I have been a slack blogger, of late.  My writing mojo shrivelled into nothingness the minute NaNoWriMo began. I figured all the writing energy was being sucked up by everyone else and there was simply none left for me to use. Strangely, as the month of November draws to a close, I am itching to get back into it again and am wading my way through hand written notes that I have made over the past month.

I struggle some weeks with a way to make the process easier. I love writing straight to the page but hate transcribing pages and pages of notes. The end of my day sees me tired and feeble minded. Rewriting pages of hand-written notes ranks equal to sticking pins in my eyes. It’s nothing short of painful.

I started swimming this week. After three long seasons out of the water, I plucked up the courage to unleash my tog clad self on the general public. (Sincere apologies to the general public…) It was hard (for me and them but for entirely different reasons).

Those first few kilometres, I felt I was drowning. I had no direction and barely enough strength to get from one edge to the other.  I began slowly. A big bag of swimming toys to help me along and with each passing day, it has become easier and my stroke has become stronger and smoother, more effective and far more enjoyable.

At some point in the swimming journey, during a sun-drenched blissful glide through the water, I realised that writing is no different to swimming. The longer you leave it, the harder it is to get back in your togs and get going again. But when you do, nothing else feels as good. I realised I always have a big bag of writing toys to help me on my way. They are called ‘words’. As I mentioned to a friend the other day – when I swim and when I write, I feel like an OMO ad – lighter and brighter and all sunshiny inside. So I cling to the knowledge that with one stroke at a time, and one word at a time, I  will get to the other side if I just keep going and paddle like crazy.

Here’s to a safe and bountiful passage!

Today ended up being an unscheduled rest day mostly due to a poor night’s sleep. I had to do laundry right after work so I didn’t end up with time to do any kind of workout. I’ll be doing a double tomorrow (swim and run) so that’ll make me feel better about myself. HAHA.

What are you doing to get in your workouts during the holiday weekend? I loaded up with two races – one on Thursday and one on Sunday, with a planned swim and lift class in between (swim on Friday, lift on Saturday). Our gym isn’t offering any evening classes on Wed, Thurs, or Fri so that kills one lift class and step aerobics. I’m on my own! I’ll be heading to the gym on Wednesday to do the 3o-minute circuit (twice!) to make up for Wednesday’s class being canceled.

I saw on sportsshooter last week, I don’t even remember the photographer’s name, a photo essay that I found very cool and unique. What the photographer had done is sat at the finish line of a cross country race, and taken very shallow depth of field (probably with an 85mm F1.8 lens) photos of runners as they crossed the finish line. I was inspired, as both a photographer and as a former cross country runner, by how powerful the photos were. Some really strange faces, but underlying it all, I was impressed with how incredibly real and emotional they were.

So it dawned on me this past weekend, here were 6 teams worth of the highest quality swimmers you could find around, swimming morning and night, heat after heat. What I wanted to do was shoot a photo essay on the faces and emotions of the swimmers as they hit the touch pad, pulled their goggles off and took that quick glance at the timing board. I wanted to capture their first reaction at seeing their times. And first reactions in athletes don’t often lie. I was expecting a very wide range of emotions to be shown. I anticipated exhilaration from a surprisingly fast swim all the way to total and utter disappointment of failing to match the time from last week or even last year.

What was surprising was how benign the faces of most of the swimmers were at the end of their races. I guess in thinking back over my own swimming career, when Im excited, I show it. But it has to be a pretty fast swim for me to show any outward jubilation. Likewise, my reactions of unhappyness with my time usually don’t go beyond a shake of the head and a few choice words toward the pool gutter. That level of disappointment is REALLY tough to capture on a camera. So I’m not totally happy with the range of emotion I captured. I honestly don’t know if swimming is the sport to shoot this kind of photo essay. I will most certainly have to wait until a large invitational meet setting, most likely conference in February, to try again.

So here they are. My favorite 8 from the brief photo essay. Please let me know what you think. I really appreciate any constructive feedback you can give on the idea, the photos, or anything else.

Pool on Saturday

First I checked the whole filtration system.  Yep, the Klever Kleena hadn’t been doing its job.  It seems that it was stuck on the incline down to the bottom of the pool.  I cleaned out the filter baskets and did a backwash.  Checked the timer settings on the automatic filter and seems that it was set to run for only 4 hours a day – my winter setting.  I bumped it up to 7 hours a day.   OK – that bit done.    Unfortunately I didn’t take a “before” photo, but just picture the pool above BEFORE the cleaner went through it – gross!

My home water test kit seemed to think the levels were all fine, but I took a sample to my pool shop just in case and the guy said the same thing.  I bought a container of Chlorine to shock the pool anyway.  So in theory, any algae that’s floating around should be killed and then sink to the bottom of the pool, and then the Klever Kleena should suck it up.

So, back home, poured in the Chlorine, then turned on the filter to run for the rest of the day.

By Monday morning, the pool was starting to look better.

Pool on Monday morning

And this morning, it was looking much better.  Visibility was great, but there’s stil a bit of sediment at the bottom of the pool in sections – might need to do a manual vac.   Chemical levels still seem OK with chlorine on the high side.  

Now the challenge is for me to keep it this way so the kids can swim through summer!

Pool on Tuesday morning (today)

Some pictures are up.

Results, not so much. I’ll get them up tuesday!

Today I had the opportunity to take my friend up on her generous offer to help me polish up my horrid swim techniques.  To wit: I am almost completely unable to breathe into the water and inhale at the surface, requiring me to stick my head above water and both inhale and exhale out of the pool while the rest of me flails about until I become exhausted.  I’m not sure how it happened where that became my swim technique.  I learned to swim as a child and I’m quite sure they were not teaching my particular style at the YMCA, and yet it just so happens that I am fairly attached to this completely inefficient means of getting about in the water. 

I started the lesson by enthusiastically demonstrating my poor form to Anne, who quickly diagnosed the problem as “snowplowing through the water.”  Yes, I have to admit, that’s exactly what it feels like too.  Snowplowing. 

We tried a few drills close to the wall to practice breathing into the water, and then turning the head slightly when it was time to inhale again.  The movement is much more slight than I had imagined; almost stealth-like, as opposed to crashing to the surface and gasping for one desperate breath like I had been doing all these years.  I might never have known there was a problem if I didn’t happen to pay attention to the swimming portion of the most recent summer olympics.  Imagine the breakthrough moment when I saw all the air being thrust into the water instead of out of it!  “Oh!”  I remember thinking, “Wow.  They’re breathing INTO the water!  I never would have thought of that!” 

Doing a drill near the wall, and then performing the exact same drill while moving through water is a completely opposite experience.  Anne asked me to slow down so that I could concentrate on better form, but I have to admit that I had no idea HOW to slow down.  It’s almost like I was panic-swimming.  I saw the end of the pool and I HAD to get there.  Even worse was when I would get tired and stop swimming, and then had no wall to push off of to start to swim again.  It was like a red light going off in my head “DANGER! DANGER!”  What on Earth did I think was going to happen to me?  Would my friend really have let me drown right there in front of her?  Not a chance; but where was all this fear-talk coming from?   It’s hard teaching an adult to swim, especially one who has been invested in her unique style for so long. 

Certainly there are issues to be worked on between now and my next lesson, so I asked Anne for homework.  I just needed one or two basic skills that I could work on between now and the end of November so that when I saw her again she would notice an improvement.  She did not disappoint:  my job, should I choose to accept it, is to work on exhaling into the water through my nose, and then when I need to inhale again I should concentrate on turning my head smoothly on the same side each time for now.  Later we can work on inhaling on opposite sides with each stroke, but even an expert swimmer had to start with the basics.  I decided that I can definitely work on that.   I need to work on that.  I will work on that.  As of today’s date I have not worked on that, but with vacation starting in 2 short days I will have a lot of opportunity.

