Sore is the new Normal

I am sore! I am sore for several days now.

You would think that somebody that has constantly quite a high training volume wouldn't be this sore, but off season and "mixing it up" is officially kicking my butt.

The source of most of the butt kicking, seem to be the "Foundation" exercises that I am trying to do on a daily basis now. I thought, that eventually the soreness has to go away. While the basic exercises are slowly feeling easier (two weeks of basics before moving on to the next level), the soreness continues. Sitting in an office chair all day sure doesn't help... Getting up every couple of hours makes me walk like a cowboy that has been in the saddle for too long until the muscles loosen up a little. It's quite a pitiful sight, that I accompany with a little of colorful lanuage (muttered under my breath - it's the office after all!).

For today, I had a trainer ride or spin class on tap. I opted to ride the spin bike at the Y by myself - meaning, not part of a class. I have been so sore lately, that I didn't want to push it at all and give my legs and butt a chance to finally be not sore... But even the easy spinning felt hard today.

That means, I have to skip a day or two of the "Foundation" workouts or flow through some of the moves faster. One of the exercises is a modified version of the chair pose in yoga and I normally hold it pretty long and by the time I do the 3rd set, it burns... burns like my legs and butt is on fire... In general that's an effect you are looking for, but remember, I do have Ragnar Tennessee coming up and from Friday PM to Saturday PM, I will have to run around to 14 miles over three runs (5.9, 3.0 and 5.2). This is pretty much shortest distance that you can run at Ragnar TN... This way, my team mates don't have to catch up too much after I blew the pace average. Good that we are not competitive.

BUT, we are creative. Actually, only one of our team mates is creative and pretty good with Photoshop, so please enjoy the design for our team sweat shirts.

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Yoga Room

Remember the little switcheroo, I mentioned a couple of weeks ago?

All of the hard work that we put into this weekend was followed by more hard work and elbow grease over the last two weeks. While we still had several rooms look like storage facilities, we are now down to just the office still looking a little all over the place.

Besides the bed room (which I absolutely love now), we now have something resembling an exercise room. A room, that has enough space to put down a yoga mat, can close a door, so the dog doesn't jump all over me and is not the bed room. It also holds Terry's and mine excessive amount of workout gear.

Ta-Dah!

Eventually, this room might even house the bike trainer too... We'll see. Right now, I am just so happy about the progress we made in the house over the last couple of months and to be able to enjoy the space.

Yoga Bikemute

For today, I had grand plans of some sort of longer bike ride, but then I woke up with a stiff neck and decided to do some yoga instead.

Still wanted to ride the bike a little bit and so I ended up riding to YMCA and back home. Round trip was around 18 miles at a very easy pace on the hybrid. I just enjoyed being outside!

The yoga worked some of the kinks out of my neck.... It feels better, but it's not good yet. Silly neck these days.

Here are some pictures from my ride back home.

Parking for the hybrid.

Yes, I am wearing flip flops and I have the Garmin on the bike.

Creek in Cleveland Park.

Follow the rabbit.

Redone bridge in Cleveland Park.

The Reedy River.

Smile! ;-)

Another shot of the Reedy.

Memorial in Cleveland Park.

Word Art.

Liberty Bridge - Never gets old.

River Falls Park.

Wall Art.

Liberty Bridge from below.

Swamp Rabbit Trail.

More Trail.

More smiles.

Surprise Success!!

I did it... I pulled off my first ever surprise party for Terry and he didn't have a clue until we were almost at the table! Yay!!

And despite him saying ten thousand times the next before, that he really looks forward to a low key evening with just the two of us.... He enjoyed himself and I think we all had a great evening.

Everyone just really played along nicely during the week and not leaking anything (!) and one of our friends helped out with getting the balloon and the cake to Wild Wings... Perfect surprise.... SWEET!

Here a couple of pictures:

Here the balloon again, without an old banana in the background.

Presenting the cake to the bday boy.

The crew singing "Happy Birthday"! ;-) Gotta love them!

