Call Me Meat

Back to the Gazelles this morning, mile repeats at Zilker, and mentally it felt good to return, though physically left a little to be desired. The hamstring is still a little tender, I’m afraid to push it and it seems like it takes forever to get warmed up and “un-stiff”. My warmup now starts at a snail’s pace, and I nearly walked up the couple of hills I encountered. Also, my calf has been sore and tight and sore and tight and probably a result of the hamstring, so it felt like I was doing a robo-waddle-shuffle on the warmup. It was chilly. My nipples were icy.

Also, I had completely forgotten about “the drills” and it struck me as I was warming up that I had to do them. Uh-oh, it’d be a sight embarrassing to snap-crackle-pop my hammy in the middle of “side-to-side”. So I took the drills super-easy (just like everyone else always does … I mean really, just watch some people do “high knee” sometime, not that I’m an arbiter of how others work out). I had a bit of trouble with the backwards run, so I did a sort of sideways walk kind of hybrid thingamajiggybob. I loafed the strides.

I knew going in I would move back a group or two, and my previous normal group had taken off before I knew it, so I fell in with “Ivi’s group” and stayed with them for my four repeats. My times fell to something like 6.26, 6.15, 6.18, 6.13 but I never felt labored, felt fairly strong on the hills, didn’t push any of the finishes. Compare it to last month’s trippy times and I’m not too far off, so once I’m not afraid to push it I might be back in business. Interesting that after one of the repeats I heard the times (5.51, 5.48…) of some of the guys in the group ahead of ours, and I felt a little wistful, even a slight pang of envy. It’s not a competitive thing.

Afterwards, Peter the PT guy had a look at my leg, pressed my shoulder, pinched my butt, squeezed my lovehandles, and said my problem is that my “glutes weren’t firing” and I need a lot more core strength. Big surprise there. I got several “I told you so”s from Gilbert.

Anyway, it’s nice to rejoin the group. Sorry I’m not more funny.