Wish me luck!

I just read an article that linked high, increasing childhood drowning rates in New Zealand to schools closing their pools. http://tvnz.co.nz/national-news/drownings-cause-serious-concern-3175756#. The principal of one school states, ‘”I think that it’s a community responsibility. Yes, they (kids) are here during the day and there’s parents, but in the interest of the safety of our children now and in the future, I think it’s a community responsibility.” I’m American but I’ve also lived in the UK and in France and have been around the world. Every country has a different level of involvement in people’s lives and within each country people have different expectations of how much the government should be involved. Aside from the obvious emotional attachment we have to our children, children are a future economic resource and drowning is an economic cost. One estimate places the total lifetime annual cost of children drowning at $6.8 billion, in the U.S. alone. The total cost of a single near-drowning that results in brain injury – $4.5 million. I’ve been spending a lot of time lately collecting information on drowning prevention and water safety programs, and there are a lot of outstanding organizations working on the problem, but drowning is still the second leading cause of death for children in virtually every developed country, and a leading cause of death in developing countries. Why is this? Why isn’t protecting children an unquestioned global priority? What programs are accepted and embraced in your country or community? Could they translate to other countries? How can we all work together to leverage our resources and move that frightening ‘second leading cause of death’ statistic permanently out of second place?

I’m no stranger to heavy training schedules.  I’ve been racing multisport events (some of them quite long) for the past several years, and have now trained for and completed two marathons.  But, it is one of the most tragic aspects of the human condition that experience does not necessarily lead to wisdom.  I’ve read the books (re-reading Friel and Byrn’s Going Long at the moment, which I first bought for Mary when she had just started triathlons.  She laughed in my face and said there was no way she was ever going to do something like an Ironman.  Now, I don’t want to suggest that I could foretell the future or anything. . .but I foretold the future!).  I’ve read the blogs.  I’ve followed Coach Ed’s advice to the aspiring Ironmen over the last year and talked to many of them.   All that has made me more informed.

To judge from the evidence of the last week, however, it has not made me any smarter.

This week’s lesson: you cannot train for an Ironman, even in the early stages, and expect your life to function the way it did before you started.  Pretty obvious, huh?  However, knowing is not doing.

Last week was heavy.  It started off with a weekend where I basically did two races.  There was a short (4K) trail race at Potomac Overlook Park.  The event was being held to benefit the Branch Nature Center which is in danger of closing due to Arlington County’s budget woes.  A lot of Zers were participating, and Ed was also grilling up a storm and donating the proceeds to the cause.  There was an 8K event also but since I’d never done any trail racing before I opted for the shorter, safer (so I thought) option.  Even the 4K was bloody hard work.  It had been raining constantly for two days, was drizzling during the race, and the trails were muddy and covered with leaves (plus all the usual off-road hazards of tree roots, rocks, steps).  The name of the park should have clued me in to the nature of the terrain in advance: where there is an overlook there will also be a what . . .underlook?  uplook?  At any rate, it was steep uphills, steep downhills, stream crossings. . .  Once the race was over, I loved it.  At the time, I thought I was going to die.  And die less than a mile into the race.  However, I loved the fact that you couldn’t switch your mind off, you had to be thinking all the time.  I really loved the downhills.  I found that if I just relaxed and reacted rather than trying to over-think things I just flowed down the hills, catching and passing several people (who then passed me smoothly on the uphills as I gasped and wheezed in their wake).  I was pretty pleased with the result: time of 23:07, sixth overall (out of 37), second in my age group (and yes, there were more than two people, there were a whopping 5, in fact!), and I didn’t have a seizure.  I did, however, feel as if I had been sat on by an elephant.  I said sat on, although the other would work just as well.

Another reason why I only ran the 4K is that we had a bike time trial the following day: 23.6 miles across rolling terrain with a couple of short, moderate climbs.  This was an organized team event and it was great to see so many people giving it a go.  This kind of event, particularly if it is repeated several times (and that is the plan) can give you some valuable indication of changes in your form and fitness as they result of training.  Plus, the fact that so much of the training that multisport athletes do is long and slow means that the rare opportunity to get your fast on can be a welcome break from the normal training routine.

There is, however, a good reason that you don’t do time trials every day of the week.  They destroy you.  This is supposed to be a test of how fast you can go leaving absolutely nothing in reserve.  It is balls to the wall and beyond.  It is also a test, however, of your mental discipline, your consistency, and your pacing.  You can’t blow it out of the water in the first ten miles or you will have nothing left for the last part of it.  I was pretty pleased with the way it went for me.  My plan was to start out in high zone 3 and try and keep it there for a few miles, but that pretty much went by the wayside and I settled in to low zone 4.  Except for the climb I kept it there, and then pushed it toward the end (aided by the fact that it was mostly uphill) so that I was in zone 5 (which, typically, is very hard for me to reach on a bike) for most of the last three miles.  Final time: 1:13:58.  I was also happy that I was only 50 seconds slower on the second half than on the first half.  Ideally I’d want to be faster on the second half, but I felt that I was a lot slower than I obviously was.

However, that weekend left me pretty much wrecked for the rest of the week, and just trying to get by.  Typically my week looks like this:

• Monday and Wednesday: biking to and from work, with the bike home transitioning immediately into a short session of strength training at home (since I am warmed up);
• Tuesday: track workout in the morning, and swimming in the evening;
• Thursday: track in the morning, spin class and swimming in the evening;
• Friday: Off.
• Saturday: Long Run
• Sunday: Long ride and, ideally, swimming in the evening.

A time trial or a race typically leaves me feeling pretty buzzed the day after the event, one of the after-effects of having your body drenched in adrenaline.  It is two days after that it really hits me. . .and it did.  Felt like complete shite on Tuesday for both the run and the swim.  Things began to look up a little on Wednesday, and by Thursday I managed to get through the day, although I was pretty happy to be doing nothing on Friday.  Long run went well on Saturday.  However, after the long bike I was exhausted, so much so that I couldn’t even contemplate swimming.  I felt completely fatigued and my legs ached.

So, yes, the race/trial weekend had a lot of lingering effects.  But I compounded this with two huge mistakes.

1) By all that is holy, turn off the TV, put away the computer and haul your exhausted arse to bed!  I’ve been trying to stick to my usual routine, which typically involves staying up pretty late.  I am used to about 6-7 hours of sleep max.  I find it harder to sleep longer than that, normally.  However, when training for an Ironman you have definitively entered into the realm of the non-normal.  You need sleep.  Lots of sleep.  More sleep than you think you need.  I know this, so why I haven’t been doing it is a little mysterious.  There is, perhaps, a large part of me that is still in denial about the Ironman and trying to pretend that I’m just training for some short race.

1) You are not 133t, you will never be 133t, so stop trying to pretend that you are 133t.  Made a big mistake on this weekend’s ride.  Well, a couple really.  I keep forgetting how hilly some of the parts around Poolesville are.  As usual, I was so glad to be on the bike that I jumped all over it from the get go as if I was doing another time trial instead of a slower ride in heart rate zone 2.  But I also for a while tried to keep up with the lead group.  I have to face the fact that I am never going to have a zone 2 ride trying to keep up with the likes of Sebastian, Damon, and Chris.  I obviously have this mental picture of myself as a cyclist which bears only a passing resemblance to reality.  Whether or not those guys are really riding zone 2 on these rides is not an issue.  The point is, everyone needs to be riding their own ride, working their own zones.  This, I think, is going to be the hardest part of the entire training for me.  I love the bike.  I love going fast on the bike.  I love long rides on the bike.  But the bike in the Ironman has one goal and one goal only: to ensure that you get off the bike in reasonable shape to complete an additional 26.2 miles.

