Life's curveballs... Gotta love em!

Well, I had a couple curveball's thrown my way last week.

Curveball #1: I left my keys in Jake's car one night, so I had to bike the crazy big hills in our neighborhood and at DBU to get to the gym!! Pretty sure I looked like this little guy here...

Curveball #2: I officially have a small labral tear in my right hip and a stress fracture in my right femur.

Curveball #3: I am no longer going to be able to race my big spring goal race, the Memorial Hermann Sugar Land Half Marathon on March 2nd. If you are a runner and looking for a spring half marathon - Definitely check this one out! Sugar Land has GREAT racing weather in March, it's a fast course, and the staff is super great!!

Curveball #4: Because of my anterior pelvic tilt (tight hip flexors), I need to stay off the bike when possible... AKA, I need to get in the pool so I can aqua-jog! This means working out at noon and being limited to 30 minutes of cardio per day.

So, what do all my crazy curveballs mean for this week's training? They mean that for the next 4 to 5 weeks I won't be "training"... The focus now changes to being as fit as I can be without prolonging the healing process! Lots of strength work and as much aqua-jogging as the combination of my work and pool schedules allow!

Sunday, January 19th
Rest day to kick off the week!

Monday, January 20th
*Chiropractor appointment
AM: Strength work (full body day). Awesome new workout!! I got this one from a ebook of workouts from Cathy Savage's page.. It's called the Warrior Guide. It took me around 45 minutes start to finish, but my HR stayed high the whole time, the recoveries were so short they really didn't count (haha), and I definitely feel confident I'll get stronger if I add this to my weekly schedule! Today's workout went as follows, the part in parenthesis is the settings/ weight that I used:

Noon: 30' aqua-jog with intervals. Pool is closed for MLK day! No cardio today afterall!

Tuesday, January 21st
**1st day of Physical Therapy**
AM: Leg strength circuit. Today's circuit only took about 30 minutes, which I figure is a good thing since I don't know what they'll have me do at PT. Circuit was as follows: 4x12 of [stability hamstring curls, stability ball back raises, leg press @ 30, sit-ups on bench], 3x12 of [squats w/ 10lb weights, reverse crunches, 1-legged RDL's, captain's chair straight leg], 3x12 [good mornings w/ 20lb weights, side lunges, calf raises w/ 10lb weights]
10:00: Physical Therapy. Great start! I really respect the girl that's working with me (she actually ran for Baylor so I know she "knows" runners). It turns out my right SI joint is completely immobile and even after her working with it for a while today, she couldn't get it to move, so we're trying again on Friday. Apparently while that joint is stuck, the muscles on my backside can't fully fire, which would explain why my hip flexor and quad were giving me so many problems... they were doing double work! I also now have three new exercises to do each day!
Noon: 30' aqua-jog. Until today, all of my aqua-jogs were a fartlek of some sort. Hard for a period of time, then easy for a period of time. Today I decided to spend the full thirty minutes just working at a good steady effort. I wanted to put more focus on which muscles I was activating and my form as opposed to just moving as much and as fast as I could. Got it in!

Wednesday, January 22nd
11:00: Upper body strength day. Workout below! :) You can ignore the "First" part. I cropped this out of a larger workout plan. :)

Noon: 30' aqua-jog with intervals. Skipped the aqua-jog today. I made it halfway there and decided to turn around. I've had a earache and halfway stuffy nose for a couple days and decided now is not the time to push my body... That can come later when I'm truly training. :) Came home and sprayed some Isamune on my tongue, ate a healthy lunch, and am now diffusing On Guard in my office while I work!

Thursday, January 23rd
*Chiropractor appointment
11:00: Full body strength circuit. This went well again. I was very surprised because last time I could barely do the diamond push-ups, but today they were actually pretty good. I'm sure it's mental though because I don't think your strength actually changes over the course of a week! :) Workout was as follows:

Noon: 30' pool workout. I spent the first 9 minutes aqua-jogging in pain with my flotation belt on. It broke last time but I kept using it, and for some reason today it was just jabbing into my stomach without the padding on it anymore. Then, from 9:30 thru 22:30 I proceeded to aqua-jog without a belt on. Not a huge deal, but it did put more strain on my hip flexors and forced me into a less than ideal posture. It got my HR up, but wasn't as "therapeutic" of cardio as I would have liked so I switched to lap swimming. From 23:00 to 33:00 I swam laps freestyle. I was really surprised by how great of a workout it was and how much it challenged my legs and lungs. I will spend more time doing laps next time, even though the aqua-jogging is more running specific.

Friday, January 24th
Noon: Physical therapy. Originally when I scheduled my first PT session (the one I had on Tuesday) they said I would need to come three days per week, but I could come at 7AM. That's a big plus for me because I don't have to miss any work! Turns out my therapist doesn't arrive until 9 and she leaves at noon on Fridays, so I'm going be missing work and swimming on all my PT days now! The good thing is that I really like my therapist and have a lot of confidence in what she's doing. Still trying to get that SI joint mobile again. I told her how my entire right groin area was super sensitive and painful to touch and she compared both sides and said it was really inflamed. She suggested to swim laps or bike for a few days, but I am going to stay off the bike since originally that was something they told me to avoid. Lots of new exercises to work on, but she only wants me doing four of them on the days I don't go in. Also, I was back out of alignment when I went in. How do we go out of alignment so fast?!?!

Saturday, January 25th
Rest day! Originally I had planned this being a lap swim day, but somehow between 8:15 and noon I got completely lost in my classwork and On Call duties. I had a crazy request come in that I couldn't carry out and let's just say I made a lot of OT money this weekend!! I'm taking it as a blessing in disguise and hoping it let's some of that inflammation go down!