Let’s revisit the schedule of pain:

Monday: dryland. I was already feeling kind of tired and Bridget sensed fatigue and pounced, making me do lunges, squats, burpees, and a bunch of other dumb crap because she’s sadistic and mean.

Swim: Pacing/conditioning workout. Teresa tried to drown me by incorporating sculling into my workout and very nearly succeeded because I am terrible at sculling and think it shouldn’t be a thing that exists.

Tuesday: track. Oh goody, a run test. I ran as hard as I could for 30 minutes, sucking in air like a Biggest Loser contestant on week one. On the plus side, I PR’d for a 5k and posted a good pace for the half hour test. On the minus side, the workout was hard and hurty and I got a wicked side stitch that hurt through the next day.

Wednesday: dryland. Admittedly this wasn’t on my schedule but I had already signed up so I went anyway. Teresa showed some mercy on me and gave me minimal leg workouts so she could lull me into a false sense of security before destroying my lower limbs with the rest of the week’s workouts.

Cycling class: Who gives a bike test the first day of cycling class? The TN coaches, that’s who. I emerged from this one exhausted, legs burning, and with new bike heart rate zones.

Thursday: Sweet fancy Moses, a day off. I celebrated by gorging on fish and chips, a fish taco, and cupcakes from Cupcake Royale. That’s how you take advantage of a rest day.

Friday: cycling. A 1:30 workout in various zones. Not too bad, but after that I had to run to…

Swim: A tempo trainer swim clinic. I only ended up swimming around 800 yards and it wasn’t too taxing. I learned a lot about using the little tempo trainer device and posted my four fastest 100s ever, including a personal best of 1:33. Whaaaaaaat?! I never swim that fast. (And yes, I know that time isn’t fast for 90% of the triathlon population but it is for me. Maybe this “devote more time to swimming” strategy is starting to pay off…)

After class I went out with a couple friends and had a few drinks that wouldn’t have affected Fat Rebecca but ended up giving Less Fat Rebecca a bit of a hangover. I didn’t get to bed until 2 am, which set me up for a grueling Saturday workout.

Saturday: 1:35 run with tempo efforts. I was supposed to go to the group run but seeing as how that started at 8:30 and I was operating on no sleep and too many sickly sweet cocktails, I didn’t start hauling ass until about noon. The run wasn’t too bad but since it was colder than usual, I was atypically sore afterwards.

I stuck my tight calves in some compression socks and headed off to a dinner party thrown by a fellow teammate. I debated sneaking off and taking a nap because I was exhausted but figured I wouldn’t get a return invite if Amanda caught me snoozing in her bed and drooling on her pillow, so I fought the good fight against consciousness and (barely) won.

Sunday (aka D-Day): The triple whammy of workouts coming off a day where I was already getting pretty sore.

Cycling: 1:35 cycling class where I had to do :10 all-out effort bursts every three minutes for an hour straight.

Running: Teresa gave me a 30 minute brick run after the crappy cycling workout in 34 degree temperatures because she loves to see me suffer.

Swimming: An hour-long swim class where I didn’t really swim so much as avoided drowning. By this point my legs were so dead that when I tried to do a “swim with the pull buoy at your feet” drill my legs kept cramping and I had to do a spazzy crawl/kick combo back to the wall so I could whimper and hate life. Then we ended the workout with stupid team relays, because what better way to finish off a grueling week than to sprint in the pool so you won’t let down your group?

After workout #3 I was totally drained (there’s a reason why triathlons begin with the swim rather than end with it) and felt drunk from lack of calories and general exhaustion. When Jason got home from his long run, he found me half-passed out on the couch looking as if I were on my deathbed. (I tried to get him to carry me around like I was Uncle Jack from Arrested Development [see post thumbnail] but he wasn’t on board. Cries of “Swoop me, Jason!” went ignored.) My legs felt physically exhausted for the rest of the day and I had zero energy on Monday (which, thankfully, was a rest day).

It’s barely November–if this is what my workouts will be like for the next nine months, I’ll either croak midway through the season or I’ll have one hell of a race PR. Or both. (It’ll probably be both.) Is this how elites train all the time? If so, I’m way out of my league. When do they have time to eat cupcakes and play video games? Elite triathletes are getting a raw deal if you ask me.

He instantly diagnosed me not with hamstring issues but hip flexor tightness, which is apparently affecting the hamstring as a result (the official medical explanation basically consisting of the “knee bone’s connected to the hip bone” song; medical school is overrated). Doc gave me some unfortunate stretches to do that involve splayed legs and some hip shimmies and look like I’m simulating going into labor on my living room floor, as well as a “touchdown celebration” stretch that feels weird if I’m not holding a football.