Waking up this morning too fatigued to be bothered biking to work has made me see that I need a change in game plan.  Some of this will get easier.  Picking up the swimming on a regular basis is a huge change both in training style and overall workout volume for me and it will take a while for my body to adapt.  So there will be a few more weeks of tiredness, no doubt.  But normal training tiredness is a different thing from being completely wiped.

Well, look at the time, it’s almost 3pm.  If you’ll excuse me, I need to be getting to bed.

Today was interesting.  It was my swim day.   I decided I should work on my form, as my current form resembles more of a flailing motion than a smooth swimmer.  So I watched a few videos online on the freestyle stroke, and went to the pool.  Immediately my swimming was more efficient, except that I can not figure out how to breath.  I kept inhaling water through my nose.  Which is unpleasant to say the least.  I am currently researching how to breathe.   Never thought I would have that problem…..

 THEME:  Summer fun at the beach

INVITATIONS:  Cut round circles and color one side like a beach ball.  On the other side, use California beach slang, such as:

            “Hey, dudes and dudettes–slap on your best beach gear and come hang out at the Indoor Beach Party.  Don’t let winter chill you out!  There’ll be a prize for the baddest beach threads, and we’ll have some really rad activities!  Bring your fave beach snack for munchin’ and blow off this winter scene–totally!”

     This is a fun party for all ages, from teens to adults.

MATERIALS FOR ACTIVITIES:  Two surfboards or plain wooden boards of similar size; two large bowls; wrapped hard candies; two plastic pitchers; two clear plastic glasses; two or four rolls of Life Saver candies; large box of sand; 20 pennies; blackboard and chalk or whiteboard (or poster) and marker; team prize for the competitions, such as kiddie sunglasses for each team member; prize for best beach outfit, such as a pair of underwater goggles; music for dancing, if desired (Beach Boys, etc.) and stereo; prize for dance contest, if desired, such as a beach ball or water wings; video of old beach movie and VCR, if desired.

FOOD:  The guests will bring snacks, and you can provide the cold pop–six-packs in various flavors, packed in an ice chest.  You might also provide something more exotic, like a fresh pineapple.  Set the food out on a table covered with a beach blanket or large beach towel.  Serve in creative containers, like large seashells, a diver’s mask, little plastic boats, etc.

DECORATIONS:  First of all, have the party room warm and well lighted, as the guests will be wearing summery clothing.  In two clear corners, create two famous beaches, such as Malibu, Waikiki or Palm Beach.  If you have local beaches, you could use those names.  Label the beaches with signs and try to recreate something that beach is famous for.  Borrow some potted palms for Palm Beach, or make palm trees on the wall with colored construction paper.  For Malibu Beach, you might spark some laughter by setting up a scene with Malibu Barbie and Ken in their beach buggy, etc.  Light blue cloths or curtains could hang on the wall as an ocean backdrop.  You could display diving or surfing gear, if you have access to it.  In other areas of the room hang colorful swimsuits, beach towels, beach posters and Beach Boys album covers.  Near the refreshment table, you might set up beach blankets and umbrellas on the floor.  Have Beach Boys surfin’ music playing softly in the background during the competitions.

 BLOW-BY-BLOW:            As guests arrive, assign them equally to the two (or more, if the group is large) different beaches.  Each beach team then uses this time to come up with its own cheer.  When the teams are complete, they each give their cheers, and the competitions begin.

Surf's up!

            The first competition is the Surfing Race.  It will require three people from each group, usually two boys and a girl.  The teams choose their contestants before the race is explained.  Give the boys from each team a surfboard or similar piece of wood, and they hold it between them while the girl sits on it.  On a signal, the groups race to the end of the room and back.  The team to arrive first gets a point on the board.

            The next contest is the High Dive, which requires one representative from each beach.  You (the host/hostess) provide the contestants with one pitcher of water each.  On the floor are two empty glasses.  These they must fill at least two-thirds full from the position of standing on chairs.  The one who spills the least water on the floor gets the point for her team.

            The next event is the Underwater Swimming Race.  One contestant is chosen to represent each beach.  Give each one a deep bowl filled with water at the bottom of which are several wrapped candies.  He is seated at a table or may kneel on the floor in front of the bowl, keeping his hands behind his back.  At the signal, the contestant must bob for the candies, getting them out with his mouth.  The first one to get all the candies out wins the point for his team.

            The next event, the Life-Saving Contest, is announced, and two representatives are chosen from each beach.  The two partners stand four or five paces apart, facing each other.  Give one side several Life-Saver candies, which they must toss, one at a time, to their partners.  The other side must catch them with their mouths.  The team which catches the most wins the point.

            For the last event, the Buried Treasure Race, one contestant is chosen from each group.  (Make sure that every person on each team has the chance to compete in at least one event.)  This could be the tie-breaking event!  A large box of sand is placed at one end of the room; the representatives line up at the other.  Twenty pennies are buried in the sand, ten for each team.  On a signal, the contestants race to the box, dig their ten pennies out with their hands, and race back.  The first one back with all ten pennies wins the final point for her team.  The beach with the most points on the board wins a team prize.

            After this, you  award a prize to the guest with the best beach outfit.  Then serve the refreshments, and turn the music up.  Guests may dance, if desired, or, after eating, you may show a video of an old beach movie.  If you choose to dance, a spontaneous dance contest–whether ’50’s style or the current craze–adds to the fun, and you may award a prize to the winning couple.

This weekend was busy. Normally, when I say a weekend was busy, that isn’t a good thing. I like our weekends to be relaxed. However, this past weekend was busy in a good way.

Friday is a high point in and of itself, but I also got the chance to go to the Arts & Cultural Center for open sew, where I was able to finish up my quilting project for free. (Normally there is a $2/hr usage fee for the room/equipment.) The woman who taught my class was there, too, and helped me finish. The last part involves hand stitching, and I haven’t quite finished it, but I’m close!! While I worked on my project, John hit the gym (downstairs from where I was – convenient, eh?). He did a great job – he biked 2 miles, ran 1 mile and repeated 2 more times!!

Saturday was kind of a pain. I got a headache around midnight Friday night, and it persisted until about 5 PM on Saturday evening. I spent the majority of the day on the couch. We did, however, go for a drive and run some errands. I came home with a beginner’s knitting book. I’m excited to try some new stitches. I’ve only ever done the knit and purl stitches, and I’ve never done the whole casting on/off thing. Saturday evening, we went to a free magic show on post. It was interesting. I’d never been to a magic show before. Of course John is a veteran. He used to be a stagehand for magic shows. We’ll just leave our experience described as interesting.

Sunday was great. We woke up, redesigned the blog and watched the first half of the UT v. Kansas game. I still have to finish watching it, but I’ve managed to make it this far without finding out the final score – please, do not ruin that for me.

Around noon, we headed to the pool for some laps. Unfortunately, half the neighborhood was there and they all brought friends. After 450 meters, we stopped trying to weave around people while attempting to swim laps and just called it quits. We ended up going to the shopping center, grabbing lunch, shopping (I got the rest of John’s Christmas gifts), reading for awhile in the bookstore and grocery shopping.

In the evening, I swept and vacuumed our apartment, did a load or two of laundry, sewed over half of the binding on my quilting project, addressed some Christmas cards, made dinner (a new recipe – more on that later this week) and made a pie from scratch (the filling was also a new recipe). Oh, and we finished watching District 9.

So, like I said, it was a busy – but very fun – weekend.

My 18-year-old self just rolled her eyes in disgust of how lame I am.

I’m a cat
I’m a cat
Suck my dick
I’m a cat

The all time classic original here.

