Cross Training

I must preface this by saying that I am not a dancer, nor have I ever been a dancer.

My husband on the other hand...

He works as the Youth Director at our church. He does a fantastic job and the kids seem to love him. He is patient, he is goofy, he pushes the envelope with them but only up to a point. He knows exactly where to draw the line and he is creative. Seriously, he even ate a dragonfly last year on the mission trip because the kids dared him to.

He is taking 25 kids and 5 adults with him this summer on a mission trip to Alaska. They are going to work at a family camp and immerse themselves in the culture. I am SO jealous but someone has to stay home to watch the dogs and make some money! =0) Anywho, two weekends ago the youth department put on a variety show to make money to send the kids to Alaska. Most of the acts were high school kids singing, playing instruments, one group put on a game show skit. They did a super job. And then there was my husband. He talked me into helping him with a dance skit that he had seen on YouTube called Evolution of Dance. He made quite of few of his own additions and took out some of the dances that were either inappropriate for church or that the senior high kids wouldn't recognize. It took him two weeks to put together the music and we spent 6 hours the Saturday before practicing. (That totally counted as my workout for the day. That and the 45 minutes of XC skiing that morning.) So without further ado, I thought I would pass along a great form of cross training that you can do at home in your living room with all the furniture pushed to the walls. Working out is about having fun and being healthy. So, go have fun!

Swim, then swim again

As I was swimming with Masters this evening I was thinking about counting laps. When I am seeing out-patients in the clinic, I usually have them count their reps. If I ask them how many they have done and they say, "oh 5 or 6", I make them go with the lower of the two. The patients learn quickly that they should keep track. This is the same way that I swim. And you know what? It really makes me want to keep track more closely. In a way, I feel like if you swim enough yards each practice, 50 here or there shouldn't make that much difference but then the triathlete/PT in me kicks in and I think, every single yard, every single minute counts. So I came up with a solution.
One day my coach had me swimming the following as part of my workout...

1x250 (hard)
1x500 (medium hard)
1x750 (medium)
1x1000 (race pace)
1x750 (medium)
1x500 (medium hard)
1x250 (hard)

I did okay keeping track of the 250s and the 500s. That 1000 is where I start to lose count. I began to use the alphabet. 1A, 2B, 3C, 4D, etc. As I swim my first lap I think of all the words I can that start with the letter A; muscles, names, places, things, etc. Lap 2 is the letter B and so on. And if in fact I do get confused I always go with the lower of the two yardages I am wavering between. A good way to review anatomy, practice for Scategories, and keep track of laps.

A quick update: Kona is doing well. I mentioned two entries ago that she cut her foot open. After 4 trips to the vet we finally got the OK to change the bandage ourselves. She still has to wear her satellite dish collar and the stitches don't come out for at least another week but we've got it down to a science. She even has a little boot that she has to wear outside in the snow so things don't get wet. The vet jokingly told us that he would totally expect that a PT would have a boot like that for their dog. Ha ha.

Sara Reinertsen - Ironman Finisher

My favorite triathlete of all time! She may not have made the cut-off the first time but she was a superstar the next year. That and she is totally ripped! =0)

3rd week of Feb - 5, Katie - 0

Man, what a week~

Parents of children I see upset, teachers with the mid-winter blahs, kids who have cabin fever, my own absent-mindedness, the list goes on and on. And yet, I still wanted to go to work every day this week. If that isn't a sign of loving your job, I don't know what is. Let me give you a taste of the week...

Monday

Tuesday - a.m.~ Got all the way to work (about 30 min) and realized I forgot my entire life at home in a bag on the floor, calendar, progress notes, goal pages, to do notebook, etc. Turned around, hour late getting started.
p.m.~ Got stuck at work for an extra hour (karma?) and missed my masters swim group, supposed to go to a presentation for work so no extra time. Got home, tried to burn the house down by way of the microwave. Smoke filled kitchen, smelly mess. Got in the car realized I smelled like a burnt black bean burger, turned around and went home. (Did get an 1 1/2 ride on the trainer in though.)

Wednesday - Backed out of driveway, hit empty trash can. Jumped out, fixed things drove away, realized I forgot my pager and nametag, turned around, went back, couldn't stop laughing hysterically. My husband thought I was losing it.

Thursday - Was spoken to sternly by a teacher when I mentioned a student might have weakness (she ademantly disagreed), got her to agree to the fact that his legs and cardiovascular system are not very strong... i know... whatever. Got a phone call from a parent who was so mad my officemate could hear her voice through my telephone about something very minor in the greater scheme of things.

Friday - Growled at my husband in the morning for no good reason. Apologized profusely several times during the day.

Saturday - Took dogs to dog park for a good run in the mud and slime before the winter storm hits and ended up at the Emergency Animal Clinic 30 minutes later with blood all over my backseat. Kona sliced her foot open and is currently in surgery to repair the laceration. They had to anestitize her, I felt so incredibly bad about it. I am not a crier, but I cried all the way home. How am I ever going to have children, I'll be a wreck!

