The slow lane

I'm back at it. This whole week I woke up early to do an hour of core work, and I'm happy to report that I haven't lost everything. In fact, when it comes to yoga/pilates/core work, my strength is there, it not a little shaky at first.

And then there's the endurance part. Yesterday I got in the pool for the first time in almost two months, and in one sense, it went much better than I expected. Freestyle was good; breathing in on my side followed by several strokes breathing out allowed me to take shallow, quick breaths -- as I usually do -- and swim fairly easily. Backstroke, in which my breathing isn't as controlled and uses my full lung capacity, wasn't so good.  My lungs burned and I had to stop to let them calm down.

That was all in the first 10 min., and slowly I made it through just over 40 min. of swimming. Granted, I wasn't going hard or fast, and I had to stop to rest frequently (if only for a few seconds), but I kept it up. Swimming slowly really allowed me to focus on my storke, so that's a plus

The weird thing is that the burning I'm describing had nothing to do with my asthma -- which has been really bad lately -- or anything cardiovascular. My muscles weren't tired and my energy level was good. I just couldn't fill my lungs up with air as much as I wanted -- or needed.

The plan was to try to go to spin tomorrow just to get back on the bike -- I wouldn't expect to keep up. Knowing what I know about cycling and its requiring my lung capacity, I don't think it's a good idea.

I'll get there. I guess it's just going to take a while.

***

I've been scouting what my sprint triathlon would be -- the one I want to have early in the season, June. I'm not so sure it's a good idea at this point. Provided I'm able to go decently hard beginning in April, I'll only have two and a half months. I'd technically be able to complete it, but my time will suck, and I'll get mad about it. Not sure how this'll play out.

Another bullet-list roundup: First week of January

So, blog, it's been a while. Since I wrote last, a few things have happened: 

• I battled my sinus infection and recovered just in time to show my friend Saul from Australia around Chicago. His culinary tour -- he's a foodie, so it was my dream tour guide responsiblities -- including Gino's East pizza, Mixteco Grill, Park Grill for hamurgers, Feast for brunch and, rounding out one of the best night's I've had a in a long time, Blackbird for dinner followed by Violet Hour for cocktails, if only b/c we sorta had a hookup (10 min. wait rather than 2 hours, which we just don't do). Every place we visited was a home run. Clearly there are a lot of topics I can write about here, and maybe I will at some point. I don't feel like detailing the food though at the moment, except to say that Blackbird continues to be an all-around amazing dinner and Violet Hour is just too cool. 
• I loved catching up with my Aussie friend. Brian did, too. Saul's a sociologist and, like me, very interested and fascinated in the normal stuff about a culture, so we spent a day visiting very American things like Jewel food stores, Dunkin Donuts and Target. Yes, I'll definitely have to write about that experience, particularly my trying to shield him from seeing an Oscar-Myer cooked bacon product and answering his puzzled question, "Sara, what are pork chitlins?" Ah, good times.
  
• I'm too lazy to plug in links for this post at the moment. Maybe I'll come back to that.
  
• I stopped doing my flip turns in the pool. They just aren't as smooth and fast as the pseudo-turns I have perfected, and I'm not willing to give that up. 
• My calves and core have really strengthened, and I credit that to my gym: there are a lot more hard core people that I can watch and copy  moves from, and the spin classes are more challenging. I've been more sore, but it's a good sore. 
• I can barely get my heart rate up while I'm swimming these days. I mean, it'll elevate, for sure, but nowhere near what it used to be. Is it because of the longer pool distance making it more difficult for me to hold a sprint? Just being too comfortable at a slower-than-normal pace? I noticed I can't really sprint anymore -- it's like my muscles just don't work that way. Maybe it's because when I do sprint, my arms tense up, and my body hates it. I don't know. I have to work it out. 
• I've had a really good streak at work lately.
• I'm on the fourth book of Twilight, "Breaking Dawn." I almost broke up with "Eclipse" in the last book, when Edward basically tries to hold Bella hostage to protect her. Then he apologize, and I came back. It's like an abusive relationship, I wrote on my Facebook status update, but at least I know the difference between a book and reality -- and do not mirror Bella's behavior. 
• I would totally hook up with Edward. I mean, ya know, if he were in real life and I didn't have Brian. :) 
  
• Have read the thousands of pages in the Twilight series, it's becoming clearer to me why I feel so obsessed with it. Some of it I cannot write here. Some of it is as simple as wanting to indulge in a passionate story about two intoxicating characters (or rather, an intoxicating character and his insecure love).
• Barring random circumstances, I will be in Vegas a week from tomorrow for work. I need to find some dining buddies; my coworker friends who I like to catch up with won't be going. Not that I don't like my coworkers that are going, but I see them all the time and like to use this annual trip as a time to try some good restaurants and see coworkers I don't worth with as closely.
  