First there is the adrenaline rush of the moment. Which in an event like one last week stretches on for four days.

Then comes exhaustion. When you’ve addressed absolutely every last detail and loose end you collapse. And sleep.

Which I did. A lot. Late into the morning. In the middle of the afternoon. Early in the evening I just kept nodding off to dreamland.

And my dreams, which had been oddly packed with event-related details, finally started to drift back to images of riding Now Voyager across endless green meadows.

Even with all this sleeping I managed to visit Now Voyager a couple of times and tend to his ouchy hoof. Soaking, wrapping and carrot after carrot. He’s still lame but happy with the carrot supply.

I even got back on the bike after a 5 week hiatus. Why is it that I don’t appreciate how strong I am until I’ve lost fitness and am struggling up a hill that I used to scoff at with cries of “bring it on!” while dancing in my pedals? Yes, that was me with the trembling quads.

I would not have gotten into the pool last night if I had any inkling that my body was teetering on the edge of a cold. But alas, hindsight and all that.

Hours after returning home my throat was on fire and my sinuses were clogging up. My only hope is that this devilish cold departs as quickly as it arrived.

In the meantime, I’m the one wrapped in a blanket and sipping tea.

Here’s hoping all of you are happy this Thanksgiving week!

As the title implies, today is my day of rest. After six days of swimming coupled with weight-training, my body is long overdue for some down time. It’s amazing to think about how much strain I place on my body and how much I look forward to one day of rest; I used to be the exact opposite of what I am presently, with doing very little, if anything, physically. Now, I live the life of an athlete and by the end of my week, I am physically as well as mentally exhausted.

Today is reserved for moping about the house, picking up toys, clothes, and whatever else I can find that has accumulated in the corners this past week. I feel lethargic and, well, spent. And not because of six days of swimming, but because of last night. I went to bed early, around 9, only to wake up at 12 with the dreaded cough. It began with a tickle and then the tickle morphed into a relentless cough that nothing – not water or Luden’s cherry cough drops – could assuage. As I lay there, propped up by pillows, hacking so hard that I shook the bed, I realized that sooner or later, I’d have to break out the Nyquil bottle.

Huey couldn’t stand it anymore and, with a heavy sigh, he tottered down to the kitchen to fetch the Nyquil bottle for me. One dose later, I fell into an alcohol-induced sleep that addressed my cough, but left me feeling groggy and not quite myself in the morning. Now, I’m sitting in front of my computer, eating General Tso’s chicken and wondering what to do with myself…

So after a successful week of practices with yardage ranging from 4400 to 4600, I am eagerly looking to a week of new practices with challenging intervals and intense yardage. See? Even on my day off, I’m still at the pool!

Grandma and Grandpa generously flew us out to Arizona for the weekend.

It was a short, but sweet, getaway to the breathtaking Superstition Mountains.  We spent the weekend in the pool with the kids, soaking up as much sun as we could…hoping to pack some in our suitcases and bring home to Minnesota.  That sunshine stowaway plan didn’t work.  I couldn’t believe the thick fog we arrived home to.

While swimming in the pool with my children, and listening to my daughter’s enthusiasm over flying above the clouds and mountains, I pondered on what is really important in life to me. Stripped away of all my daily distractions and desires, I could clearly see it isn’t money or fame.  What I value more than ever are the small and simple moments of wonder and amusement with the people I love the most.

The little things in life matter to me now more than ever.  I know, cliche, but so very true.

S—22:05 for 1,500 (scy) isn’t fast by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s faster than I would go without the paddles and buoy. I have no kick normally and the buoy I use could double as an ottoman. It lifts my hips almost like a wetsuit and so I don’t sink quite as much on my awful flipturns. So adjust accordingly. The 18×100 set was a lot easier than normal. Oh yeah, doh, I’ve always done them on 1:40. Five seconds makes a big diff. Not all of us can hammer out 10k weeks in the water like Lance.

C—The bad news, looks like I’m going to come up about 50 miles short of my 2009 goal. The good news, new p.r. for miles in a year.

R—Solid pre-race week. Not sure yet whether to “take what my body gives me” on Sunday in the Seattle half or force myself into a more challenging than normal pace per mile or some combination of the two. Please advise.

Last Saturday, me and my friends Betsy, Nikki, Noel, Tyrone, and David decided to get (more than) our feet wet by joining the Hamilo 358 Open Water Swim Competition. 358, by the way, stands for: 3k, 5k, and 8k…. which were the swim distance options.  Except for Noel, who had already done an 8k swim in Guimaras, Iloilo, a couple of years back, this was definitely unknown territory for us… swimmer or not. 

It was daunting to say the least, but even though we were terrified, the mere thought of venturing so far out–unprotected at that–in the ocean was also very alluring somehow.  How were we going to know we weren’t going to cramp?–we didn’t know how to answer that for sure.  How were going to eat?–various hiding places for gels.  How were we going to drink?–okay, we would be surrounded by water, no need to tell me that…but drinking water it isn’t!

It was another lesson in self-discovery for sure.  Everyone was apprehensive as we lined up on the beach, and the energy was more subdued than my normal triathlon starts…no use in sprinting in the initial stages here. It was going to be a loooooong swim.  The view was breathtaking, and Hamilo Cove is worth the drive, but I could hardly appreciate it just then. Without much ado, off we went, and I struggled to find somebody to swim with.  Lucky, lucky me–Tony seemed to be swimming the exact pace that I wanted!  I cannot thank Tony enough for being such a gentleman and my surprise saviour that day! I just didn’t want to be alone and I followed his lead half the time. 

Thousands of high elbows, dozens of small sea creature bites,  and gulps of saltwater later, we finally returned to shore.  We smiled at each other, and strangely enough I felt fresh and highly energetic.  We did it! We were now certified bad a@@, long distance, open water swimmers. 

I want to thank Guy Concepcion and his group for organizing this event.  The very reason I started doing triathlons is because I could not find anything to join as an older swimmer.  Now that problem is solved.  I cannot wait for the next one!!!

Workout notes I stayed up too late watching the Bears loose to the Eagles; the Bears basically lost it when they had to settle for field goals 4 different times; thrice in the first half. The final was 24-20, Eagles.

So I ended up swimming 2200 yards; the form felt ok; 500 warm up, 500 drill/swim (fins), 5 x (25 3g, 75 free) on the 2 (first rep was 1:47, then the rest: 1:43-1:45), 5 x (25 fly, 25 free, 25 back, 25 free) on the 2 (1:50-1:53), 200 paddle cool-down.

Note: my wife actually made it to the gym. She got there earlier than I did!

Posts
The wingnuts were having shirts printed up with a Psalm reference:

We’ve seen a lot of comment about a new twist on the right, a whole campaign (t- shirts, bumper stickers, e-mails and more) all built on the biblical passage in Psalms 109 which says in part:

May his days be few;
may another seize his position.
May his children be orphans,
and his wife a widow.

What these morons didn’t know is that if one reads the whole Psalm, King David was lamenting that people were saying the above about him!!! The psalm writer was NOT saying this about anyone else:

For wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me,
speaking against me with lying tongues.
They beset me with words of hate,
and attack me without cause.
In return for my love they accuse me,
even while I make prayer for them.
So they reward me evil for good,
and hatred for my love.

The wicked and deceitful mouths are opened against me. He goes on:

They say, Appoint a wicked man against him;
let an accuser stand on his right.
When he is tried, let him be found guilty;
let his prayer be counted as sin.
May his days be few;
may another seize his position.
May his children be orphans,
and his wife a widow.
May his children wander about and beg;
may they be driven out of the ruins they inhabit.
May the creditor seize all that he has;
may strangers plunder the fruits of his toil.

