monday:

swimteam.

warmup
8 50's - drill/swim
3 100's - each progressively faster
4 300's
cooldown

I lead the lane and felt pretty good.

the rest of last week

tuesday I ran on the treadmill, I do believe. something like three miles.

wednesday I ditched swimteam to go running with peter. it was probably around three miles. we went out on 600 east to liberty, circled the park and then came home.

thursday I elipticalled for 45 minutes.

friday was a rest day.

saturday I ran ten miles! from here on out it's double digit miles until taper. it's kind of exciting. the run felt pretty good. I was a little tight halfway through. I ran in downtown and then up city creek canyon a bit. so far my ankles are behaving. we'll see how my body holds up for the rest of training.

oh, if anyone doesn't know, I'm training for the Famous Potato Marathon in Boise, Idaho in May. It should be definite good times. It will be my fourth state -- whoohoo!!!

monday night swimteam

yesterday's swim workout kind of redeemed last wednesday's workout. I felt strong. I lead the lane most of the time. (mainly because I didn't have the stress of making the sets in any real intervals... we swam, then waited 30 seconds after the last person in the lane touched the wall) and I even talked the substitute coach out of having us do a smaller set than everybody else. (he thought maybe we couldn't handle it -- how about five sets of 300? but my little competitive eskiminian swimmer kicked in and couldn't bare the thought of having to swim less than everyone else just because we were in the slow lane.)

"We can do five 400's, we'll just do it slower."

and so we did. this was the workout:

warm up
6 50's - drill (fingertip drag, catch-up drill, thumb drag)
400 - free (slow)
400 - free (medium)
400 - free (fast)
one minute rest
400 - free (medium)
400 - free (fast)
cool down

I felt pretty good. my stroke felt relatively strong. we finished the whole workout in time. hurrah!

long run

I went skiing yesterday, but that didn't stop me from doing my long run. I'm dedicated. I did it on the treadmill because it was only six miles (I think that might just be the limit on those things. anything over an hour just might kill you.) and it would be easier to know how far I'd gone, etc.

the run was pretty good. about halfway through my legs starting feeling a little tight. it's mostly my right hamstring, but what's new. I got to watch a hockey game. that's always fun. and the chick that's always working out was there. she got on the treadmill right beside me. maybe I should just become friends with this woman; we're always at the gym at the same time.

but you will all be happy to know I bought some frozen corn to use as ice packs. I iced my hamstrings yesterday. hopefully I'll get over this nagging injury soon.

6 miles; treadmill
counting crows

ps skiing was amazing! telemark or die!!!

wednesday | thursday | friday

wednesday:
swimteam. I was having a rough time. I felt slow. the upper (read: faster) lanes were crowded so they made a few people shift down. it happened to be just me and this other guy that night, until the german, that other lady, and the pregnant chick all moved down into our lane. I wasn't too thrilled about it since they're (at least the german guy and the non-pregnant chick) faster than us. I remember the german guys condescending look with his eyes when he motioned with his head to the other girl that they were going to have to swim with us.

warm up
3 200's - descending

100 free
25 stroke/75 free
50 stroke/50 free
75 stroke/25 free
100 stroke
[3 times through; 1st set - fly, 2nd set - back, 3rd set breast]

cool down

it was hard and I felt beat. I wanted to quit about a thousand times. I kept going, though, so I guess that was a victory in itself. sometimes you just have off workouts. you just have to shake them off and focus on the good ones...


thursday:
elliptical team. I went for 45 minutes again... it felt good. I had a lot of energy afterwards. I tried reading my new runner's world that came in the mail... it's slightly harder while elipticalling.

45 minutes; 5.9 elliptical distance
the get up kids


friday:
joint swimteam. peter and I met up at the pool. I wanted to focus on my butterfly since it's so hard. I used fins to try and help me get out of the water to breathe. it was still pretty tough. I want to keep working on it, though, and get better. it just takes a lot of endurance. I also did some work just on my arms with the pool buoy. I want to save my legs for tomorrow's long run...

monday | tuesday

Monday:
I ditched swimteam for a run. my legs needed to stretch. plus I had a little bit of a headache and the thought of putting on a tightly fitting swimcap and goggles wasn't too appealing. I headed north on 600 east, straight through liberty park and on to 400 south and back. it was a good run. I felt strong. it was just what I needed after my run on saturday.

3+ miles; 600 east


Tuesday:
Eliptical! I don't know why I love this machine so much, but I do. I could go forever on this thing and not even think twice about it. Way better than a treadmill, that's for sure! I felt great!

