So apparently I got behind somewhere in July (when I spent all non-working/swimming hours immersed in the FINA World Championships), and still haven't been able to catch up.
Because posting a month's worth of swim workouts with minimal comments is probably lame (and really annoying to the nice people who follow me on RSS - hi Rob!), I'm just going to post a big highlights post. Mostly it will cover my most recent triathlon, first distance open water swim, and some brief comments about other stuff that has happened swimming-wise in the last four weeks or so.
Also, a list of my total yards/day, because I like to track that sort of thing. ;)
Exciting, right? Right. :p
Acupuncture:First off, the first day I didn't manage to post anything (July 22), I got acupuncture for the first time. I'd written a bunch about it before I got sidetracked, so I'm going to repost a section of that here.
This was right after I'd injured my knee via creative baserunning in softball, and it was still bothering me quite a bit. My kick was still a disaster, and longer kick sets were killing me, as well as whipkick all together. I'd had my friend (and softball teammate) Ann check the knee out and it was fine, generally, though I still had an effusion under the patella. Kimberley, my friend and tri partner, suggested (for probably the ninetieth time) that I try acupuncture, so I finally took her up on it. :)
I'd never had acupuncture before, and while I wasn't really scared about getting it, I was a little skeptical about it. Now that I've done it, I can say it was definitely a cool experience.
The first pin Kimberley put in was on the outside of my right shin, and when she tapped it, it felt like there was a little burst of sensation beneath my skin. When I told her about it, she said that was the pin hitting my chi. Apparently that doesn't actually happen that often, so it was neat that I felt it. She stuck some more pins in my knee, the other side of my shin, a couple in my lower left leg, one in each hand (in the skin between my thumb and forefingers), and one in my forehead (to mellow me out). Then she ran a current between a couple of the ones on my right leg, put some heat on me, and left me alone for about thirty minutes.
It was nice, but only relaxing for about ten minutes. It was hot, and my muscles were all jumpy from my swim workout, so I started to get anxious and uncomfortable. That said, I don't recall having much in the way of pain in my knee afterward. It continued to be stiff for a few days, and is still not completely healed (I can bend it and straighten it, but I can't kneel and put any weight on it, and misjudging my distance from the walls on flipturns is rewarded with some fun discomfort), but I do think the acupuncture helped. I'm definitely going to have to try it again sometime.
FAST:The last week of coached workouts with FAST was the first week of August. Evan was in Hawaii for an age group meet, so Reu coached all three of those workouts. They ended up being right around 2500 meters each (if we were lucky), followed by getting out of the pool fifteen minutes early to eat donuts. Yes, all three days. There are photos on Facebook to prove it. ;)
The Friday practice was pretty fun, though, in that it included a snake swim relay where my team was massively handicapped by having both me and the brand new guy, Nick, on it, plus Walter's 12 or so year old son, Little Walter. We lost both relays, but the last one was fun because Little Walter tried to cheat by using fins, Big Walter caught him and threw him over one of the lane lines, only to have Little Walter steal his goggles. :)
So now FAST is on forced hiatus until the second week of September (because our pool is unavailable due to construction). When we get back, though, we start six day a week practices, and I couldn't be more geeked. I've been swimming four days a week (once on my own) for the last month or so, and I can't wait to add the two lunchtime swims as well. I still don't know all the details (what time the Tuesday, Thursday, and Saturday swims are starting, or how long they'll be), but my big plan is to make MWFS and do as many TR swims as humanly possible.
Eyeballs:I did want to mention something I discovered by accident, but had never heard of before in my life. The last day EPIC (the pool I normally swim in) was open, I went and swam three miles. I mostly did it because I'd said I was going to (as a joke) to make up for eating all those donuts the week before. And I felt great after two miles, so I decided to go for it.
And it wasn't bad. In fact, I was feeling pretty awesome at the end, great that I'd swam that much in one workout, a little sore and tired, but in that totally accomplished way. Except my eyes felt really funny.
After a quick shower, I went back to my locker and checked out my eyes in the mirror. And they were
misshapen. Like, the part of my eyeball that was exposed by my open eyelid was pushed out. Or, rather, sucked out. By my goggles. I was horrified (and launched into a two or so hour panic attack), because I had this bad feeling I'd done something terrible to myself. Of course my eyes went back to normal in about 45 minutes, but holy crap, it was freaky.