In short, these idiots don’t know what they are talking about. Surprised?

Darayonan Lodge

Darayonan is a Cuyonon word that means a place to stay. The lodge is situated in a residential part of Coron town, strategically located along the National Highway. Darayonan Lodge aims to provide its guests with clean and comfortable rooms, good food and quality service. Aside from that, one has options on choosing the rooms to stay at: in the native bamboo, sawali and banig set-up or in the modern concrete and tile two-story building.

Darayonan Lodge is an accredited tourist inn by the Philippine Department of Tourism. It has played host to a number of VIP’s and celebrities, the most notable of whom are Philippine President Gloria Macapagal-Arroyo and then U.S. Ambassador Francis Ricciardone.  In fact, Congressman Baham Mitra was amongst the guests of the lodge during our stay from October 21-24, 2009.

What is striking about this place aside from its homey atmosphere is the owner’s love for the arts. It definitely is a reflection of the owner’s strive in achieving perfection in everything. From the lodge’s interior decorations to the food being served for each meal. He personally goes over every little details right before being served or handed over to the guests. We stayed here for 4 days and 3 nights; and it was a part of the overwhelming positive experiences that I have had during my stay in Coron, Palawan.

The place is clean all the time! They see to it that the rooms and private comfort rooms get cleaned everyday during your stay. They also make sure that the entire lodge is spic and span all throughout the day. I have never seen any litter at all in my entire stay.

The facilities in this lodge pass the normal standards of travellers: hot and cold shower, all air-conditioned rooms, centralized water system. It’s like you never left home at all. I’ve had a comfortable stay at this lodge.

It’s also probably the only lodge that includes breakfast for two along with the daily room charge. And what’s more, drinking water and coffee is unlimited, no extra charge. I should say that staying at Darayonan is really a value for your money.

Darayonan Lodge has facilities and amenities as follows:

Cafe which serves breakfast, lunch and dinner

Choice of fan or air-conditioned rooms

Queen-sized beds, single-sized beds plus two extra beds if necessary

21″  colored television sets on all their rooms

Refrigerator/Mini Bar

Closets

Writing desk cum dresser with mirror

Bigger rooms with higher ceiling

Bigger bathroom

Veranda

Darayonan Lodge not only offers bed and breakfast for travelers. In fact, they also  arrange tours/trips for you so you’d have a grand vacation for you or your family or even with your friends.  They have enticing packages which includes everything (accommodations/rooms, land transfers from and to Busuanga, food and tours) and you won’t have to worry a single thing about your vacation. Every single detail of your vacation will be taken cared of  at rates that would suit your budget. Group or barkada packages also await travelers who  wish to visit Coron in groups or together with their families and loved ones. Darayonan Lodge does not have a website at this point in time. So if you like to get price quotes for your stay with them, you may get in touch with the owners through these contact numbers:

Chin Fernandez owner of Darayonan Lodge

Location:  132 National Highway, Barangay Poblacion 1, Coron, Palawan

Cellphone: +639178811151

Landline: +6327443209

Email: dipulao@gmail.com

Yesterday I went swimming in the sea. We have had some blustery weather and althouth the tide was not very high the waves looked good. I donned my wet suit and clutching my surf board I took to the water. A friend joined me. He was inspired to have a go having seen me out a couple of weeks previously. We did not get a good run in on the waves but we did have a good laugh and enjoyed being out in the elements.
Back on the beach we quickly changed, exchanged watery experiences and enjoyed a hot cup of coffee. What have you done that is different? What would you like to do that is different? How can you overcome your fear? Be bold, start the week as you mean to go.

the week that was, and/or wasn’t…

MON, TUE, WED,

Last week I was fighting off a bug or something and feeling like junk, it’s weird but it seems to take more out of me to fight off a virus than to actually get sick with one. Just one of many joys that go along with an abhorrently malfunctioning immune system. I had sporadic fevers, sore ears, sore throat, sore tonsil and generally ached all over. By Wednesday I think the virus was winning and my body actually needed to shut down all ‘elective’ activities in order to keep fighting. In other words, I spent more time asleep than awake for about 36 hours. Wednesday went:

6:30 press snooze

6:40 press snooze

6:50 press snooze

7:00 press snooze

7:10 haul lifeless body into upright position and proceed with school morning routine

8:15 walk children to school

8:45 die a little bit, sleep

10ish do a load of washing, hang it, sleep

12ish eat a piece of food, do another load of washing, hang it, sleep

2:30 repeat hauling of body into upright position in order to pick children up

3:30 sleep

And so on and so forth. Fortunately I’d been given the week off from (prac)work, though I had planned to go in on Friday, just cause I’m a sucker for working for no pay and surrounding myself with noisy nine-year olds whom I adore and despise in equal measures.

THURSDAY

By Thursday though, I was in full fledged run-away-from-home mode and upon hearing that Titch’s all-important Friday swimming lesson was cancelled and that an epic outbreak of whooping cough had gripped the entire Year one community, I was ready to follow through and do a runner. I had planned to catch the train to the city Saturday morning anyways, so why not go a day early and have extra time to laze by the pool and reprimand ‘trusty’ for failing to notice/care/remember/comprehend that I was sick? I checked with said sidekick and he reported back that he had a work thing on, but that we were welcome to hang out at his place, and so… the great escape was on. To follow came a frantic house-clean, find cat sitter and bag-pack x3 which put a fairly large dent in the romanticism of the whole running away thing, but hey, I like to be organised.

All this happened as surreptitiously as possible because having a day off school and catching the train to the city was to be a Great Fantastical Surprise for the children. Thursday afternoon I bribed them into joining the frenzied house-clean by promising to reveal a special clue to the great fantastical surprise (shut up, I’m reading the Da Vinci Code ok?) which worked a treat. The first clue was that they needed to go to bed early and have a big sleep, as they would need to do some special training before they could have the surprise! Titch was all into it, and went off to bed wondering what sort of training was involved and how on earth she could fit it in with a hectic full day of school ahead. Lil was off in Laa-Laa-Land, oblivious to the whole secret-clue-fantastical-surprise scenario. Sometimes it’s best just to keep things simple and not overload her mind or mess with her routine.

FRIDAY

Friday morning I woke at 4 and woke the children at 4:30. I mysteriously whispered… The second clue is – you must rise with the sun” Titch was tickled pink with the elusiveness of it all, while Lil sat up sleepily and said “what clues?” Titch explained all and Lil said right away – “oh, easy, we’re going on the train. We’re up early and there is special ‘training’ –get it?’ That girl surprises me sometimes. They both really enjoyed being up so early and seeing their first ever sunrise though. The train trip went very well and both girls stunned me by insisting on doing school work –it was a school day after all- so I gave them a maths and spelling test each. I tailor made the maths test for each of them, but Titch insisted on choosing the spelling words:

cat, truck, students, admire, doughnuts, approximate, chemical, sensations, occasions, vacations, oviparous.