In other news:

This morning, Terry and I ran the Green Valley 10-miler (race report will follow once the results are posted) and it sure was beautiful out there.... Just really really chilly at the start. My feet were frozen for the first three miles.

I am really sore right now, which is half due to the race and the other half I believe is yesterday morning's yoga class. It's the same soreness that I had last week after the power yoga class and I thought it was due to the fact, that I haven't done any "power" yoga in a while. Well, I was just as sore after yesterday's class and the only thing those two classes had in common is "pigeon pose".

Pic from http://yogaheals.wordpress.com/2010/02/11/stretch-like-a-pigeon/

"It opens and increases the flexibility of the hips...."

Well and that seems the problem... While I don't feel that I am overdoing it during practice, having sore hips and buns two weeks in a row most likely due to pigeon pose tells me, that my hips are way too tight..... Instead of writing this blog, I really should get my yoga on.... I am just way too lazy right now.

Loosening Up

After doing a couple too many squats on Monday, my hammies were really angry with me all week. I felt like I had knots in my legs.

Yoga this morning felt sooooo good. It made a world of difference. I sure didn't fell like getting up early for the class, but am very happy, that I did.

Have a great weekend everyone. We are expecting gorgeous weather here in SC for the next couple of days and I can't wait to soak in some sunlight and warmer temps! ;-)

All Over The Place

Brace yourself, because this post is going to be all over the place.

To follow-up on my yoga post from last week, I have to confess that I didn't make it... Zipp, zero, nada and nothing at all on Thursday other than working, traveling to Jefferson NC and have a ball with my van1 team members at the local pizza joint. But due that post, Lindsay gave me this great link for some 10 minute yoga videos. Can't wait to try those out, once I can move again.

Which brings me to the next topic: Yes, I am still sore... Of course my quads are still trashed (thanks downhills), but even worse are my ankles. This is the weirdest thing, I don't think I ever had sore ankles in my life!! I just hope that what I feel is actually soreness not something more serious going on.

Due to all that, I am going to skip my planned workout for tonight and will give my body another full day of rest. That frees up the evening to go to the monthly Greenville Track Club meeting and listen to guest speaker Jeff Galloway! Can't wait!

When I posted yesterday morning, I still had high hopes that I would get in a swim, but honestly I was just too tired for it and couldn't get myself to do anything. I also planned to head downtown in the late afternoon to see the finish of the USA Cycling Pro Championship, but even for that I couldn't get my butt off the couch.

I tried to follow the race over the live stream on the official website, but that thing was a nightmare! After getting really frustrated, I finally grabbed the dog and headed towards Old Buncomb Road which was part of the course. That's not even a mile from the house and since I should be doing at least a little bit of physical activity to loosen up those muscles, a little walk sure wouldn't harm. Half way there, I heard the helicopter and police sirens and I was worried that I would miss the cyclists by a couple of minutes, so Karma and I started a little shuffle (yes, quite painful). We made it just in time to see Ben King (the winner) leading with around a 10 minute gap to the peloton. I also scored a water bottle that one cyclist tossed away close to where I was at. Once the peloton passed me, I made it back to the house and rest up some... 20 minutes of walking is ROUGH! ;-)

So long! ;-)

Keep The Yoga Going

My inspiration.

My execution... Rocking the Recovery Socks.

A couple of weeks ago, I put myself on a challenge to do Yoga once a week for the rest of the year. I stuck to it so far. Today, I missed my regular "Sunrise Yoga" class at the Caine Halter YMCA, because I am somewhere between the Grayson Highlands State Park (Virginia) and Asheville (North Carolina) to run the Blue Ridge Relay with team D.N.R.! This is a scheduled post, so while I type this, I still have a question mark about if I was able to squeeze in some yoga moves on Thursday to relax a little after our drive up to Jefferson where we stayed the night.

Have a great weekend everyone and I should be back tomorrow with a quick update from the finish line... If I am able to keep my eyes open that long. Otherwise, I will work on the race report a.s.a.p.

So long! ;-)