water for elephants

go. run. to the bookstore and get this book. i finished it in one sitting. that's how good it is.

and while you're at it, pick up a copy of once on dvd. i watched it this weekend and could not stop listening to the soundtrack.

i know you're thinking, but you listen to britney spears, how on earth do you know anything about movies or books? just trust me , please.

anyway, moving on, no workout today. my limbs are sore from 3 days of swimming. i had a headache all day and was utterly exhausted. my nighttime swim workouts have my body all out of whack. i'm normally a morning person, but pm workouts leave me so wired i can't fall asleep by my normal bedtime. so then i don't wake at my normal time. this morning i woke up with just 15 minutes to get ready for work. luckily, i'm a low maintenence kind of girl.

but the thing is, i so very much enjoy swimming after work. it's relaxing, even though the workouts are challenging. the water just feels refreshing. and you don't get all hot and sweaty like you do with anything else. i'm gonna try swimming right after work, hoping the pool isn't too crowded, and hoping that bumping up the workout a few hours gets me asleep at a decent hour.

though it probably means no future run-ins with the phelps twin.

oh and p.s. i'm starting a new training program in feb. a running one, at that.

the spins

dudes! i totally have the spins and i didn't even drink. well doesn't that suck?

here's what happened. i was all ready to rock judy's socks off tonight. show her what the little fishy i've become. and sure enough she was impressed. i was all gold stars and pats on the back. which made her think it was time for her to show me how to flip turn.

fuck. flip turn?

as she demonstrated she kept saying, "it's like doing a somersault, like when you were a kid". "it's like jumping on a trampoline and flipping over". well la di, judy. my mom didn't let me do those dangerous things when i was a kid. she must have tried 5 or 6 different ways to show me how to do it and i just couldn't get it. we spent about half the lesson doing this and all i got was a massive headache. i felt so seasick i thought i might hurl in the pool.

instead, i busted out 8 laps doing the catch up drill she showed me tonight. but 8 was enough. i had to get on dry land, curl in the fetal position and pray that the earth would stop spinning. well not the earth, but you know...

until now, swimming was going swimmingly! this flip turn thing just might be the death of me.

p.s. phelps twin was totally hot. the real phelps is kind of a butterface in my opinion. but my phelps, top notch. i'm not usually one for tattoos but he had a nice one along the right side of his stomach. i guess he's not planning on losing any tautness in that section of his body :)

mermen and cholos

i did 40 laps in 47 minutes...which makes me wonder, did i miscount today or yesterday?

there's no way it took me 8 more minutes to do the same number of laps.

but then again, today i did a lot without the buoy or board. i'd alternate freestyle and breaststroke, and when i felt up to it did back to back freestyle. i threw in some pulling laps to help catch my breath. and a few butterfly laps to work the abs. i ended with the underwater exercises. i swear i have absolutely no lung capacity.

one thing that helped, and this is going to sound totally silly and ludicrous, but for some reason it helped if i hummed underwater while i blew air from my nose. kind of like doing a yoga "oooooohhhhmmm". it sounds totally stupid i know, but i don't know it made me feel less like i was drowning and more like i was swimming...like a dolphin maybe? who the hell knows.

i did become self conscious of this though when michael phelps' twin brother got in the lane next to me. he WAS a dolphin like those dudes in madonna's cherish video. remember them? but i was less self conscious around him than when the pool/spa/sauna/steam room area was filled with the latino mafia. at one point during my time in the pool, there were at least half a dozen dudes just chillin' in their wife beaters. some were actually in the spa or sauna, but a good number of them were just sittin' around. a few of them stood with their arms crossed. they didn't appear to be checking out the ladies, since there were none, except for me and a few elderly ladies. but they didn't look like they were gonna cause trouble either. again, who the hell knows.

39 in 39

that's 39 laps in roughly 39 minutes. i'm not breaking any records, but i am getting better. i'm doing more actual swimming than i am just kicking or just pulling. i feel so much more smooth in the water since i've employed the breathe less technique. and i'm not so out of breath by the end of the lap. and honestly, i could have gone longer than 39 minutes today. but there was a dude waiting for a lane and i had been there the longest so i felt compelled to give the guy some room.

i'm hoping to get to the pool twice tomorrow. but considering i keep sleeping through my alarm lately, i won't count my chickens...

one, two, three

i got a lot of random stuff today:

1. my swim lesson today totally rocked. the 30 minutes flew by. and the good news is judy said i was doing much better than last week. woot! we used the board less and introduced the pull buoy. two words: holy crap. but i loved it so much i ran out and bought my very own to use tomorrow. we also did more breaststroke laps since my kick is much improved. no more moving sideways! since this week's lesson was very arms intensive, i really hope i can move my arms tomorrow.