They both were chuffed to get good marks all round, though titch was disappointed with her spelling result – she had used ‘ai’ for the ‘a’ vowel sounds, as in ‘occaision, vacaition’ etc. I explained that it was still an extremely good result for a first grader and that Lil and I both were unsure how to spell oviparous and could she please tell us what it means? – which she did. They then went on to do some reading and some drawing with Lil also practising her German very loudly, trying to impress the bi-lingual-tourist-children who boarded the train and sat opposite. Titch has been picking up german from Lil and finds it all slightly amusing (who can blame her?) She set about drawing ‘Opa’s and Oma’s’ –that’s grandfathers and grandmothers in german, but to her also just very amusing words. Her Opa’s and Oma’s are strange objects with very unusual names such as Figureins, Cokstump and Rampst. (I caught myself this morning cursing ebay and calling it a cokstump under my breath)

On arrival, I immediately realised we could never make it to sidekick’s office before his morning meeting and would have to amuse ourselves in the city for a bit –  hotcakes, hashbrowns and shopping ensued! Do you know how much fun it is to put an 11 year old in time out in the middle of a city department store? The answer is lots. Titch is a bit of nuisance to shop with, mostly because she hates it, but Lil is infuriating! I know it’s her aspieness that causes her brain to overload with stimuli rendering her incapable of rational thought, but really, at 11 I do expect her to be able to #1 listen and #2 stay with me. The time out came after the third major losing-child incident (she was off trying on shoes in the ladies department and completely oblivious to the fact that she was no longer with me)  She also incurred a time out in department store no.2 during which an elderly woman bent down to look at something and farted both noisily and smell-ily in Lil’s general direction, at which point I decided her karma was taken care of and let her up.

finally, we met the sidekick at his office to get the keys and go home to commence the pool-lazing. This is when I discovered that his after-work-do was actually an after-lunch-do and, although it would still involve boozing, he might be home at the regular time or even earlier, which would be nice. We talked dinner and went our separate ways …… (insert that horror-movie music which suggests that everything is about to go very badly for the characters involved though they don’t realise it yet, like instead of fleeing the haunted house they are climbing the stairs to the attic thereby trapping themselves and allowing all manner of horror to arise in the foreseeable future)

We lunched, rested, and pool lazed in that order. Which was nice:)   NEWSFLASH – titch can swim!! She has had two lessons so far at school and this was my first chance to witness her expertise as she doggy-paddled the width of the pool with minimal drowning. I’m tempted to upload video but also painfully aware that no one finds it as exciting and tear jerking as mama.

We’d bought a bunch of vegies for dinner (have I mentioned before that my trusty sidekick is also a vege-matarian?) and I got started on a creamy-vegie-cheesy baked concoction that I was sure would be a hit all round. Word came from the man himself at about 5:30 that he would be heading home soon which appealed to my secretly well-hidden housewife-ish side as it meant we could have dinner together like a real life family, put the children to bed and live happily ever after, right?

By 7:30 I was actually a bit worried and in a complete quandary. I couldn’t hold off feeding the starving children any longer, yet ‘trusty’ (the name is wearing thin) wasn’t home. I was fairly certain that his boozy do had been extended, but what if it hadn’t and he’d met with foul play on the way home? What to do – phone him during the boozery to ask where he was and when he was coming home, therefore labelling myself forever more as the nagging girlfriend? Or just wait and see…risking his certain death as he lay bleeding and broken in the gutter somewhere? Amidst all this, his mother called (I only answered the phone thinking it would be the police or hospital or something equally dramatic) she rattled my already rattled nerves by 1.forgetting my name, 2.assuming I would be at lunch on Sunday, 3.giving me a message to pass on to trusty and insisting that I get him to call her back when he got home to make sure I had given him the message and 4.asking me where he was, what time he would be home and doing a motherly ‘hmmm…I see’ at my ignorance.

I decided that if he were not home by 8, I would swallow my pride and phone – better to sound like a nagging girlfriend than to let him die in the gutter, right? …right?  as per usual (we’re weird like this) a message arrived just as I picked up my phone – he was leaving now. So by 8:30 I had the children tucked into bed, all fed, and was reading them a bedtime story as the man walked in, fly undone! and very ‘merry’ to say the least, stinking of beer and promptly lay down to pass out to my bedtime story.

Once the children were off to sleep, we went upstairs to fight. (which, might I add, neither of us really knows how to do and usually involves some quiet mis-communication whilst cuddling in which nothing is resolved)

I must say, I’m still struggling with this one. (I’ve admitted before I’m useless at relationships and have no idea how they work or how to drive one) Struggling because…

1. I’ve had years of experience in phone counselling with nameless others who were left at home wondering where on earth their man was and my advice was always generally of the ‘don’t put up with that shite’ variation with suggestions of cruel and unusual punishments for the men involved when they finally bothered to show their faces.

2. Sidekick himself has previously agreed with me that the above scenario was ‘not on’ and that the women involved should put their tiny foots down.

3. The mere fact that he would put his own and his booze-colleagues needs before mine gives me the heebie-bajeebies and my gut instinct is to RUN! I mean, really, is it so difficult to pick up the phone and say ‘I won’t be home for a while yet, I’ve been coerced into some further boozery’? After all, I wasn’t upset that he was out in the first place, just that he didn’t show up when he said he would, leaving me in a difficult position and feeling like an idiot.

4. I’m outraged to discover that the boozery involved a conversation along the lines of “im so in trouble with the wife/girlfriend for this, I’m sleeping on the couch tonight for sure” which the man himself seemed to find incredibly amusing. WHAT? so I get pegged as the nagging girlfriend whether I nag or not – that hardly seems fair. Being single is starting to look oh so attractive again. I’m not sure if sidekick thought

a) that it was fun to be in a nifty club where you get into so much trouble for this

b) that it was no big deal to leave me wondering for hours

c) that phoning me might result in copping a proper nagging

d) all of the above  OR

e) nothing at all which I know his mind is quite capable of -for he would have to think beyond his own immediate wants and needs in order to contemplate what I might be feeling.

5. This is more proof for my ongoing hypothesis that Sidekick has a ‘hierarchy of importance’ when it comes to people. In the grand scheme of things I generally come somewhere down the list from family members, acquaintances  and work colleagues and generally anything I say or suggest is questionable until checked with a ‘more reliable source’. Therefore some drunken arm-twisting work buddies rank higher than me in the grand scheme of things despite the fact that I was at that very point in time at his home, mopping his kitchen floor, cooking a lovely cheesy-dinner and, might I add, wearing some very nice underthings and all whilst NOT  WANTING TO INTERRUPT HIS BOOZE TIME WITH ANY AMOUNT OF CHECKING-UP ON OR NAGGING!

Do I scream DOORMAT or what?

because afterall, I was in town for a fun weekend and it’s a bit difficult to have fun whilst being upset, nagging, bitching, and wanting to kill the entire male species for their drunken-stoopid-aspiness-inspired misfortunes. So I let it slide eventually after realising that the man was just not comprehending. Add to that his drunken bedroom faux pas and you might begin to understand that the rest of the weekend was enjoyed (tolerated) through gritted teeth. I’m no longer sure which one of us I hate more.

SATURDAY

Sidekick, sporting another brand shiny new hangover must pick up his offspring. (have I given her a name yet?? –she shall be munky) this involves a bit of a drive which I had sworn to myself during the night, the girls and I would not take part in due to the man needing to be punished in any way possible. So, we went with to keep him company. (doormat!) Back home, now with munky in tow, we were free once more to pool laze and relax all to our little hearts content. Which was nice. Saturday night was taco’s, the robots movie and bed which all went to plan with minimum fuss, despite my children being absolutely foul after their whole rising-with-the-sun experience previously. They had not only been arguing regularly throughout the day, but also arguing about arguing and who started the arguing and who wanted to stop the arguing but couldn’t, because the other party insisted on arguing with them. Later, I forced sidekick to stay awake and watch a movie with me as part of his furthering punishment. There was another bedroom faux pas, this one I’m certain he is oblivious to and I didn’t have the energy to not-argue again. Sometimes it’s easier to just roll over and go to sleep to dream magical dreams about magical men possessing wonderful skills of thought, care, manners and proper training