Since then, I've done something similar (ish) twice, all three times with my women's Tyr goggles. The suction on those things must be pretty massive, because since the first time, I've tried really hard not to press on them too much when I'm swimming, and pop them off between sets to give my eyes a break. I do love the goggles (they don't leak, obviously) and my Speedo women's Vanquishers are pretty tinted, so I don't like wearing them for regular, indoor workouts. Still, gah. Has anyone else ever had this happen to them?
Cesspool:My teammate/pal Lori and I waffled a bit about where we wanted to swim while EPIC is closed. We were thinking about swimming with the Vortex Masters, but the pool was an annoying drive for both of us, and the lack of showers AT the pool would have made my commute really long three days a week. So we settled on just swimming MWF at 5:45AM at Mulberry Pool.
I think I've complained about this pool before, but let me just reiterate why I dislike swimming there. The water is kept pretty warm, firstly. I'm not sure what the temp is, but Lori describes it as "swimming in your bathtub". Besides that, it's a very kid friendly indoor pool, with only 6 lap lanes, and a whole section dedicated to kid play that has a waterpark type jungle gym in it. Because of the kids, they really crank up the chemicals, so the water is cloudy, and gross, and turns my sinuses into snot factories. Plus there's all the fun 'debris' that comes from letting kids play in the water. For all these reasons, I've started referring to the place as Cesspool. I literally only swim there when EPIC isn't available (usually because of swim meets).
All that said, there are a few pluses to swimming at Cesspool. For one, the guy that works the front desk in the morning most of the time is really, tragically attractive. I love that he gets to see me looking like crap first thing in the morning with terrifying bedhead. :p But my brain doesn't complain about the wake-me-up. ;) Two, it's not very populated in the morning, so Lori and I never have to fight for a lane. We have my little binder full of workouts (some were via Evan from previous breaks, and a few I printed from Swim Plan), and all our gear, and get a pretty decent workout three days a week.
Of course Lori and I are pretty bad about sticking to intervals on our own, but eh. We don't slack. For instance, today we swam five 100 IMs in a row, which felt pretty awesome. My arms are not pleased NOW, but that's fairly usual for me.
Anyway, we've got the rest of this week and next week, then Mulberry closes for maintenance. All the muni pools are closed for Labor Day, and then FAST
should start up again the Tuesday afterward with Reu's first Tuesday workout.
Tri for the Cure:This post is hella long already, so I'm going to give the reader's digest version of this tri. This was my third sprint this summer, and it's starting to kinda get old hat by now. The swim was 750 meters, which is a piece of cake, except this was my first without a wetsuit. The water was about 72º, so two seconds into the swim I was rockin', not cold, not freaked, totally on top of it. My time kinda sucked at the end (18:30-ish), which I've decided to blame on the fact that I got beat to death by breaststrokers for a long time and couldn't pass them (one on each side, man), and then the timing pad was waaaaaay up the shore. I thought I'd crossed it, but turns out I didn't, so I lost a handful of seconds walking when I could have been, you know, moving faster. :p
Neither of my transitions are worth mentioning, because I was racing in the Buddies category, so the transitions were really mellow as we all regrouped between legs of the race. :) Kimberley, Ann, and I started the bike together, but I broke off about halfway through and gunned it, just for the hell of it. I have absolutely no idea what my bike time was. But! No flat tires! I consider that a win.
Blah blah T2 (where I got on my iPhone and found out David Walters was anchoring the medley relay in Rome and about ran around in circles with glee), then Ann, Kimberley, and I started the run together. I think we ended up going 40 minutes on the 5K, and all crossed the finish line hand-in-hand. At the end, we all got medals, and food, of course. The weather was great, I felt fantastic the whole way, and I had a wonderful time.
Next Tri is, well, Sunday. This one is a mountain bike tri, and my mountain bike is about thirteen years old and purchased from the Target, so I'm not expecting much out of that part, but it will be fun as heck to try! The swim is in Horsetooth Reservoir, which I swam a mile in the weekend before last (see below), so I geeked about that, since it was a breeze the first time, and is only a half mile this time. The run's four miles, I think, and a trail run, so that should probably kick my ass. But what doesn't kill us makes us stronger, right? Or at least more sore.