Anyway, I am looking forward to Monday and the start of a new week. What gets us through these sort of weeks? Knowing that all you really need to know for tomorrow is what your workout is. For me, it is comforting to know that after work, I am going to the pool to swim with my head under water where I can't hear what anyone else is saying or thinking. Hard to yell at someone underwater. I want to get on my bike and just ride, tucked down in the aero position against everything, one big hill. And I look forward to running, to the sound of one foot fall after another and if I am lucky, a new podcast on my iPod!

So happy workouts, be glad that you are able to do them and that you have something that is just for you. Anticipation keeps us each moving forward.

Muddy Run

Went running today with my doggies. Now, I know that some of you out there in the warmer climates will think this is crazy. For instance, I know from the Zen podcast that the temperature in Austin for the 1/2 marathon was about 30º but that seemed warm to us here in the Midwest today. The sun was shining and the snow was melting and it was a slushy, muddy mess. There is still at least 6-12 inches of snow in most places but the sidewalks and streets were like streams with water running every which way. I was so happy that the wind chill was above freezing (33º) that I wore shorts, no hat and no gloves and felt fine! The dogs kicked up all sorts of water and mud on me but it was so wonderful to not have to wear 40 layers, that I didn't care. Anyway, we had a great run, faster than we've been running recently and although I am sure we will have more snow through March this was a nice taste of Spring.

A great Saturday

Still cold and still snowing, but I just love it. April will feel so good when it gets here. This is not as triathlon related as it could be but I had a rest day today and it was wonderful. I spent the majority of it with my husband. Just seems like there are very few days when we get to hang out all day doing whatever we want to do. We went on a long walk with the dogs, to the LBS to drop off his Specialized for an overhaul/tune-up, did some other piddly errands and just generally had fun together. He even agreed to take a mini vacation in early April! Yay! It is my job to locate the perfect destination and the almost perfect price. I am thinking Sanibel Island or San Diego. I have never seen the ocean, so that is the main goal, and really can you put a price on your wife seeing the ocean for the first time? =0)

I also got two new gadgets today. I was very excited to finally pick up a wall charger for my iPod mini. It just doesn't charge well with the computer because when the computer sleeps the iPod stops charging. So yay. The second was a belated Valentine's Day gift from my husband. We had been talking about it for a bit but he went ahead and bought an iRobot today. The brand name is Roomba (see picture above) and it is a robotic vacuum cleaner. You set it to run during the day when you are gone or whenever. It vacuums and then finds it's way back to its docking station to recharge. I am currently waiting for it to fully charge but I will let you all know how it works after we use it a bit. This is very exciting because there is no way that I can keep up with all the dog hair on our wood floors no matter how many times I sweep. Super cool.

And so, tomorrow, back to the training. Ready and refreshed.

More soon, keep on keeping on.

A look down in

Well, here I am on Sunday morning. Frigid outside, -11º after church. I logged almost 5 hours in the pool this week which is pretty darn good for me but had to drop the running pretty much cold turkey in the middle of the week. You guessed it... injured. The same problem that seems to pop up when I quit taking care of the details; old shoes, iced over/bumpy/uneven running surface, too much mileage increase too fast, not enough stretching. Sesamoiditis is the injury that I am, for some reason only known to the higher power, prone to. It is not all that painful at the moment, just nagging and annoying but I know that if I power through (which I tried to do on Wednesday) it will just add to the number of days I need to rest (as it did on Wednesday).

So I am swimming, lifting weights, riding the trainer, and doing some core work. I also find myself to be contemplating bigger things.

•Why do I do this, this 8-9 hrs of training each week?

•How do I answer when people ask me why I get up in the dark with 15 mph wind and -25º wind chill to go run outside? They wonder why not stay warm and cozy in your bed or at the very least, they say, "if you must run, go find a treadmill". Why can I only shrug my shoulders and mumble, "I just don't really mind any of that, or I am up anyway, might as well go for a run"?

•Do I do this to bring meaning to my life? I was a gymnast growing up, lived it, breathed it, loved it. That was who I was. When I aged out at 18 years old climbing became my new love. I climbed in college day in and day out for hours I would solve boldering problems and hang in the rafters at the local climbing gym. I found people that loved things that I loved. We rode our bikes everywhere, we buildered all over town, we went on road trips, we played hours of Frisbee, and most of all we were so comfortable with each other we were like family. Climbing was who I was. When I graduated, I had to leave most of that behind (many of those same people are probably still there, graduation not even part of their plan). =0)

•Both literally and figuratively I ask myself, what will be around the next corner? It is why I love to bike and run. Where will this ride take me? What is next in life?

•If I slow down, though, I begin to remember why I have loved all the activities that I do. Because while you are doing each and every movement on the balance beam, scaling the face of a large piece of sandstone, or running in the below zero weather, there you are. Just you, doing what you need to do to move forward. There are things behind you who make you you and there are things ahead of you that you can hardly see in the distance but what is important at the moment is whether or not you take the next step or stroke. No one can make you continue, it is by sheer will and the power from inside of you that moves you forward both during training and through life.

I remind myself to enjoy the life that I have and to create for myself the life I want.

Keep on keeping on.