I promise to get back into topical blogs rather than this mish mash I'm trying to pass off, guiltily typing away so I don't have a month's worth of news to write in one post.

The Big Olympic Distance Tri Debate

Guess what:
1) I can now do flip turns in the pool!
2) I'm now running twice a week, albeit briefly (up to a mile and a half after a swim).
3) If I want to shave about $40 off the price of the Chicago Triathlon, I have until Dec. 31 to do so -- and thus decide on Olympic distance racing versus another sprint.

The flip turns just came to me one day. I'd technially learned how to do them in college but could never get my breathing down well enough that I felt comfortable turning my body entirely upside down and breathing out. Then this weekend  -- a good 8 years after I'd been taught flip turns -- I said to myself, Sara, you're going to do a flip turn. And I practiced, and it came easily, and I kept practicing. And then I got into a rhytym where I kept 'em up. If I botched one, I'd swim back and try it again. I'm still not as efficient as my pseudo turn I'd adapted over the years, but I'll get there.

The running thing is a big step for me. I figure if I ran twice a week and added a half mile every two weeks I can def. work my way up to six miles. And if I don't have time for all that in the morning -- it would eat into my core training time -- I could do a short run during the week and a longer run on a weekend. This is all a big hope, but we'll see.

And as for the Olympic distance event, I'm nearly there and ready to commit. It's scary. There's a big jump from sprints to Olympic, and I could be finishing the race in a lot of pain. But I just keep the Bangs Lake Aquabike in my head: I did the Olympic distance swim followed by a hilly-and-windy-as-fuck 25-mile bike and felt I could still run. So throw in some training and BOOM, I'm there.

The plan: a sprint in June or July; the Aquabike in July or August (whenver it is); and the Olympic distance at Chicago.

Now I just have to hit register and we're all good.

Spin Class Ass Kicking No. 2

Apparently, I'm not in the shape I was, nor was I taking as difficult a spin class as I thought at the Y. I went to spin this morning -- this class didn't have the hard-core instructor! -- and was once again barely able to keep up. Again.

But I'm good at hills! And I place in the top 10 percent for the bike on every race. Wtf?

I can only blame my bike and getting used to the gear settings so much; this is just a different breed of spinners at my new gym.


Good thing it's better to train with the best!

****

Speaking of spin, I'm not that thrilled with the morning instructor. She just jumped into class without stating a plan, e.g. "Today we're going to work on our endurance" or what have you, and she did a lot of jumps, where you stand out of your seat and sit down on counts of 4 to 8, usually -- or in her case, one-second counts. Jumps are dumb. They don't mimic outdoor cycling and hurt your knees.

I guess I should be thankful I have the 5:45 a.m. spin class and that it gets my heart rate up. Woot.

Goodbye to My Gym

This morning I said goodbye to the Y, finally making the plunge to work out at Brian's gym full-time. It's bittersweet, for all the reasons I've written. But I'm mentally there, which was a big step.

I've had my new membership card since the beginning of November and immediately began swimming in my new pool, which is 1,000 times better than the Y's. A 25 meter pool that is constantly open for lap swim made it an easy transition. But I couldn't give up spin class until today, even though the Monday instructor's workouts haven't been doing it for me for a while, and even though my new gym features more classes. The bikes are nicer at my old gym. And more importantly, I like the people.

Oddly, top of mind is Lila (name's changed), a mentally challenged and bi-polar woman who comes every single morning and I think in the evening, too. She has a habit for blurting out really disturbing parts of her past in the middle of a conversation, and she sometimes calls you out on things -- she finds them at 5:30 in the morning, believe it or not -- that no other person would bring up. But she's a positive force and always means well. I made a point not to let her know I was leaving until the very second, afraid she'd tell people -- and with the wrong facts -- before I could. She found out in class, and as I left she told me she'd miss me, and I actually reciprocated the sentiment genuinely.

We also have Elaine, a Jewish woman with a lot of spunk and energy. She's a workout diva, and even though we're not in the same circle, per se, she was always excited to include me on invitations to her jewelry parties and whatnot. She wanted to swap emails b/c she said I'm motivating her to do the Chicago Triathlon. She's 10 times more in shape than I am, but apparently she likes the push. I'm happy to help.

I'll really miss Diana. I'm not the only one stupid enough to travel to the Y at 5 a.m. in the middle of an ice storm; Diana does the same thing. She has a genuinely calming and nice presence that unites everyones.

I made sure to say goodbye to Carol, a woman who used is ALWAYS smiling, last Friday, when I started telling my Y friends I'd be leaving. She once referred to me as the perfect little sister she never had. Hah! If only she were around me all the time. Carol used to come twice a week, but now is lucky to make it to one morning class -- and not the one I take. If I had continued to see her regularly, there's a good chance I would still be at the Y.