Two weeks later I returned for a follow up. My hip has felt fine for the most part but started acting up in the last couple days, and it’s been intermittently tight on runs. He checked me out and said, with a somewhat amused tone in his voice, that I have virtually no “inner lateral movement in my hips,” meaning I can rotate out fine but suck donkey balls at rotating in. He then explained that there’s a ligament from my hip down to my groin that follows the crease of where your leg meets your crotchal region (official medical term) and that mine is tight/strained. I don’t know what you actually call this area, but I refer to them as “Ken dolls” after the fact that Barbie’s boyfriend doesn’t actually have genitals, just a U-shaped indentation. Apparently the strain can occur from cycling in aero or sitting forward/hunching down too much (something I do all too often when working at my computer). Interestingly enough, this ailment plagues dentists a lot because of their constant sitting and hunching over patients’ gaping mouths (the more you knowwwwww).

Here’s what healthy Ken dolls look like:

I hate you, Bridget

Mine, meanwhile, are feeble and sad. My family has a history of jacked-up hip issues; most recently, my 37-year old brother had to have a bunch of shit cleaned out of his hips because of some congenital problem where bone is grinding on bone, and the guy will probably have to have a hip replacement surgery within the next 10 or so years. Here’s hoping my woes are simply due to tightness/strain and not something more serious.

I see the PT again next week; in the meantime, he’s added another gross stretch to the mix that involves cabinet lining, hand pressure, and awkward rotation. I’m starting to get antsy about being healthy again since I’ve mentally mapped out most of this fall and 2012’s race season, and I’m determined to bounce back and shine as brightly as a mediocre athlete can once again.

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.

Massage #1 was given to me by my triathlete coach’s massage therapist, Richard. She referred me to him after I was complaining of pain near my right shoulder blade. He’s a pleasant, calm Asian man who works out of his house. I spent an hour laying face-down listening to Jack Johnson while Richard worked on my shoulder (at one point, he took what felt like a running start and leaned all of his body weight onto my back, which I found pretty amusing). I liked Richard a lot but found him to be a bit out of my price range for regular visits.

Massage #2 was courtesy of a no-nonsense woman I tried out for a session. Her hands were brutally magical (I’m a fan of deep, hard massages to the point of being unbearable — the harder, the better) but she talked non-stop and complained about how expensive it is to travel nowadays. I don’t particularly care to have conversations with surly masseuses, so I ruled her out for subsequent visits.

Massage #3 was in Cancun, Mexico, after the Ironman Cancun 70.3 (I’ll write a separate post about that race soon). Jason and I booked a couple’s massage at our resort, and two Mexican masseuses poked and prodded at us for what was probably ninety minutes but seemed like an eternity. The whole ordeal was uncomfortable for both of us. Jason was uneasy because it was his first ever massage, and he was paranoid about virtually everything the woman did. When she rubbed some aromatic cream on her hands and stuck them under his nose, instructing him to “Breathe deep,” he wondered if he was going to get knocked out and wake up in a bathtub full of ice with a kidney missing. Also, he put up a stink about having to get nekkid. I, meanwhile, had the pleasure of my masseuse giving me a long, grueling massage all over my horribly sunburned back (that deserves its own post as well), which felt more like I was being viciously tenderized for a lavish cannibal buffet.

I don’t particularly like getting massages, but since my doctors urged me to consider them for health purposes I booked an appointment with a massage therapy facility for Attempt #4. The massage was good timing since my back and neck had been bothering me recently and I had been having frustrating workouts. It also doesn’t help that I get paid to hunch in front of a computer all day. The fact that I don’t have a Quasimodo hump yet is astounding.

Anyway, I booked a massage at a new place in Capitol Hill. After filling out a rough approximation of my medical history, I met with a woman who looked vaguely like tailie Ana Lucia from Lost but wasn’t quite as surly scowly (sorry, Michelle Rodriguez). She was refreshingly non-hippie and kept pretty quiet for the entire hour, save for the occasional stomach gurgle (I bet she hadn’t eaten dinner yet). The massage was ok — I wish she would have abused me more, but she did do this one maneuver I dubbed the “attempt to rip my arm off at the shoulder blade,” and that felt pretty satisfying.

