Ow. Ow. Ow. AKA Getting Back On The Horse.

Two days of eating right.  Two days of being accountable to my DS friends.  Two great days!!  So, what happened Fiddler?  Break a string? Kinda! My trainer is back from vacation (missed him!).  Saw him last Thursday and Friday.  Thursday workout was great, Friday we were doing legs. I now take you back in time three days: I am a little tight, so I spend some time doing some s-s-s-s-l-l-l-l-o-o-o-o-w-w-w-w stretching.  As always we start the workout with warmup sets - he tells me we are doing intermediate 15s.  This means the active part (muscle contracting) of the lift is done to a 1-2 count and the negative (muscle extending) is a 1-2-3 count.  This makes the muscle work harder than if it was the same count going both directions.  We will be working just short of failure. Okay.  First exercise: smith machine lunges.  These always get my heart rate up, I think of them like hill climbs on the bike.  I can tell I haven't cycled in a while, I'm breathing hard.  We get through those, then on to the hack squat machine.  Because we are doing 15 reps in every set the weight is lighter than usual.  First set fine. Second set. Second set. Oh lordy, the second set.  At the bottom of the rep I hear a "crack," similar to the popping sounds I hear in several of my joints at various and sundry times, only this one is coming from my left leg.  At the same time a feel a "ping" that travels down my calf.  I put the weight down. I limp through the rest of the work out - my trainer chooses exercises that do NOT use the afflicted area.  I take it easy, have dinner with a gym friend, drive home, go to bed.  Saturday I wake up at 5 from discomfort, go to the bathroom. Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow. Try to go back to sleep. Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Ow.  Get up again, try to dress.   Ow.       Ow.       Ugh.  No, I don't suffer in silence.  Ever.  Big whiner.  Me. The entire day I spend elevating and icing.  It's such an ordeal to get up out of my chair that I don't.  I end up dozing off several times because I'm two hours shy of a full night's sleep.  I have a total of two meals. I'm supposed to meet with a prospective student teacher in a coffee shop in town, but can barely hobble from one room to the other, getting in the car is out of the question.  I call to cancel, but her schedule is such that we decide to converse on the phone.   I ask if I can call her at our appointed time because I need to gather my thoughts (and get my sorry ass out of the chair and feed it some breakfast).   I call.  "So nice to meet you here - this is a great place you chose!"  "Isn't it - and what PERFECT weather today, how nice to walk over!"  [It's sleeting.]  We have a fantastic conversation, I look forward to working with her next spring.   Back to dozing in the chair.  Sunday.  Worry.  Worry.  Worry.  Will I be able to get in the car and play in the student recital?  Fortunately all the rest and icing have dramatically reduced the agony factor, so all goes according to plan.  The student I am accompanying is a 6th grader who is performing the first movement of the Bach Double Violin Concerto with his teacher.  I had been boo-hooing about not playing enough, so his teacher (who gives his lesson in my classroom after school) invited me to play with them.  It goes well, he doesn't show his nerves.  He has to start us and gives a clear cue, just as we practiced.   Also on the program is a cello choir.  12 young cellists.  Two of them started the cello with me.  Five or six others were my general music class students.  It's fun to see what they become!  It's a great sound... The best was a 9th grader, former student of mine (again from general music),  who played the flute.  Any child can learn to make all the right noises in the correct order, but it takes some maturity to play real phrases, with expression.  She does, beautifully, it's breathtaking.  Her older brother, a freshman in college, is a little rascal I met as a third grader eons ago.  One of the funniest kids I've ever met, amazing violinist and mandolin player.  Chubby little guy.  He's come to hear her play -  now he's tall, stringy, and looks like a handsome version of  John Lennon. Concert over, gym bag in the car, I'm going to the gym to work bis and tris.  No legs.  Getting in and out of the car still not much fun until I figure out that if I set my fat butt down on the seat first and THEN swing my legs in there's less torque on the knee.  It hits me that my Mother has had to contend with this her entire life, only in her case it's not a sore knee, but immobile hips.  Gee, I should take sitting-in-the-auto lessons from her! Workout is fine, then home.  Because I would have normally been grocery shopping on Saturday, but haven't, there's an echo in the refrigerator.  I buy meals today, some of them better than others.  SOOOOoooo hungry, first meal was a huge chickenmumblemumble sub withmumblemumble.  But I drink water, not soda!  Oh well. Monday- back on task, back to work, appropriate meals.  A trip to the chiropractor.  I like him because he's really good with sports injuries.  He's brought me back from several dives into tendonitis and other small mischiefs I've done myself on the bike or at the gym.  He tells me that it looks like the fibular head has slid forward - something he's seen frequently and can happen just as it did to me - at the bottom of a squat. I think the moral of the story is that I need to aggressively pursue flexibility.  I suspect that one reason this happened was because I was so tight that my muscles couldn't sustain full range of motion for that exercise.  So, like it or not, I think I'm going to have to MAKE myself go to a yoga class at least once a week. And that is where I'm at.  The weekend was not the greatest eating wise, but hey, life happens, and I'm back on track today.