SUNDAY

More pool and then Lunch with the out-laws. And I call them the outlaws because they are not In-laws, not because they are interesting renegade-types or anything. Sister, brother-in-law, Crayon and Bobs (as my children have delightfully named them) Me, Trusty and the 3 chicks all together like one big happy family at an all-you-can-eat chain restaurant. Can you just hear my teeth grinding with absolute joy and rapture? It’s no secret that I’m a recluse and socially retarded at the best of times, but Sunday I was socially retarded at the worst of times. Due to aforementioned late nights / early mornings, some devouring of foods on my banned list, post-exertional malaise and whatever the heck else my body wanted to throw at me, I was feeling spooty to say the least. I know I have spoken ad nauseam  about the effects of my said illnesses so I’ll try to wrap it up neatly in one little sentence for you in case you’re new –  having any sort of fun, eating nice foods, and doing just about anything slightly physical leaves me feeling exhausted, sick, in pain and brain dead. Think of it as my brain and body shutting down and conserving all available energy for just the basics – breathing, heart beating etc. everything else becomes seemingly impossible. (ok so that was more than one sentence but, screw you, it’s my blog)

Needless to say, I sat at lunch feeling about as witty and talkative as a lump of play-dough. That and the fact that my entire appetite has recently disappeared altogether made me look like a real sulky party-pooper for sure. Usually I can pretend to be chatty and interesting, but this time I just didn’t have the energy. To top it off, Crayon sat between me and the children so I couldn’t quietly threaten to kill them every time they misbehaved or ate with their fingers, I had to get up out of my seat to do it – how tiring. And then Bobs stirred the children up causing them to misbehave further, their poorly formed minds not yet understanding that not all adults are good role models for civility and proper manners. Poking each other in the ribs is not my idea of fun. I’m not a huge fan of being touched by people that I don’t love dearly or at least know well. Not that I have anything against Crayon – she just reminds me enormously of a mother out-law I had previously, same mannerisms, speech, brrr it gives me chills of the bad sort. and I don’t want her to poke me in the ribs again. Ever. Bobs on the other hand gives me the straight up creeps, and I’m not ashamed to say it. I’m a big advocate for not trusting anyone until they’ve completely and utterly proven themselves and that comes from experience, mostly bad experience. Bobs is very hands-on with the children which to the outsider looks like fun and games, but to me (the highly cynical, suspicious and overly analytical), that sort of pushing, poking, tickling, touching looks very much like the sort that exists between twelve year old boys and girls. I’d just much rather that strangers didn’t touch my children, is that too much to ask?

Sunday afternoon … back to the pool I didn’t swim this time as I was concentrating very hard on being alive. I was having what I refer to fondly as a ‘bad day’ when my symptoms are a bit nasty and every movement and thought takes so much energy. It is very difficult to process thoughts, to make a thought actually come out as speech or to move, it really does feel as though my body is shutting down. I’m alive on the inside, but outside I look tired if not asleep, move sluggishly, feel faint and can’t think straight. It hurts and feels quite stupid too. I kept assuring the sidekick that I was ok, probably because

1. I know he sticks his fingers in his ears and goes la-la-la if I say I feel sick and
2. I couldn’t put into words how I was feeling even if I tried

After returning to the apartment, I took nurofen (mmm ibuprofen:) for the pain in order to survive the train trip home in relative peace. Titchy fell right to sleep on the train after eating her sandwiches (trusty made us sandwiches, reclaiming precious lost points, love and affection) I dozed on and off most of the way home too, Lil on the other hand did – her – homework – my jaw is still dropping in amazement. Those kids had such a busy weekend, so much swimming and Lil ‘n’ Munky were up really late Saturday night watching a movie, I really expected her to crash. she does have that whole aspie-anxiety thing though with a tremendous fear of getting into trouble in school. And this wasn’t any ordinary homework, it was the procedural text for her end of year assignment (I know, full on for year 6 huh?) I set her up on the lap top and dozed while she slowly one-finger-typed away. Now here’s the truly amazing bit cause I think that maybe she is secretly being one of those savant–type aspies!  Lil’s assignment was to plan and build a simple machine, keeping a journal along the way then to present the machine and the procedural text on the due date. Her machine was built, but the journal was at home while we were on the train till 9 at night and she had to write up the procedural text from memory. I plugged in the lap top this morning to see if I could fix it up a bit for her, make it passable and lo-and-behold – it was freaking perfect! she had written it up word for word from her journal, steps 1thru18 of exactly how to build this machine and even with precise measurements – you will need two pieces of dowel 16cm long, a small block of wood 13×5cm, a longer plank measuring….and on and on and on it went!! although she’d left it till the last minute, I’m extremely impressed at her genious-ness and if she does not receive an A I shall boycott the whole entire school system and fire-bomb something innocuous.

So…this brings us to the here and now…

MONDAY

it was a weary start this morning after a busy weekend of swimming, lazing, arguing and brooding. My intestines are protesting my ill-treatment of them over the weekend. Did I ever tell you that Thyroid disease and IBS like to hold hands and play together? probably not, it’s not the sort of thing nice girls talk about. It is sad but true though. I am also still having a spooty-symptom-competition raging within me with weak legs being the odds-on favourite so far. I’m back on the coffee – I figured I’d done so much damage already that one little coffee wouldn’t hurt right? Turns out it was the straw that broke the camels back, so to speak, or the camels bowel. It was purely an impudent act of rebellion and self-harm, me being too gutless and/or lazy to kill myself, get a tattoo, take up smoking, get rolling drunk etc. coffee seemed just the right amount of mutiny and self-depreciation. I’m also still wondering  today if the Trusty sidekick deserves more in the way of punishments for not properly denouncing his own poor form and have spent some of my time pondering the dire conclusion that the more time we spend together, the more sure I am that we shouldn’t live together. Fatalities may eventuate. Besides, his snippy remark about me leaving the wardrobe door open set us back years. Monday morning breakfast was spent fantasizing about making him go into work wearing a t-shirt reading

WOULD IT HAVE KILLED ME TO MAKE A PHONE CALL?

…for all to see.

btw, it may seem sad to some that I so openly reprimand the poor defenceless little sidekick here, for all the world (or 19 regulars and various drop-ins) to read. But really, when you think about it –as I have, I am doing him a favour. Instead of bitching and moaning in his ear, complaining and scheduling relentless grown-up talks about our relationship, I simply come here and purge all of my negative feelings and inner turmoil, vomiting my rage in a torrent of words and saving him from being bombarded with tears, talk and punching. You see I am very thoughtful – I’ll have you know I even gave trusty a very super-nice present on the weekend (despite his lack of due care and attention towards me) scrunched up in a brown paper bag on which I wrote “Dear trusty, you truly are the worstest boyfriend a girl could ever want etc etc etc, All my love, M.” see – I truthfully am a loving and caring human being.

Now, In good news…..

My ‘teamwork’ assignment came back today and I passed! I’ve passed everything else so far, but this one in particular had me nervous – what the frick do I know about teamwork and working well with others? I’m a grumpy emotional engineer who just doesn’t like many people and can’t tolerate pointless small talk.  This assignment was difficult for me to write because I just couldn’t get into the flow of essay writing with the subject matter, yet found point-form information too restrictive. The result? –I wrote it ‘me’ style as in, me-writing-in-my-blog style! I sent it off very nervously, wondering if I would fail for being openly weird or insane, sure that at the very least there would be notes made about my use of ‘humour’ innuendo, glib sarcasm, frivolous self-depreciation, and that my writing ‘style’ might easily be mistaken for being cheeky or not taking things seriously, y’know, teamwork in the education field and all that jazz

I opened the envelope and saw the ‘J’ on the front page –phew! -a pass. The comment sheet said ‘please read page 6-7’ though which made my stomach immediately begin to churn and I nearly sharted with worry as I cringed at the thought of what said comments may contain in the way of  chastisement and correction.

