better than going normal pace (8:30s). This is both awesome and (to me) tragic. I can run 10 minute miles without pain, but am afraid that having gotten myself into double digits pace-wise, I will lose any fitness and speed I ever had. I think I'm going to have to convince myself that really I'm running 9:59s just so I can mentally keep doing what my leg needs to feel ok and for me to get through all of this training. The other downside to this is that since I normally don't run 10 minute miles and have no sense of pace these days, I've done my last 3 or 4 runs on a treadmill to make sure I'm going slow enough. It sucks. I did not enjoy an hour on the treadmill Sunday when it was 50 outside, but hopefully this will all help in the long run and/or I'll adjust to this pace and get to go outside. Keep your fingers crossed because it's a gorgeous day outside and I can't keep myself on the treadmill too much longer!

I'm off to find other forms of distraction from job applications and a dissertation abstract that needs to be written (or copied and pasted from my diss intro). I'm thinking some sewing and soup making. And maybe a nap...