Broken

Last Saturday, I broke myself. In a serious way. A couple of good friends and I decided it would be "fun" to do a little urban adventure race called The Rat Race. The idea being to run around the City of London doing bizarre things and earning points. One of them had done it last year and had a great time, so this year she two more of us along with her. Over the course of 3 hours we danced the Macarena in Soho, did karaoke in a bowling alley, climbed on the massive phallic symbols cannons in front of the Imperial War Museum, and ended up running almost 14 miles.

The last time I ran that far was when I was training for my first and only marathon. Which was in 2003. To say that I was a) tired or am still b) sore would be an understatement of the highest order. I did nothing for the two days following, and just went for my first run this morning. As long as I was shuffling along, it was ok (if excruciatingly slow and tired). However, any requests to speed up or go up hills resulted in my hamstrings telling me in no uncertain terms to fuck off. Hmmm...me thinks it might take a while to get them back with the program.

If that little jaunt around the city weren't enough to piss my body off, last night was my first experience with Swim for Tri. This is a swim training program for triathletes (which I think means they mostly ask you to swim freestyle with a bit of backstroke and breaststroke thrown in occasionally, but absolutely no butterfly. Win!) that Himself has been doing since early this year. He's been going to the Sunday sessions at the local Leisure Centre, which meant that I had to choose another location. Then next closest one is in Kensington. No problem, I thought, I can get there on the tube. Sadly, the closest Tube station is a 10+ minute walk and at least one train change away. There and back last night took me an hour each way. Which is nice in the sense that I have some down time, but is not exactly efficient. And it means I'm walking through an unfamiliar neighborhood at ten o'clock at night, which is less then ideal. My other transportation options are riding (ugh - in the winter?) and driving. Will try the car option next week and see if it's more then 20 minutes faster then the Tube. It could be exponentially more irritating however...

Anyway, I swam 3500+ meters, which is my longest swim since Fall 2008. Longest by a long shot - my second longest in the last two years was 2000 meters. Which was last week (I thought it would be a good idea to go a bit longer then my typically 1500 in preparation for this course). Impressive yardage (meterage?), but the longest individual swim in that 3500+ meters was a 200, which I can do in my sleep more or less (my typical warm up when I'm swimming on my own is 400-500 m nonstop). I was in a lane with a couple of other gentleman, one another newbie, and I'm afraid in my super-excited, Hooray-I'm-swimming-for-reals-again! enthusiastic state, I may have beaten them up a little bit. I was like a puppy with a new toy - again! again! again! 15 seconds rest? You got it Coach! I must have been incredibly irritating.

I'm sure my enthusiasm will wane a bit as it goes along, but it was great fun. I felt really good afterwards until I sat on the train for 20 minutes. When I got up to get off at my stop, I moved like I'd been beaten with a baseball bat. Poor Porpoise is not in very good shape, nor is she very young anymore - I've been trying to ignore the fact that I don't bounce back from these athletic endeavors as easily as I used to, but the writing is on the wall. In big flashing neon green letters. And they read "You need to stretch more Dumbass. And maybe get yourself some yoga classes while you're at it. Enjoy your (upcoming) forties!" Sheeit...