So, here’s the kicker – not only did I pass, I got ticks, multiple double ticks, a smiley face and assorted positive feedback!! the whole paragraph of comments which threatened to make me vomit, was actually all positive AND – I shit you not – contained such colourful praise as “great attitude”, “fabulous example “, “I really enjoy your writing”, “obvious and thorough understanding” and… wait for it … “you really made my day!”  Woo-fricking-hoo!! I am so pleased that I am passing my subjects whilst simultaneously entertaining my tutors!

I shall leave you on that note, like a man out on a boozy work do, i leave you wondering when oh when i shall return…..

m:)

Love is so sudden, a lighting flash from no where. Or is it? Roger Housden in his book Ten Poems to Open Your Heart offers one poem by Wislawa Szymborska titled “Love at First Sight.” This poet won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1996; at the time she told others that a poet lives to create by saying, “I don’t know.” This mystery space helps so much to notice the world and moments that seem to have a cause but truly arrive from a place we don’t know. Some call this Chance capital C. Malcolm Gladwell argues this in his amazing book Blink, Thinking Without Thinking. Just by arriving to life without knowing we can learn so much–instantly, in the blink of an eye.

What then of love at first sight? Star crossed lovers will remember their first meeting and recall in surprise how this was their first view of each other. But is this true? How would you know if perhaps on the bus, in the bank line, or at the bakery you had seen her before? Maybe. Hard to say. We don’t know. Szymborska laughs at these lovers, their blindness as to the first mystery meeting. She writes about the lovers in her poem:

They’d by amazed to hear
that Chance has been toying with them
now for years.

Not quite ready yet
to become their Destiny,
it pushed them close, drove them apart,
it barred their path,
stifling a laugh,
and then leaped aside.

The poem reminds me that I’m living from the “I don’t know” school of philosophy. That’s too neck-up actually. I just mean that each day will unfold in a way I cannot predict and so I simply attend the gatherings mostly to watch and see what will happen next; I’m insatiably curious to know but all bets are off.

Housden, for example, bumped into a woman who greeted him joyfully thinking he was someone else. They excused themselves once real recognition settled in. One year later the same woman booked ten days at a monastery where Housden had to stay by accident. Her name is Maria and two years later they were married.

This evening I went for a swim in the outdoor pool at the UCSF Baker Fitness Center and stared at the stars above. A bright crescent moon hung way up high too. Pool lights filtered through clear water and I felt bathed in moonlight and pool light; my swim felt easy and happy. The water always pulls me into an “I don’t know” mood where cognitive thought turns off and intuitive sensing washes in. I’m not thinking about anything in the pool suspended by water, grateful for the chance to take a load off my feet, so after when I’m dressed some of my best “ideas” surface. Yet I’m still unsure about love’s fire.

Housden helps me ruminate more lucidly about love at first sight in the following words:

“The poem reminds us that there is a season and a time for things that cannot be orchestrated. It’s like death–when it’s our time, we fall. Lovers need to ripen on the vine. You will know the right moment by the ease with which you fall into this next chapter of your life. It will require no effort, just an assenting to what wants to happen” (54). Perhaps then I will turn off the light now and simply say my prayers to close this day, sleep well, and wake to see what the next day brings. Good night.

… thank you very much.

I was inspired to finally hit the pool again today. I’ve been wanting to for a while, but just didn’t muster up the gumption to get over there after a workout yet. ‘Til today.

I caught some shows this morning dealing with diving, looking for underwater treasure–Megalodon teeth and such… you know how it is. And watched a video from IN-SEA TV where they were spearfishing and free-diving in Florida and Mexico. So, yeah… had to get some wet time.

Before heading over to the Y, I did a quick five minutes of one- and two-handed swings with the 24 kg kettlebell. Only a few with the left hand; my shoulder seemed to be tweaking a bit when I did it, so quickly made the two-handed swings the mainstay.

Then the “wellness” pool at the YMCA, because it was open swim all day, today. I set my watch for 30 minutes, and basically stayed in the water the whole time. I only grabbed the side twice, and only for long enough to first, take off my snorkel (I think I may need a better one–this one kinda gets in my way), and then later, to put it back on.

Most of my time was spent treading water or swimming around under the water-go down the bottom, cruise around, head back up for a few breaths, then back down–that sort of thing. I also practiced clearing and breathing through the snorkel. I can do it, but it actually feels like effort. Which is weird. I need more practice apparently, or to be doing something to take my mind off of it. It’s been a long time since I’ve been snorkeling out in the real world, and I don’t remember it being an effort like that.

I remember the same feeling, though, when I got my SCUBA cert; after doing everything on snorkel, switching to SCUBA was like magic. It was so easy and relaxing, I almost fell asleep underwater.

I do and have done lots of breath work over the years (with various disciplines such as Aikido, Qigong, Systema, meditation, etc., not to mention just regular old hard breathing from exercise), so maybe this is one more thing to help out getting better breathing. I know of a device that simulates breathing resistance that is said to help asthmatics, and it’s a bit like using the snorkel, just not in the water.

One of the nice things I’ve read about breath-hold (apnea) diving is that it actually increases oxygen usage capability in the brain. That’s pretty cool.

Anyway… though I stayed most of the time in the deep end, I hit the lanes a couple of times for lap practice. I wanted to practice my “combat swim stroke,” a US Navy SEAL swim stroke used by combat swimmers for prolonged swimming with minimal exertion. It’s a variation of the side stroke, basically.

After my thirty minutes of free swimming, I swam over to the jets on the side of the pool (which had to suffice for us in the days before they built the jacuzzi), and then slid down the little water slide they have there. Then back to the locker room for steam, sauna and jacuzzi time. Yay!

I had intended on heading over to the University for fencing practice. Ankle is much better, though still not great for springing and lunging, but I thought I might just hang there and add some of my observations to the mix. Didn’t make it in time, alas.

All in all, I can tell that I need more kbell swings, and more water time.

If you missed the show yesterday morning, Michelle and I told you how you can get a great workout while having a lot o fun at the same time. We discussed the overall benefits…as well as some of the minor drawbacks that accompany you in the pool when exercising while swimming.  We also interviewed Olympic Trainer and author of “Swimming Anatomy”, Ian McLeod on just what it takes to become a competitive swimmer!

Everybody loves to swim.  But now, just for fun doesn’t have to be the only reason why.   Swimming is not only a great cardiovascular exercise, but an awesome low-impact exercise as well which is why it’s perfect for the elderly, pregnant or anyone recovering from an injury.  When you swim, you exercise all of the muscles in your body making it a great form of exercise for anyone.  But swimming isn’t the only way to get healthy and fit in the water… aqua fitness and aquaerobics are both excellent ways to get aerobic workouts without the high-impact of traditional aerobic exercise. These water exercise classes use many of the movements you see on land but with specialized equipment for the water, making it perfect for those at who may be at risk doing aerobics on land.   But…there are drawbacks! Swimming is extremely limited when it comes to building your leg muscles.  And because swimming is low-impact, it’s doesn’t help maintain bone density either.  Therefore you need to incorporate other exercises outside the water, such as lunges, running, walking, or cycling, to help ensure Total Fitness.  Oh, by the way, swimming is also limited when it comes to weight loss for various theories:

•   Water cools the body forcing it to maintain a layer of fat under the skin for insulation.

•   Long periods of time in cold water may increase your appetite.

•   Swimmers may be genetically disposed to having a higher body fat content.

•   Swimming requires a high output of energy, which burns glycogen instead of fat.

•   The body is cooled while swimming reducing you metabolism.

Regardless, swimming is a great form of exercise and should be included in your workout program…especially… if you are looking for TOTAL HEALTH & FITNESS!

Swimming, Olympic, Water exercises, Training

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