Since I don’t find massages relaxing, my mind couldn’t help but randomly wander for sixty minutes. Here’s a snippet of thoughts:

• After noticing one of those flashing fire alarm lights directly above me on the ceiling, I suppressed a giggle at the thought of it going off, forcing a dozen naked massage patients to come running out of the building.
• If I had to attribute the music to a particular movie score, I’d say it vacillated between crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, Desperado, and any stupid scene where a couple runs at each other in slow motion (most likely in a field).
• Every time the massage therapist yanked my arm up or adjusted something, I worriedly wondered if my boob was exposed.
• I thought of how hilarious it’d be if, while the therapist was working on my neck, my head spontaneously fell off and landed on her feet.
• When I was instructed to flip over, I stared at the therapist’s nondescript shoes and felt disappointed. She should really mix things up a bit and wear clown shoes or flippers as a joke (you know, to lighten the mood — she is kneading the skin of a naked person, after all).

Thus concluded my first massage in about four months. I’ll try to start getting them more regularly (doctors suggested once a month and, unsurprisingly, the massage therapist recommended once every couple weeks), since there’s nothing more relaxing than dropping trou and allowing a complete stranger to mildly molest you for an hour. (And you’ve got to tip them afterward. That’s pretty messed up.)

I want to improve a lot in 2009, and I figured that a huge area of opportunity would be improving my swim. I think I can shave anywhere from 5-15 minutes off my worst half Ironman swim time, depending on how much I train. So I cued up the training montage music and signed up for a dry land swim conditioning class that would help strengthen my body and improve my swim stroke, technique, and stamina.

Teresa teaches the swim conditioning class, and for good reason. She swam for the University of Nevada-Reno and is one fast mofo. My triathlon trainer is often the first female out of the water during races, and she was the fastest female swimmer in her age division at the Kona World Championships. She is pretty much twice as fast as me in the water. It’s depressing. I remember that for my first open water swim she gave me like a 5 minute head start before swimming after me, and she and I got to the buoy at the same time. Sigh.

Anyway, I signed up for an hour of interval bike training and then did the swim conditioning class immediately afterwards. I’m not that hungry in the mornings so all I had to eat before working out was 3/4 of a Kashi Go Lean bar and some water. By the end of my dual workout I was ready to devour a mid-size farm animal.

Betsy was my swim conditioning buddy that morning. We started by squatting down and chucking a huge weighted ball back and forth to each other, then we did about 40 triceps dips. After more ball passes and a second set of dips I was already feeling the dreaded jell-o arm effect…and we were only about 10 minutes into the workout. Oh God, I was in trouble.

Let me pause and show you roughly what my triceps look like:

I have the arm strength of a feeble cartoon octogenarian, and every exercise during this class was exploiting them with sadistic, unrelenting glee.

Teresa made me get on the Vasa trainer, where I repeatedly failed to properly pull my arms back in the “catch” position. My wimpy arms were quivering under the teeny amount of weight Teresa had given me. After I half-assed about 20 reps, I switched with Betsy and dejectedly watched her adjust the tension and hammer out a ton of swim strokes with perfect form. I wish I had Betsy’s triceps. But I don’t. I have Mr. Burns-esque triceps.

After 45 minutes of non-stop triceps abuse, I headed home to shower and get ready for work. I knew I’d be in trouble when I could already feel the soreness of my arms a couple hours after the class ended. Sure enough, the next day I felt like Ralphie’s brother from A Christmas Story, only instead of not being able to put my arms down, I couldn’t raise them more than halfway. I was rockin’ John McCain arms the entire weekend. Showering was hell, pulling my hair back was hell, rolling on deodorant was hell, changing shirts was hell. Jason quickly got tired of hearing my agonized shrieks whenever he’d try to hug, squeeze, or otherwise vaguely touch my arms and lats:

[Jason and I are laying on the couch watching TV. He adjusts his weight and brushes up against my arm.]

Me: “Aghhhhhhh, don’t do that!”
Jason: “What?”
Me: “You hit me!”
Jason: “I barely touched you!”
Me: “Well it hurt! Don’t do that!”
Jason: “You’ve got to be kidding me…”
Me: “Seriously, I am so sore…so, you’re coming to the class with me next week, right?”

You know how some people are like “I love feeling sore after a workout! It’s so satisfying!”? Well, I’m all for post-workout soreness but this was just obscene. Seriously. Friends don’t let friends get that sore. (I’m looking in your direction, Teresa.) Anyway, even though I got my ass kicked and my wimpy arms got bitch-slapped left and right, I’m determined to take the class every week to strengthen up and hopefully shave some minutes off my swim time. If nothing else then at least maybe I’ll be able to do a frickin’ pull up by the end of the season (wanna help me with that, T?).