I finally get the kinks out, then Paisley puts them back in

I had been walking like a cripple all day when I finally reached the gym.

Paisley Ann Meekin, my lovely trainer, worked me so hard yesterday that I’m walking funny. My quads are sorer than they’ve ever been these past eight weeks, and my ass muscles ache as well.

So it was a little discouraging when I reached 10th Avenue Athletic Club, Lloyd Athletic Club’s sister gym, and began interval training.

You see, I had a lot of trouble doing intervals the first three weeks of this weight-loss program. There was a lot of discomfort in my knees and joints akin to what my high school running coach would have called “kinks.” When I was a cross country runner a lifetime ago, Coach would order us to warm up to “get the kinks out.”

Fortunately, the kinks have gone away as I’ve dropped 15 pounds or more. It didn’t even occur to me until a couple weeks ago that they were gone. The kinks were out!

Then Paisley put them back in.

So I’m trying to do interval training on the treadmill and my quads and butt muscles ache. With intervals, you run at a comfortable pace, then sprint for a minute, then drop back down to a comfortable pace again for 2 minutes, then back to a sprint for a minute. I’m supposed to do this for 30 minutes on Tuesdays and Thursdays, but I skipped them last week because I was sick.

Around 10 minutes into intervals tonight, my mind finally drifts away from my sore legs and achy ass and focuses on a St. Patrick’s Day Side Ache of Death! Around 12 minutes into this nightmare I was overcome with agonizing pain on my right side. If it wasn’t a Side Ache of Death, maybe it was my liver screaming for the firewater.

Nothing fixed the Side Ache of Death. I tried to change my breathing, I skipped two sprints but the fucker didn’t go away for about 8 minutes. When I got to 21:00, I felt I could try another 1-minute sprint and went for it. But before those 60 seconds were over, Side Ache of Death was raging again and it had a new friend: Lower-Left Rectus Abdominis Harbinger of Side Ache Hell.

Side Ache of Death dissipated as Lower-Left Rectus Abdominis Harbinger of Sideache Hell took the pain torch. If I’m confusing you, Lower-Left Rectus Abdominis Harbinger of Sideache Hell is a fancy way of describing a new side ache that flared up in my lower left abdominal muscle, right at the bottom of my shrinking beer gut.

With two side aches, I couldn’t continue. I slowed the treadmill down and did the last 8 minutes at a brisk walk, breathing heavily and trying to get two side aches to go away.

This sucks, because it’s a step backwards in the final stretch of Just Lose It! I still have an outside chance of winning this thing if Side Ache of Death and Lower-Left Rectus Abdominis Harbinger of Side Ache Hell will fuck off.

I don’t know why this happened to me tonight, because I’m not drinking milk and I can’t trace it to any lactic acid in anything I’ve eaten the past two days.

As I left the gym and began to climb the stairs to 10th Avenue, the side aches gave way to the kinks in my quads and achy ass muscles again.

Then I finally had an epiphany: This is all Paisley’s fault.

Food Journal (click to view):

Breakfast: Protein bar.
Snack: Marinated chicken, two small oranges, raw cashews
Snack: Protein pack from Starbucks: Hard-boiled egg, apple slices, grapes, cheese slices and bread thingy
Lunch: Marinated chicken, small apple, raw cashews
Dinner: Corned beef, grapes, small apple, raw cashews