ooh ooh, and she also introduced me to underwater oxygen deprivation. doesn't that just sound like a recipe for death? she had me do 2 exercises. first she had me swim underwater for as long as i could. i got about halfway. then she showed me what we'll be working towards: a length and a half! judy is crazy. then she had me do a few laps taking as few breaths as possible, aiming for only 4. in my head i thought i would for sure drown. but to my surprise, i did it. and i felt like i got across faster and with more grace and ease than normal. she says by coming up for air less my stroke is interrupted less, so i'm much more fluid. judy is smart.

we also talked more about my goals. i told her about the duathlon i had in mind and she thought it would also be a good idea to do a shorter swim only race. again, judy is crazy. public displays of me in my bathing suit doesn't really traumatize me. unless you put me with real lean, mean swimming machines!

2. the icky, bruised half of my big toenail came off last night! i was examining it last night , running my finger along the ridge between the bruise and the new healthy nail and pop! one side just lifted. then i started pulling across...then it got to the nonbruised part and i just had to pull the whole damned thing off. and it was infinitely cooler than when the other toenail fell off. it looks so narsty! i hope the half that's left grows in nicely and not all ingrown. and you folks are lucky my camera is at MH's. though i'm seeing him tomorrow night, so there just might be some loverly pics manana.

3. speaking of manana and MH, tomorrow he and i are watching the sprirt of the marathon movie. it's not his first choice for entertainment, but he made me suffer through cloverfield. and there's no way i can ever get those 75 minutes of my life back. so he gets to watch me totally geek out over a marathon documentary.

22 laps

but only 4 of them without the aid of some sort of device, ie board or fins. my kicks were definitely much better today. but when having to stroke and kick at the same time, it pretty much turned to flailing.

i'm gonna try again tonight...

the crap end of single life

this is totally not running or fitness related. if that's ok with you, read on. if not, i've logged a swim and a spin workout...both sucked, but both got done ;) and now for the angst...

every year for the past 4 years my college friends and i have planned a girls' beach weekend. last year i made the trek 3k across the country to meet up with them. this year, we decided to do gbw in vegas! to celebrate us turning 30. and to include a friend from college who moved there when she decided to graduate a year early.

we've been emailing back and forth to pick a mutually convenient weekend, focusing on sometime in the fall over a federal holiday. then we get the email from cj:

"I am definitely coming out to Vegas this year. The questions are when and with whom? For me it will be whenever I can get a flight deal, so I need to start looking into flight info. The husband really wants to come to Vegas. He has never been, would like to see Las Vegas friend in her element and go with her to the Star Trek experience thing.

If we make it a family trip, I could still hang out with the girls. It just might be a girls day or night or something.

I am sorry to be so up in the air about things, but I figure I will start looking at flights and when I see one I want to book I will figure the rest out."

so much for girls' weekend. so much for caring about seeing your friends. sheesh. it went from OUR vacation to HER vacation without anyone's say. and if i want to see her and las vegas friend, i better hope her plans are convenient for me too. at which point, if they are, i only get half a day to see them...

i get that people's priorities change. i get that when people get married and have babies they're more family minded than adult-person minded. i get that budgets get tight and time is tight. but she's not the only one with time and financial limitations just because she is the working mom. i nixed a trip to disneyland with the brothers and nephew because i wanted to make this trip out to vegas to see my friends.

i've said it before and i'll say it again. being single doesn't suck because you're don't have a man. it sucks because your friends ditch the singletons. it's no fun having all this free time and extra cash with no one to play with. it is harder to find a 30 something single woman to have as a friend than it is to find a 30 something man to date. not to say 30 something moms or 30 something marrieds or 30 somethings with significant others don't make good friends. but every single chick needs a crew of single chicks. it's like law or something.

or maybe i just need the attitude of george clooney and others destined for lifelong singlehood. i guess to truly embrace the single attitude, i need to embrace being truly alone, without even the crew of girls.

and ps, me saying i'm single doesn't mean MH and i are off. MH and i just aren't serious...at least i'm not, even though he's slinging the L word around like it's the word "the". but that's another post entirely...