45 minutes; 5.78 eliptical distance
sufjan stevens/weezer

I ditched the ipod for some city sounds and my thoughts

north. east. south. west. a mile out and back in each direction. eight miles. water every two. these are the tricks you learn when you've been doing this as long as I have. (and you're a little princess who will not carry water with her on the run.)

I put my water bottle in the baby pug tree a block away from my house (apartment d, if anyone is interested in purchasing "baby pug's") and started out on what felt like my first real long run of training. it was the first run of the year outside as well. it felt good. the sun was out. fresh snow on the ground. my legs were moving. it felt great.

near the end of the run, somewhere tucked away in mile 7 my legs started to feel tight. I stretched when I got home. I tried to take an ice bath, but lasted about five seconds. it was really hurting my feet. when I get into the higher mileage I'll just have to be brave and tough it out. I still need to buy some bags of petite frozen pees to ice my ailments individually.

the run felt good, though. I'm a little sore today, but not bad. my ankles and knees are holding up. hopefully that continues.

8 miles; 2 miles radiating out from 1700 south and 600 east

elliptical love.

I went to the gym and ellipticalled my face off. it was fabulous.

marta, you would appreciate this -- oprah in surround sound. on one television she was a guest on ellen. on another tv was the oprah winfrey show, and they were talking about obesity and weight loss. how fitting, since I was at the gym.

I ellipticalled for like 45 minutes - went 5.5 miles - burned over 550 calories. and I jammed out to counting crows the whole time*. hurrah!


*okay, so during my five minute cooldown I finished the counting crows set on the ipod. then I turned it to Jesus on the Radio by Guster. It is quite possibly one of my favorite songs ever. I kept it on repeat all the way home. literally.

back in the slow lane, and loving it

the workout:
warm up
3 100's kick - descending

300 free
200 IM (that means a fifty of all four strokes!)
100 stroke (anything but freestyle - I chose breaststroke on each set)
[3 times through]

25 free - hard/slow
25 free - slow/hard
25 free - hard
25 free - slow
cool down

how I felt:
fantastic! it felt good to be back in the slow lane, pushing hard. I was more in my element. at first this lady named erin (she's the one trying to make the break up to the next lane - she's a really good swimmer and very tall and lean) was leading the lane, then this guy, then me, then this girl named megan who hadn't been coming the past couple months due to illness. after the first run through of the main set (300, 200, 100) it became very apparent that I needed to get in front of that guy. I was swimming on his toes the whole time. once I got in front of him I was just keeping up with erin. I even got to lead one of the 300's. it felt good. after the workwout erin and I were talking. she was like, "that was such a good workout - it felt good to have each other pushing us so hard." it was a good workout.

what we ate:
dinner afterwards was fantastic too. peter juiced us up a special blend:
4 carrots
1 beet
.5 cucumber
4 big leaves of green leafy lettuce
1 pear

delicious!

I made some pasta, with fresh mushrooms in the sauce, and some winter blend of frozen veggies - broccoli and cauliflower.

it was the perfect way to end a good workout.

the end.

I *heart* treadmills?

I think somehow I became a gym person. I don't know how it happened. I think it might have had something to do with an injury and an ipod. Oh, and poor air quality. Somewhere along the way I started to get excited about going to the gym (aka the community rec center) to do my long eliptical workout, or to try running on the treadmill. It seemed fun because I got to jam out to some tunes and, if I was lucky, watch some kids play hockey! So now I'm just wondering when I'll make the transition back out onto the streets. . .

So needless to say I ran on the treadmill today. I felt like it was a good pace; I probably could have pushed it faster, but I am trying to be cautious with the whole hamstring/ankle/random ailments/failing body/old age thing.

The super fit lady I always see at the gym (she swims masters in a really fast lane) was there. I think that's all she does--work out. It's slightly crazy.

3 (plus a little more) miles
treadmill, slc sports complex
counting crows

movin' up

so today is a holiday, I suppose. which means not a lot of people were at swimteam. so instead of staying in the slowest lane, my friend tori talked me into swimming in her lane.

