Sore Legs

Last night was a bad one. I was in bed by 10 because I was so tired, and my knee was hurting, but I woke up again at 11:30 feeling so allergic! I could not sleep. Around this time, Elle woke up so I put her back to bed, then sat up with Pete for a while watching Bones while I waited for my allergy medicine to kick in. I finally got back to bed at around Midnight, but I know I didn't fall asleep until after 1. Probably around this time, Mindy came into my room crying because her leg hurt really hard. I took her out and gave her some ibuprofen and tried to get her to relax her legs, but they were so tense! She couldn't really straiten them. I didn't know what else to do so I started a nice warm bath for her, and that helped a lot. It calmed her down and also made her legs feel better. I'll have to remember that for the future. She's had this happen to her since she was a little baby. She would just wake up screaming and her little legs would be so tense. I don't know if it's really bad growing pains of if they were sore from running around a lot during the day or what. It's no fun for her whatever it is.

I got her back to bed then I was able to sleep a little bit, but then Elle came and got into bed with me at around 3, and it took a little while before I could convince her to go back to her own bed. At this point I finally decided to take an ibuprofen myself and get an ice pack because my knee was still hurting pretty bad, and my muscles were just sore. I tied the ice pack onto my knee and was able to go back to sleep for 4 whole hours! That was nice. When I woke up this morning, my knee felt totally better! The power of the ice pack!

My knee was better, but I felt miserable. I was just sneezing and had a really runny nose and feeling pretty sick. I'm wondering if it's not allergies after all, but a cold. I sure hope not. I really didn't want to go do my workout today, but I just got ready and got everyone out the door. Ethan and Elle were still in their jammies and Ethan hadn't had time to eat because he was so tired. Before I knew it I was at the gym ready to do my hip exercises.  I promised Pete I would do them all this time so I did.  Then I did my workout from my training plan:

Swim: race-specific
2 x 1500 steady at RPE 4

Run: 30 minutes at RPE 3.

I did the run first because that just makes more sense logistically. I ran really slow. At first I was wondering if, with my sore legs, sore knee and feeling sick, I'd be able to get myself to run at all, but I did. I did about 13-minute mile pace - recovery pace. I did about 2.55 miles in 30 minutes. I was ok with running slow today, though, I was in no mood to try and go faster. 

When I got done running, I stretched really good then headed to the pool. When I sat on the edge of the pool and put my feet in that cold water, I was so close to just going back into the locker room and showering. I didn't want to get in that cold water, but I reminded myself that it always feels cold at first and that once I get going it feels fine. That's how it was today. I decided to just do 2 sets of 750 (15 laps) instead of 2 sets of 1500 (30 laps) because I was feeling so sick. 

I did the first set, stretched and did the second one. Then I decided I could at least do one more 750. I actually would have done the whole thing, if it wouldn't have already been 2 hours since I dropped the kids off when I got done with the 3rd set. I just hate leaving them in the daycare for longer than 2 hours so I got out and showered. They were ready to go home, and poor Ethan was probably so hungry!

He had some cereal as soon as we got home, and I made Elle and myself some eggs and sausage and toast while he got dressed. It was really good! Then I had to rush Ethan to school. He was late, but it's better that he got some food before he went. 

When we got home, I put Elle right down for a nap. Then the compression socks and the ice pack went back on and I got into bed for 2 hours before Elle woke up and we had to go get the kids. For the first hour, the ice pack was on my knee, then it felt better and I moved it to my hip for the second hour. I hope it's just hurting from those exercises and that it's not some injury creeping up. I really can't get injured right now, this is a pretty critical time in my training so I'm being really careful. I'm going to keep icing my legs, wearing the compressions sock, stretching really good, and taking naps. Hopefully this will keep me healthy.

When I woke up, I felt cold, but not very sore so that was good. Ice works wonders. Maybe I'll try that for Min next time she has sore legs too.