2008 monthly challenges

i got off to a slow start this year, but i think i've finally come around. in large part to my swimming lessons starting. it was a ruuuuude awakening to realize just how much i'd let myself go in the last 3 months! the good news is i'm used to rebuilding my fitness base. i'm just not so good at maintaining it. but i'm hoping that getting good at and enjoying 3 disciplines, instead of relying solely on my running, that i'll hone myself into a lean, mean athletic machine...and stay there!

so, in that vein, i've concocted a rough schedule of monthly challenges. i need some suggestions for april. and if you're wondering why i don't just do a triathlon already, it's because i don't have a bike, can't afford one this year, and am not entirely certain i even really enjoy biking in the outdoors. (it's the fear of falling and scraping up all my skin that freaks me out)

i have a half marathon scheduled for october and a marathon tentatively scheduled for december. i don't want to get too excited about putting tons of miles on my feet. but i'm hopeful. and positive. and i'm hoping all my cross-training will pay off in the running and healing department. so without further ado...



jan: complete an ironman in one month: Swim 2.4 miles, Bike 112 miles, Run 26.2 miles

feb 9: run between the cities 5k

mar: complete a sprint triathlon in gym: swim 0.5 mi, bike 12.4 mi, run 3.12 mi

apr: ??? SUGGESTIONS ANYONE ???

may 18: bay to breakers 12k

june 1: hit the road jack 10k
june 8: tbf aquathon

july: complete a sprint triathlon in gym
july 26: start marathon training (fingers crossed)

aug 2: tbf aquathon
aug 12: turn 30!

sept: complete a sprint distance triathlon in gym

oct 25: napa country classic half marathon

nov: complete a sprint distance triathlon in gym

dec 7: california international marathon OR complete an olympic distance triathlon in gym: swim .93 mi, bike 24.8 mi, run 6.2 mi

i don't want to alarm anyone

but i actually went to spin class this morning.

that's two days in a row of not just sitting on my ass.

FINALLY.

burning sensation

you know how a really hard speed workout can leave you gasping for breath? and your lungs and legs just burn? that's what swimming is like for me. only my arms and my abs burn too. i was beyond wiped after my lesson today. and i was ravenous. the kind of hungry that only happens after swimming. what's up with that?

i didn't keep track of my laps on my watch, but i did in my head, i think:

2 x freestyle kick with the board warmup
4 or 6 x (i can't remember) butterfly kick with the board (my favorite!)
2 x breaststroke kick with the board (my nemesis) i swear at some point i was moving sideways not forward)
4 or 6 x freestyle
2 x freestyle kick with board cooldown

so on the low end, i swam a mere 350 meters! with breaks! that's less than a quarter of the distance i need to swim for my aquathon! and i'm supposed to run a 10k after too?!

19 weeks better be enough time to train for something like this...

fight or flight

we all know that person who says to us, "i don't run unless i'm being chased."

well last night, i was chased. and last night, i ran.

even with a gimpy foot. and probably faster than i ever have. though it wasn't very far.

i was upstairs working on a project, with food network turned down low when i heard this god awful sound coming from outside. long, weird bellows of different lengths. like some tortured animal howling and groaning. or maybe a crazy person picking a fight. or maybe wind rushing through a weird pipe. at night all sounds conjure up the worst nightmares. so i hollered for my mommy and we peeked outside.

first we surveyed from the second story. too dark to see anything, so we crept downstairs to the large, glass sliding door. we tapped on the windows, hoping to scare whatever it was away. we flipped on the outdoor light. then flipped it off. then flipped it on.

and BAM!

two huge white dogs charged out of the gazebo in the backyard straight for the door. i bolted away from the door like lightening straight into the next room, nearly knocking my mom over.

2 dogs i said. TWO!

then they started barking. loudly. we backed away from the windows and waited. until we couldn't see them anymore.

they were definitely not our dogs and i'm very disturbed as to how they got into our fenced yard. i couldn't tell if they had tags. and i wasn't going outside to check. maybe animal lovers or those more familiar with dogs would, but i ain't going out in the dark to face 2 large unknown creatures. in my mind they were two wild rabid mongrels searching for sweet juicy asian flesh to devour.

but at least they're gone now. and at least i know i still have the runner's instinct. even if it does mean i'm a scardy cat.

a lotta rice today

so, um , yeah. about last night.

me. vodka. dance floor. twisted ankle.

no bueno.

luckily the place we were had nice plush couches so i could relax and ice immediately. and luckily, MH is a sweet, sweet boy who dragged his cousin out of bed to drive him to san francisco, so he could drive me and my car the 45 miles back home.

i've been relegated to the couch, my foot propped atop a pile of pillows, alternating between icing and wrapping. the swelling has subsided considerably. it's almost a miracle.

but it looks like this week is NOT going to be the week i get back into the swing of things. i can't even friggin' drive. looks like i'll just have to be waited on all week...

new growth

my toe nail finally fell off. i actually felt it fall off. the nerd i am thought it was super cool. luckily i had my socks on and i could save the toenail. just like i saved all my baby teeth when they fell out. hmmm, i wonder where they're stashed...