My arms won't move anymore

I swear, my swim coaches are trying to kill me.....

Tues night swim practice...

• 200 warm-up
• 4 x 50 breastroke (25 drill, 25 swim)
• 4 x 50 butterfly (25 drill, 25 swim)
• "December to remember set" (she makes us swim one of the more er, challenging events) = 200 butterfly swim (no drill or kick). [this is what killed me. but we have a 66 yr old woman on the team who swims this at meets, so if she can do it, then I should to)
• 400 free, 80% pace
• 2 x 200 choice stroke, 80% pace
• 4 x 100 free, decend slow to fast (my lane crashed and burned at the third one - we weren't any where close to making time)
• 4 x 50 free sprint
• 300 pull cool down

And then 10 hrs later, Wed AM workout:

• warm-up (400 swim, 200 kick)
• 200 IM (25 drill, 25 swim)
• "recovery set" (I begged Jason to give me an easy set since my arms were toast. He said this was a recovery set just for me. But really, this was the set everyone did, and it wasn't easy).
• 8 x 250 free - 100 moderate, 50 sprint, 100 moderate (no rest during the 250)
• cool down

My arms are completely worthless right now. Today should be entertaining.

playing tag

Thanks KT....

1. Link to your tagger and post these rules on your blog.
2. Share 5 facts about yourself on your blog, some random, some weird.
3. Tag 5 people at the end of your post by leaving their names as well as links to their blogs.
4. Let them know they are tagged by leaving a comment on their blog.

So, here goes....

Factoid Numero Uno - I was suspended in the 7th grade for a week for drinking whiskey in school. I avoided death at my mom's hand by playing the "I just wanted attention from my divorced parents" card. Really, I just wanted to drink during school. I was a dumbass, though, and stored it in a glass jelly jar that must not have sealed so well, because well, you could smell the whiskey from 100 feet away.

Factoid Numbero Duo - the first guy I ever slept with is now an ob/gyn. That creeps me out. A lot.

Factoid Numero Tres - I took 4 years of latin in high school and was even JCL president my senior year. I don't remember any of it now. Really, I just signed up b/c it looked good on a resume and we spent a week in Estes Park for the Colorado latin convention. Which sounds like a complete geek fest (and for the most part is was) but I always managed to find some of the less geeky guys and ditch the convention events to go hiking.

Factoid Numero Quatro - I love asian food and could probably eat it at least 4x a week. Vietnamese, japanese, sushi, chinese, thai. I love it all.

Factoid Numero Cinco - ummmm...... why am I having problems coming up with 5 random facts? Weird facts.... um.... Oh, I guess this counts as weird. For the past 2.5 years I've been getting electrolysis for my underarms. Its actually working but really isn't the most comfortable thing to do. Still, beats shaving.

So, there it is!

And now tag - to these people:

Jess (who needs to post more)
Jodi (just because she commented to my post last week)
Paula (hi Paula!, um you haven't updated your blog for a while either....)

And sadly, I can't even tag 5 bloggers, because they either don't post very often, they've already been tagged, or their too big to tag. *sigh*

Why training during December is no fun

Because I now have internal debates on when to work out, due to my social schedule getting in the way.

Friday night we went to a pub crawl - stayed out until 12 AM. Woke up at 11 AM Saturday. It was hot again (whyyy? December in shorts and sweating your ass off is NO FUN. Seriously, just try to be festive while sweating and hanging lights. Its not easy.) It was hot and we had a party Sat night, so I decided my day would be best spent on the couch watching all my TiVo'd shows before the DirecTV guys showed up to switch out our receivers.

We got a HD DVR b/c our 2nd TiVo unit is slowly dying. We got a good deal on it, so hey, why not. Guys were supposed to show up btwn noon - 4. We had the party at 7. Guys called at 2:30 asking if they could show up at 5 since we were last on their list. I told them we had to leave at 6 for the party and they said that they could be done by 6 no problem. Which really wasn't helpful, since I still had to shower and get ready for the party - and that simply wasn't going to happen with random repair guys in my house. They did actually show at 4, but left at 6. They did something to mess up our TV. Its a projection TV, but its one the last projection TVs that were made before flat screens became affordable, so really, its still a pretty nice TV. I still don't know what they did, but I encouraged them to leave by nearly growling and throwing my new remote at them.

Went to the party - it wasn't that exciting. Combined office party with the boss's friends and family. it was um, odd at best, especially since we didn't really know anyone. Got home at 1 AM. Woke up at 11:30.

And since I still had my long run to do, that left Sunday afternoon. My hip is still really tweaky - I think some scar tissue from my 2001 bout of ITBS popped on tuesday and the tendon is really angry at me right now. Seeing as how it was hot out and my hip hurt, I headed to the gym for some quality time on the dreadmill. There were no freaky people there (bummer) and the TV shows that were on were horrible. I had to spend an hour watching DinoLab on Discovery Science (It was either this or ice skating). I cannot imagine having to be an "actor" on this program - it was soooo horrible. Its like they were doing a Jurassic Park experiment but combining it with educational properties instead of slash and gore.