"come swim in this lane, you can do it. . . I won't lap you. . ."

since it was just her, I agreed. (though it might have been better if there had been more people in the lane, it's just easier that way) and we started swimming. I was holding up pretty well during the first part of the workout.

warm up
8 50's - drill down, swim back
5 100's - descending (the last 100 was supposed to be at the fastest pace you could hold for the rest of the workout)
4 300's - at the aforementioned pace
cool down

the 300's kicked my butt. sure, tori never lapped me per se. . . she never physically swam up from behind and passed me, but I think I was a full 50 behind on some of those sets. at least I kept up in the 100's.

she did teach me a little trick: hold your head up a little so you're looking straight ahead, and not down. it feels a little more awkward since your head isn't in natural alignment with the rest of your body, but it did make me feel like I was swimming faster. so maybe there is some merit to it.

swimteam was hard today while I was doing the workout, but I feel like I recovered really quickly. it didn't kill me for the rest of the night; maybe I'm finally getting into shape.

swimteam: mon12feb2k7

what the swimteam workout was supposed to be:
warmup
8 50's - drill on the way down, swim on the way back (all free-style)
300 - free
8 50's - kick
200 -free
8 50's kick
100 - free
8 50's - kick


because we are so slow, this is what the workout ended up being:
warmup
8 50's - drill on the way down, swim on the way back (free)
300 - free
8 50's - kick
200 - free
6 50's - kick
100 - free
2 50's - kick
50 - cooldown

oy vei, we are slow! I'm hoping one day to make my break into the next fastest lane. . . I think it could happen. maybe even sooner than we think. I just have to be okay with being the slowest person in the lane again. I mean, this extremely pregnant lady could hang in that lane--why not me?!

postponement

The first annual All-County Swimmeet is being postponed to a later date. More details to come.

(Because seriously, how many of you were actually planning on it anyway?)

joint swimteam

As most of you know, I'm Peter's swim coach. He's my team. We have practices, but rarely together. Last night it was a christmas miracle that we could both be in the pool at the same time. It was like a dream come true.

We didn't swim for very long. Peter is getting sick and I'm still recovering. We did some laps, kicking drills, races, stroke technique critics, video analysis, and a hypoxic set or two. It was a lot of fun.

And yes, it's true, I can go the whole length of the pool without taking a breath.

So. . .

Now what? I can't do anything. If it had just been my knee maybe I could work out my upper body. If it had just been my wrist, I could still go running or something. But it's both and I can't do anything.

I better be somewhat healed by December 30th, because that's when training begins for the Fargo Marathon!

random page: entry five.

I found this while wandering around bcdc's intranet, The Goat. There's a link for "random page" which is fun to click on repeatedly to see where you'll end up. I keep hoping it will one day take me to my page on the goat, but it hasn't yet. Anyway, I thought this was interesting. I have no idea why it's on the goat, if it is linked to anything relevant, or if it truly is a random page. I wonder what ever happened to entries one through four and if there are any subsequent ones. Maybe I'll go waste more time looking for those too. At least I look like I might be doing something productive!

Darwinism. Challenging your physical abilities. The curiosity of whether or not you can do it. The exhilaration of accomplishing something you actually questioned, premeditated, were fascinated by, and therefore conquered by means of anguish. Sacrifice is the tool we use to become accomplished. This is natural to some. Shunned by others. It's what sets the potential survivors apart from the easily diminished.

Experience. New experiences. Learning experiences. Progression. Innovation. Adaptation.

If you can't challenge yourself you have given up on life. Whether you succeed or not is irrelevant. Taking a challenge shows integrity. Facing fears shows how strong your will is. Quiting shows weakness. Only you can decide what you want to be. And what you can or can't accomplish. It is this mentality that from the beginning of mankind has created wheels, invented computers, and conquered peaks.

Try something different.

post script: Entries one through four are about this guy's dream of climbing Mt Reinier on his 40th birthday. The posts stop after entry five; I wonder if he ever made it.

swimteam secrets

i lick my hand
to smell your scent
intoxicating like chlorine

I like the smell of the pool on my skin.

All-County Swim Meet

Get out those tightly fitting speedo's, boys.

Girls, don those swim caps.

Because it's time to start training for
the first annual All-County Swim Meet!!!

When: Saturday, January 27th 2007
Where: Steiner Aquatics
Who: Swim teams across the County (that means you! all age groups and skill levels welcome*)
What: Swim fast, win a prize!
Why: Some people seem to think prizes are cool.

*This is a "serious" swim meet. No previous skill needed. Just humor us. Please come swim in our "All-County" swim meet. There will be prizes. Maybe even a trophy. Just please come swim in our swim meet!!!

The Deluxe Annual Family Pass.

We did it. We bought the annaul pass to the Salt Lake City Sports Complex. I have a blurry photo to prove it. Swimteam is back in full force.

Famous Potatoes.

I should be running a marathon this weekend, but I'm not.