I can't forget Bert, or Stan, or Amy, or Stacey, who swiped our cards in the morning and had mine memorized. Or Megan, the instructor with great interveral workouts and whose music taste matched my perfectly. The last class of hers I went to she even played nearly an entire class of songs I had swapped with her. Ironic -- it made it hard to leave!

In fact, it's the people above, and the other people whose names I never learned, that I loved seeing every morning for two-and-a-half years. If any of us were gone for a week, we'd inquire about what was new.

I didn't mention KC yet, and on purpose. KC is 75-year-old woman who's at the pool every morning. But don't get an image of an elderly lady in your head. KC was a weight-lifting instructor and swim teacher with no body fat. She rides her bike to the Y every morning except in the snow -- possibly the rain, if it's light enough -- from Devon to School. She teaches at multiple gyms, too, and knows everything and everyone. She's a striking woman -- silver hair that would make any gray-haired person envious and very high cheekbones -- with a history of raising kids, living all across the U.S. (including Alaska), and sports. Lots of sports. In her 40s she took up figure competitions b/c she was bored. She'd been on basketball teams and was an official Red Cross lifeguard for years, too. There's more to her that I don't even know.

Don't get me wrong, she wasn't perfect. Sometimes KC got annoying. She was very entitled to her opinion and occassionally would spout off on the way my generation is handling things. Sometimes she wouldn't shut up, and all I wanted to do was *not* talk. But you couldn't help but appreciate her. She'd offer me personal training tips (did I mention she's a personal trainer, too?) when I was injured and she could tell I was still trying to work out,  and she always had a story to tell to back up her argument.  Pointless chatter is not in KC's repetoire.

The day after my boss was fired, I went to work out despite not having any sleep and feeling sick. After swimming a mere three laps, I left the pool. That morning she had tried to be chatty and talk, and I gave her a really dirty just-leave-me-alone look while I answered whatever her question or comment of the day was. I was so busy feeling sorry for myself I didn't even feel bad for being rude.

The next couple weeks I was barely around the gym -- I was sick, had a business trip and also started swimming at my new gym -- so I didn't see KC for a while.  When she did finally see mer, she took a good look and asked, "Sara, how are you. The day you got out of the pool, I knew something was wrong. I said, Sara never gets out of the pool. I've been so worried about you."

I felt horrible and thankful for her at the same time. I filled her in, and she was understanding and glad to hear things were going better. She related about life -- as she always does -- and said I was justified in everything I felt. This is all in a quick conversation at 5:20 a.m.

She's representative of the people at the Y. If someone fell out of habit, we'd check in. We care about each other's well-being and like having each other around.

Elaine asked me if I were going to do the Tour de Farms with the Y team this year -- I really wanted to last spring but had my cousin's wedding to go to -- and provided I'm allowed to join their team, I just might do it. It would be great to see the people I'd come to know as my Y family. Lord knows my new gym won't have that same community, but we shall see.

Another Season Down, Almost Injury-Free

I found out today that I have ulnar neuritis. The name sounds a lot worse than it is, but basically the nerve that runs on the outside of my arm from my elbow to wrist has been aggravated, and I need to rest it. It's a common sport injury from tennis, cycling and swimming. I do two of the three.

The good news is that it isn't painful, per se, but it does make the top of my wrist, fingers and forearm tingle and ache. When you're a writer like me or finishing up a triathlon season, like I was when the problem started, it's hard to rest it.

The timing is good, b/c I go easy in September, but it's bad b/c I'd really like to be able to get outside more for fun rather than just quit altogether. I don't have to go cold turkey, but if I want to jump back into a routine in October, I need to lay off. I need exercise to keep me happy, so this'll be a challenge.

Most athletes get injuries of some sort much worse than mine, and I'm amazed that they're able to push as hard as they do until something does pop up. I don't consider myself a die-hard athelete. I do work out regularly and push myself, but I'm not going hard-core distances. I'm above the casual athelete but not much more serious.

I feel like as soon as I get into something and push myself, my body reminds me that it's just not cut out for going hard. When I got into running faster and farther -- up to 5 miles regularly -- that's when my knees freaked out. Even physical therapy and strengthening my muscles didn't cure me enough. I basically can run 3 miles with minimal pain.

When I cycle, I'm cardiovascularly able to go farther than I do. But then my knees kick in and remind it's time to take it easy.

If I swim too much, no matter how much or what variety of stretching I do, I start to get muscle damage.

So I feel stuck in this range, with improvement in going harder but for shorter periods, or going longer but not as hard. Can't do both. I'd love to be able to train for an Olympic Distance triathlon, but considering the small increments I'm able to push myself, it seems like it would be more painful than fun. And it's always supposed to be fun, right?

But I'll try! I'll keep at it. And in the meantime, I'll rest up. Gotta listen to my body to stay injury-free.