Pain....

So remember how excited I was after the my first "freshmeat" training session? Yes, I was truly encouraged. But then I got up the next morning. More like struggled to contort body into a sitting position on the edge of the bed. Standing at this point seemed like a way-in-the-future type of goal. I expected to be sore. Sure, I had just done lots of exercise after not having done exercise for awhile. Right. This was beyond sore. I don't think I've ever ached so completely  throughout my entire body. Pulling myself up from laying down in bed sent shooting pain all through my abs, sides of my torso and back. I also noticed that my arms weren't much good for helping as they were tender to the touch and smarted with every movement I made. So there I am sitting on the edge of the bed knowing it was only going to get worse. Taking a deep breath I pushed off the bed, an mind you ours is lower than your standard nest, and was somehow able to hold myself upright while my brain was overloaded with signals from every nocioreceptor (pain) in my body. In addition, I couldn't fully stand up because my legs were so stiff and I must've looked insane standing there, wincing with my knees bent to accommodate my significantly shorter leg muscles. After that I hobbled around the house, managed to dress myself and walked to school. So this is fun when you have all kinds of stairs to go up and down along the way. I don't remember everything I learned in Human Anatomy class but I have to say that whatever I pulled screamed just as much going up stairs as going down. In the past I've experienced one or the other. No. Not this time.

After arriving at school I gingerly lowered myself onto my desk chair and started to ignore the pain in my legs, only because they weren't currently moving under the desk. But every reach across the piles of papers had my back, arms and abs complaining. Busy with other tasks I put the pain out of my mind until, you guessed it, I had to go the bathroom. That meant extracting myself from the chair and walking, shudder, down the hall. With all those muscles you don't ever think about until their howling in agony I braced and pushed myself out of the chair. Embarrassingly, I had a genuine limp as my left leg tends to be less limber in general. This was exaggerated now and I could not compensate. So I limped my way down the hall. Then I faced a problem. Since my arms, chest and back were on fire I couldn't just put out my arms to push the door open. No, I had to, with T-Rex-like arms, use my body weight to push the door open. I've never had to do this before in my life. It made me marvel at how many coordinated muscle movements we make to achieve fluid actions. All without noticing. Until now.

The following morning, Tuesday, was worse. Much worse. I'm not sure why the second day after is a killer but it is. It took more time to get ready and make it up to school with all the wincing, whimpering and small gutteral cries you might imagine. Especially when I had to push doors open. Every time I needed to visit the restroom I sighed and cringed because, you know, I knew what was coming and the sighing hurt too.

On Wednesday I was getting really worried because I was still hobbling around. That night I had my weekly Rollerfit course and wasn't sure what to expect with my decrepit feeling body. But I attended and made it through the class. At this point I think the extra moving around was helping stretch my muscles back to their regular length.

So I'm not sure what to expect, probably more of the same, with the next training sessions. I'm wondering if there is some method to their madness in scheduling them every other week. Maybe so we can have enough time to recover before the next session. :) Despite all the pain I'm planning to go back but at this point I cannot imagine moving beyond this beginner/pain stage. It'll be a great day when I just feel tired the day after. :)