Wednesday, June 22, 2011

Sometimes, Swimmin Hurts

Like when you slip on the wet tile at the natatorium and land flat on our you-know-what and slam your elbow into the ground. Yeah. And then immediately after that you get in and the coach announces that you'll be doing breath control drills that day. And then you wake up the next day and it feels like someone is digging dull needles into your tricep and shoulder because you banged them on a hard tile floor.

Frustration.

Ok, so it's really not TOO bad, but yesterday's swim was not the best of my life. Before I even got in the water, I managed to slip in a puddle on the tile by the pool and wipe out magnificently, with my left elbow taking a good bit of the force from the fall. Then immediately there are 4-5 middle-aged men in Speedos converging on me to make sure I'm all right, which was really sweet of them, but when your head is at that level and they've got the brief cut on, well, you can see where this is going... yikes. So at first I was just trying to ascertain if I was ok or not, and one of the guys is yelling for ice and the coach is running over and I'm getting embarrassed by all the attention so finally, as Ahmed is coming out of the dressing room, I announce that I'm fine and I just hit my funny bone. No problem.

We get in the water, though, and I can still feel the soreness in my elbow, but I work through it and it keeps feeling a little bit better, so I'm thinking I'm fine. Then the coach announces breath control drills - almost the ENTIRE DAY'S SET is breath control practice. I feel like maybe the swim gods turned their backs on me yesterday. I made it through as much of the set as I could without cheating, but I finally gave up just in time for our set of 100's kicking. Really? REALLY? I was not sad to go when lunch time was up.

I coached later in the evening (just took on a new youth athlete!), then went to see Buck in Mesquite when he got off (he's working a really funky shift right now, it's messing up the Buck and Morgan time, which is no bueno). When I woke up this morning, I could definitely feel the arm. The soreness is stretching all the way through my tricep and up into the shoulder. I can feel it tweaking my back as well. So a massage (like I can afford one of those right now after ordering all my USA gear!) is definitely in order in the near future, if at all possible, but for now I just have to wait it out and hope the soreness goes away quickly. Talked to Aaron and he said no swim today (no reason to push it), and hopefully I'll have a replacement workout later in the evening. Now that I've committed to the size small racing suit for Beijing, there's no missing workouts anymore! A few pounds could mean I don't fit into my suit (those things are tight), and how embarrassing would that be??

So anyways, hopefully my little spill doesn't mess things up too much because I still have a lot of work to do before September, and a wonky arm isn't going to make things easier. Keep your fingers crossed for me!

Happy training everybody

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