In a futuristic stadium-sized state-of-the-art laboratory/gym, scientists study a remarkably realistic cast of digital dinosaurs and put them to the test - from running on a treadmill and pulling weights to navigating an obstacle course. Outfitted with a 50-metre long motorized treadmill, a massive water tank and a wind tunnel; plus pulleys, cranes and levers for hoisting and manoevering the unwieldy creatures, this environment is the perfect testing ground for paleontologists' latest insights into the lives of dinosaurs. How fast could the T-Rex run? Long considered the biggest, meanest, fastest, strongest killing machine, the T-Rex is pushed to its limits on the giant treadmill. But just what happens when the T-Rex falls at more than 40kph? Also, watch a flying Pterosaur - with a wingspan of eight-to-nine metres - hang-glide in a wind tunnel; and in a glass-walled tank, see how the prehistoric king of the sea, the Plesiosaurus, thrashed its three-metre neck to stun its fishy prey. In addition to testing the mettle of these mythic dino monsters, Dinolab also reveals the surprising connections between some prehistoric creatures and modern-day animals. Consider the Triceratops: How could an herbivorous animal with a thick hide, long horns and large, low-slung belly not be the Cretaceous counterpart to the modern rhinoceros? The analogy is obvious to the most casual observer - but it's also wrong. Experts reveal that the real Triceratops is closer to a cross between a crab and a bull, demonstrating that its quick rotations and lunges made it a fierce match for the T-Rex in battle.

So they have real actors with cattle prods who "encorage" an animated T-Rex into this sub-level box with an open top and a treadmill. Then they turn the treadmill and watch him "run". And a "scientist" scans the T-Rex with some sort of thermal scan. And then they crank up the treadmill speed and T-Rex crashes, gets pissed, and eats an electrical transformer. And at no time does the pissed off T-Rex jump out of the research hold (which appeared to have an open top with open access) and get all slashy with the "scientists". Oh, and they were doing something weird with a velociraptor - backing it into a corner and tossing basketballs and raw hamburger. I wasn't listening to the show to figure out what the hell this "research" was for.

So, um yeah. Good entertainment while spending an hour on the dreadmill!

Hoping that my hip is better and the air temps are back to "cool" for next weekend.

Bad kitty mommy, heat, knees, and possums

Took Swift to the vet Friday afternoon for her annual appointment. She checked out fine, except she has worms, which apparently, come from fleas. I was floored. I’ve had the cats 12.5 years and this has never, ever happened. I don’t know which I feel worse about: The fact that I didn’t notice that my cats had this issue – or the fact that this happened in the first place. Will and I were both surprised, as neither cats have shown any signs of fleas. Sigh

So, my Friday night started with bathing both cats. Which is never a good time. Ernie managed to latch on to my wrist with his teeth and drew blood. But they both got wet and sudsed – while Will was at happy hour. Then the spent the rest of the night pouting.

Saturday consisted of disinfecting / laundering nearly every surface in the house. And putting that horrible flea oil stuff on the cats. Oh, and forcing huge pills down their throats. I should have done my long run on Saturday, but I was so squicked out by the cat situation that I decided my time was better spent cleaning.

Sunday Will raced his car, so I decided to get off the couch and do my long “run”. Pretty much, all signs pointed to “do not pass go”. My digital watch is dead. I need to buy a new one, since the wristband is shot as well. All our AA rechargeable batteries were nearly dead. So I grabbed 3 and hoped that 3 nearly dead batteries would last 2 hrs in my MP3 player. Headed to the trail and it started raining as soon as I got out of my truck. Fortunately, the rain didn’t last very long, but it was 80 degrees out, so the rain just made things miserable and sticky.

My knees ended up being very tweaky after my last long run. They’re very tight on the inside – not sure if its just that I need to stretch more or if its connective tissue is rubbing on something. My 3 mile on Tues was more of a walk, and not a fun one either, due to my knees rebelling. So this time, I decided to walk the first mile to warm up then do slow bits of jogging. My knees still were tight, despite the rest and warming up. At mile 4, I could jog a bit longer but they were still very tight, so I just decided to walk the whole 7 miles. At mile 5, my hips then started to get sore, so I hit the dirt trail for the last 2 miles. It went ok – and as a bonus, I saw a possum.

Got home, stretched, showered. Then went grocery shopping. I do not recommend grocery shopping after a distance set. It really wasn’t fun. But neither is going without dinner or lunch for the week, so I just shopped very slowly…..

I did pick up a bottle of Accelerade – I’m curious to try it out. I can’t really have Gatorade b/c of my hypoglycemia. I appreciate the fact that I’ll need a boost at mile 10 of my half marathon, but I really worry about the sugar and if I’ll crash and burn if I have Gatorade. So, I think on my next long workout I’ll try 8 oz of Accelerade and see how I feel.

The other thing I’m curious to try are the new Cliff Shot Blocks. I think they’ve got goo that’s recovery with protein, which I think would be good during my race. They didn’t have any at the store, though, so I’ll have to hunt around for them.

Swimming today wasn’t bad – it was 50 degrees. I warmed up inside (ugh – bath water temperature) then made the bold leap to the outdoor pool. Workout was another “its cold and Jason doesn’t want to go outside” set. Meaning, he just gives us a very long main set so he doesn’t actually have to go out in the cold and talk to us. Workout consisted of warmup (400 + 200 kick), then 10 x 200 (broken) – sprint the first 50, moderate w/good form for the remainder. Odds free, evens choice. I was pretty proud of myself – I did breast-stroke for my choice. I figure if I’m going to try to swim this at nationals, I need to do more than 50 yards at a time. The air temperature wasn’t too cold, and overall, the workout was pretty good.

Hopefully my knees will be feeling better for my 3 miler tomorrow…..