Thanks for the Chronic Soreness, Coaches!

On Monday I went to dryland strength conditioning, and that day Bridget decided to get cute with us and change up the routine a bit. She did a 30 seconds on/30 seconds rest/30 seconds on workout where we’d be at a station doing reps for half a minute before getting a break. That’s all well and good if the person running the workout is paying attention to the clock and timing everything properly; unfortunately, a couple times Bridget would get too caught up in watching everyone’s form to remember to check her watch and realize that she had been punishing us well past the :30 mark. (She pulled that stunt when I was at the hardest station, then said, “Oops, sorry!” and gave us a shorter rest to balance out the elapsed time. I’m still figuring out how to exact my revenge.)

The workout itself wasn’t too bad, but the next day I woke up and was like, “WTF soreness, where’d this shit come from?” before pulling a Bruce Willis at the end of The Sixth Sense and thinking back to all the times I never actually interacted with anyone but Haley Joel the stupid workout I had done the day before. Between my aching body and the fact that a routine oil change turned into a $600 endeavor where I had to replace all four tires (the drawback of having an all-wheel drive vehicle), I wasn’t exactly stoked to do a track workout that evening. But what the hell, I went anyway because I’m a masochist.

My reward for showing up was a mile warm up followed by our pre-workout exercises that typically consist of ridiculous movements that resemble a short-lived 80’s dance trend. After Roger Rabbiting my way from one side to the next, Teresa then instructed us to do inchworms along the gravel-y and dirty ground. My reaction:

She wasn't, unfortunately

After I begrudgingly wormed my way across the ground and stood up, picking gravel and debris out of my palms, we were told what the workout would be. Survey says…..hill repeats! Fuck my life.

12 repeats later, I drove home and complained to an amused and resting Jas, who had a light week of workouts ahead of him after having raced Boise on Saturday. He didn’t seem very sympathetic. Bastard.

On Wednesday morning I woke up feeling less sore and thus somewhat upbeat. I had a swim lesson with Teresa where, as usual, she instructed me to change about 15 different things about my swim form, then beamed like a mother hen when one out of every nine lengths actually managed to look passably decent. I came home and worked for a bit before meeting up with a new strength trainer I found, an imposing Russian guy named Gene (whom I’ve appropriately programmed into my phone as “Gene the Russian”). He assured me that our first meeting would be a “get to know you” session where he’d assess my fitness levels and check my form. After a stupid amount of pushups, shoulder exercises, sit ups, and other movements, I left the facility thinking that this didn’t seem as “preliminary” as I was initially assured.

Today my soreness has reared its ugly head once again: my abs (shut up, they soooo exist under that permanent cushion of fat I harbor) are angry with me, my hamstrings are tight, and my shoulders are giving me the aforementioned “Are you fucking kidding me” look.  It’s taken me back to last year’s training, where I ultimately got used to being vaguely sore all the time because I was working out nonstop in preparation for Ironman Canada. This year, however, my body’s become the adult Peter Pan in Hook — it’s forgotten how to fly, fight, crow, all that crap, and it’s whining to me about being sore all over again because it’s been a while since it’s felt this way.