Horsetooth Open Water Swim:This was another last minute signup type thing. My coaches, before we went on hiatus, said they were doing this swim (liars, both of them), so I signed up to do it. There were a handful of options as far as length: 1 mile, 2.4 mile, and 10K. Since I'd never done more than 800 meters in open water, I decided to play it safe and signup for the 1 mile. Evan and Reu were supposed to do the 2.4, along with Walter and Nate, two of my teammates.
I ran into Walter at the parking lot and hung with him and Nate until it was time to get in and swim. The 1 mile did not allow wetsuits, so I got to stand on the shore of the water for probably about five minutes in my little swimsuit freezing my tuckus off in 50º windy weather before I got in the water.
The water, however, was a pleasant 74º. All the 1 and 2.4 milers started at the same time, so I hung way at the back of the pack and just swam steady the whole way, probably slower than I could have, but playing it safe. I had zero problems in the water, didn't mind the waves that the wind was kicking up too much, and only had one collision after the turn around with someone else in my group. They were kinda bad about communicating which direction we were supposed to turn around our buoy, so someone coming the other way clocked me in the head pretty good.
Luckily, I have a really hard skull, so I just kept on swimming. I ended up finishing in 27:34, which was five and a half minutes faster than my last pool mile, and probably about 6th out of nine women who swam the mile. All but one of the ladies who came in ahead of me were high school kids, so I didn't feel too bad about it, hehe. The swim went so well that I think I'll try the 2.4 next year. :)
Asthma Meds:Only partially swimming related, I've had some problems with my voice over the last two months. I've been hoarse constantly, and have had issues with my voice breaking whenever I raise it at all. Finally I went in to see my doctor and it turns out that my asthma medication has caused some cobbling in the back of my throat which is what is affecting my voice.
Originally, when I started swimming, I was having a ton of problems with my lungs hurting and being short of breath. It was making getting any endurance practically impossible, so I went and got on some asthma maintenance medication. The first thing I was on was Advair, which was two medicines in one: a steroid (to reduce the inflammation) and a bronchial diolater (to open the swollen passages). When I changed insurance, I found that Advair was MASSIVELY expensive, so I changed to Pulmicort, which was just a steroid. Apparently the steroid is what is messing with my throat.
My choices at this juncture are to continue on the Pulmicort and have no voice, try a different steroid, try a medication that is just a bronchial diolater, or go off all together. At the moment I'm trying going without, but I have a prescription for the bronchial diolater, in case I have issues.
Today is day seven of being off the meds. So far I've only had about three instances where my lungs have caused trouble, and none of them have really affected my ability to swim. I have had some pain while swimming, but it's not something that I think is bad enough to need medication for. So far my voice hasn't had any improvement, but my doctor says it could take as long as a month for it to heal. I have yet to use a rescue inhaler for anything, which I'm taking as a good sign. I'm thinking (hoping) that the swimming has actually helped me build lung capacity, so I don't have to take the maintenance drugs again in the future.
Lastly, some swimming stuff of note:Timed swims:
100 yard IM - 1:57 (July 26)
100 meter IM - 2:04 (July 27)
50 meter breast - 1:04 (Aug. 7)
50 meter fly - :54 (Aug. 9)
50 meter back - :57 (Aug. 9)
50 meter breast - 1:04 (Aug. 9)
50 meter free - :46, :43 (Aug. 9)
1600 meter free - 33:09 (Aug. 9)
Swim Workout Distances:
July 22 - 3800 yards
July 26 - 3000 yards
July 27 - 3000 yards
July 29 - 3200 yards
July 31 - 3100 yards
Aug. 2 - 800 yards (Tri for the Cure)
Aug. 3 - 2250 yards*
Aug. 5 - 2500 yards*
Aug. 7 - 1850 yards*
Aug. 8 - 5250 yards
Aug. 10 - 3200 yards†
Aug. 12 - 3400 yards†
Aug. 14 - 3200 yards† + 1000 yardsˆ
Aug. 16 - 1750 yards (Hoursetooth Swim)
Aug. 17 - 3000 yards†
Aug. 19 - 3150 yards†
Aug. 21 - 3000 yards†
Aug. 22 - 2800 yardsˆ
Aug. 24 - 3100 yards†
* - "Donut" swims
† - swimming at Cesspool
ˆ - random gym swims
