By Paul Tenorio

Diving Back In Archive

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I feel like it’s been an eternity since I jumped in a pool. I know it’s only been a couple of days, but missing two days at the start of the week makes it four straight days since I have been in the water.

Let’s break it down: I rested on the weekend, as usual, though the snowstorm made it a more interesting affair. My shoulder has really been bothering me over the last week and on Friday it hit me hard. I was stretching before practice and felt a slight pop and then as I went through warm-ups there was pain on every stroke.

Now, for the most part, I will swim through stuff like that. But Jeff told me that the shoulder is the one thing you don’t want to mess with. He saw me looking like I was in pain and yanked me out of the pool, so I kicked through the rest of practice.

I spent pretty much all of the weekend icing the shoulder and trying not to do anything strenuous. Weirdly, I was having shoulder pain on Sunday without doing anything — though I guess in retrospect I had gone out and shoveled my car out of the parking lot, which is one thing Jeff told me not to do.

So I’ve continued icing it and with practice canceled on Monday because of the snow I figured I’d be back in the pool this morning. Only I forgot about Monday Night Football.

I didn’t get home until 3:30 this morning and when I finally got ready to fall asleep I glanced at the clock and it read 4 a.m. At that moment I contemplated getting up and just going to practice and pulling the full all-nighter with a workout, but I am moving and had to do a bunch of lease stuff today on the new place so I figured getting some sleep in might be a smart idea.

It’ll be interesting to see how my body responds tomorrow with both the extended rest and the sore shoulder. I’m hoping I can hop right back into it, but I just don’t trust this shoulder.

When I got into bed this morning I was lying on my right side and felt it immediately on my shoulder so I spun around. If I am feeling it while simply sitting in bed, what’s going to happen when I hit the pool?

I’ll probably go get it checked out eventually, especially if it keeps bothering me over the next few days.

Speaking of next few days, I didn’t even realize it was Christmas this week until this morning. I’ll keep the swimming going throughout — though I believe we have Christmas morning off. It’s important for me to get those workouts in because I will be headed off to Tampa very, very early next Tuesday and won’t get back until late Saturday night, so I’ll have another extended non-Jeff practice time.

I am going to be in Tampa, though, and my girlfriend’s sister goes to school there and has several pools in her complex where I can get some workouts done.

Again, though, I’m thinking that it’s almost weirdly too perfect that the week there is a cancellation and Monday Night Football is also the week where my shoulder might need the extended rest.

As for this week, I know swimming will likely help with the number of meals I’ll be consuming in the next couple days. If I just have to kick, I’ll kick hard and work as hard as I can. If my shoulder feels good, I’ll really swim hard.

The January Open is coming up and it’s been a while since I’ve raced and I’m just hoping to get a chance to go for time again.

Washington Post reporter Paul Tenorio will train with a swim club over the next few months and chronicle his journey as he attempts to transform from regular guy/sports reporter to competitive swimmer — everything from his waistline to his best times.

This entry was posted on Tuesday, December 22nd, 2009 at 5:21 pm and is filed under Diving Back In. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can skip to the end and leave a response. Pinging is currently not allowed.