Actually, my legs felt pretty good over the next couple of days after my first ski, but my inner thighs/groin? Not so much. I've got old scar tissue at the attachment of my psoas or sartorious that has been there for about 4 years. The only time I can feel pain is when I pull my left knee towards my chest but it doesn't bother me when I swim, bike, or run. However, in the act of skate skiing, there is a lot of lateral movement, and this exacerbated my old injury. I didn't feel it at the time, but the next day, when I bent down to pick something up off the floor, the tendon "slipped" and hurt like crazy for about 2 minutes. I was literally lying on the floor, with tears in my eyes waiting for the pain to stop. Once the spasm stopped, I was able to get up and cautiously move around. Once I knew it could happen, I moved very carefully for the next few days. It seemed the most likely way to make it slip was to turn my knee outward.
Four days later, on Wednesday night, I had a repeat- only this time with the other leg. I had just got into the car and I shifted my hips to adjust my position so I could drive home. Something slipped in my right hip and I had severe pain on both the inner and outer thigh. I couldn't lift my knee without pain, and had to use my left foot to brake the car. Luckily I was only 10 minutes from home and once I got home, it began to relax and in about an hour or so, it was back to normal.
I was supposed to have my first actual ski lesson the very next day and I highly suspected I wouldn't be able to participate. I was afraid that the movement of my leg in the skating motion would trigger the same severe groin pain. However, I went to the lesson anyway and told the instructor what was up and that I was going to be careful and see how things went. I found I was able to do most of the ski lesson with no trouble and I was just extra careful not to fall because I think the main thing that hurt me in the first place was forcing myself to get up without help after falling (before I had been taught how to do so properly).
Two days later, we went up to Telemark again and practiced everything we had learned at our lesson. I really felt like I was getting the hang of it - I even skated the short easy trails with Jesse and Erik. I was still afraid of going too fast downhill, mainly because I was afraid of falling and tearing one of those sore groin muscles, so I went over to a gentle hill, and did hill repeats. I went 1/4 way and skied down. Then I went 1/2 way and skied back down. And so on all the way up the hill until I had skied down it 3 times without feeling too nervous.
Our next lesson is this coming Thursday night so I think I will stretch and rest until then instead of going out again. I have a cold right now anyway so it might be best to get healthy and feel good on Thursday.
I posted a video of me "skiing" on my Posterous blog. Click here to take a look.
OK back to cooking, cleaning, shopping, wrapping, sniffling, coughing, and whining...
PS Here's a great shot Erik took of the lunar eclipse. He actually held the camera up to the binoculars - amazing!
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