21 June 2011: Happy Summer Solstice! (sports stuff)

Workout notes Yoga in the morning; Vickie did a lot of sun slatues.
Noon: swimming; 5 x (25 3g, 25 swim), 5 x (25 fist, 25 swim), 5 x (25 free, 25 back)
Then 10 x 100 on the 2: 1:44, 1:44, 1:43, 1:42, 1:41, 1:40, 1:41, 1:40, 1:39, 1:39 1:41.3 average.
Then 5 x (25 kick, 25 swim) fins (3 front, 1 each side)

This is progress, 6 days ago it was an average of 1:42.4. Before that it was 1:44.6 on 1 June and 1:49.7 on 29 May. Hmmm, at this rate (roughly 1 second per week) I should be world class within a year!

The good news is that my shoulder isn’t bothering me, but I AM doing my PT faithfully and I am gradually increasing yardage, doing drills, etc.

Butt Injury I stumbled onto this Jen Miller article at the New York Times:

The technical name of the condition I have is gluteus medius tendinosis — an inflammation of the tendons in the gluteus medius, one of three large muscles that make up the butt. It’s a very isolated and painful injury that knocked me out of marathon training in January with stabbing pains in my hip. It’s a symptom related to what running experts hammer at: the need for cross-training and strength training. I was running so much that I told myself I didn’t have time for the exercise machines or weights, so I have no one to blame but myself. [...]

“A new thought in running medicine is that almost all lower extremity injuries, whether they involve your calf, your plantar fascia or your iliotibial band, are linked to the gluteus medius,” said Dr. Darrin Bright, a sports medicine physician with Riverside Methodist Hospital in Columbus, Ohio, and medical director of that city’s marathon. “In the last five to 10 years, we’ve just realized how much of an important role the gluteus medius plays in stabilizing the hips and the pelvis in running.”

If you think of the pelvis as a cup, the muscles that attach to it, including the three gluteal muscles and the lower abdominals, interact in an intricate choreography to keep the cup upright when you run or walk. If these muscles are strong, the cup stays in place with no pain. If one or more of those muscles is weak, the smaller muscles around the hip take on pressure they weren’t designed to bear.

The cup still stays up, but at a price. First come muscle tears and inflammation, followed by scar tissue in the muscle. If left untreated, this process becomes a cycle that keeps feeding into itself.

“For people who have persistent pain, it’s healing gone wrong,” Dr. Bright said. “That gluteus medius isn’t firing the way it’s supposed to. You’re getting an inhibition of the muscle fibers. It’s kind of dead.” [...]

Now, this isn’t a precise diagnosis, but it is enough to lead me to do what I need to do. In my case: I think that poor posture and weak gluteals caused it: mostly my symptoms are a tingling that runs down the side of my leg to my foot (sometimes at night), knots in the left gluteal cheek and gluteal pain when I stand in one place for too long, or when I walk too slow.

I also have a sore spot in the front, sort of where the top of the thigh connects to the torso (where you fold forward when you bend over)

Also swim kicking brings it on.

What relives the pain: standing straighter, tensing the gluteal cheeks, grinding the knots with a tennis ball, stretching (especially forward bends, and raising my leg sideways (think: nut cracker)and then rotating the toe away from the body (looks kind of strange)

The body is complicated.

Walking:

This is at about 3.1 km or so (1.9 miles);here you break for two 4.5 km loops; the 4 mile runners (white numbers) turn and head back; the 15K runners go up the hill. I am in a white cap and turquoise shirt (left of center; sort of background). Note the two ladies in spandex tights in the right foreground. I followed them for a while (remember: I was walking) and they stayed together for 10K or so. The one in the white went on to finish 1:30 ahead of me; the one in the blue finished 4:30 behind me.

This is taken from this set which has some nice shots of the course and of the faster runners too.

Fox News Channel – Fair & Balanced – The Daily Show with Jon Stewart – 06/20/11 – Video Clip | Comedy Central

To balance the unfair system, Fox News has to be the purest form of right-wing resin. Airdate – 06/20/11

Fox News Channel – Fair & Balanced – The Daily …, posted with vodpod