happy birthday to me!

me and the 2 bros in 1987.

birthday swim today! compliments of cm. can't wait:

E-easy 200 warm up
S-scull 300-25 scull, 25 swim w/ buoy
T-tenx25 kick w/ fins on :45
H-Have no mercy!!! 10x100 free on 1:45
E-Eightx25 fly on :45
R-Relax! 200 relax like your on drugs

2-2x200 free on 3:30
7-7x50 choice on 1:15

cooldown 100-200

it's all in the suit!

i've put away my running shoes for a while and decided that i may as well buy a new swimming suit since i'll be spending more time in the pool and my old one had been starting to fall off me a few months ago. so for the first time in 10 or so years i bought myself a one-piece that doesn't make me look like a 13 year old girl..and it feels so nice to swim and not feel my suit fluttering in the water. way to go, hydrodynamics! that and working on a pushup regimen- that i just found out i am doing wrong since i can't go all the way down- is really helping me to feel stronger in the water. sb, G and i did 12x50 pull on 0:30 yesterday and we were rocking those. sb and i had started out doing them in about 0:26 about a month ago and now are down to 0:21 and 0:22. and during today's swim w/ tnya i actually hit my personal best of 1:26(ish)on a 100. although note to self: don't do pushups before swim. it feels so good to be actually working towards something better rather than working on recovering!

speaking of the latter, sunday's swim started out w/ 30 mins pool running with cm's brother paul. i felt like i was working out with someone famous from the way cm talks about him. he was doing real pool running and rather quickly and i was doing this half-run half-sculling thing to keep up w/ him so we could chat. i know, i know, no cheating. but it was fun. my legs were actually tired after pool running and swimming w/ fins yesterday. but it felt so nice to be using my legs.

i got a strict reminder from cm to stick w/ im training schedule as much as possible even if it means not getting to work out w/ the thph crew. ::sigh:: she is right.

and for christmas from my favorite boyfriend, i got an HR monitor! it is so cute.. it's pink! can't wait to use it!

my first stress fracture

i went to the doctor's today hoping/expecting he would give me either:
1) a shot and say, "ok all better!"
2) a butt-cast..that would be funny!
3) info that i already knew, e.g., that my leg pain was muscular and i needed to chill out. or that i am not supposed to run, ever.

but i braved the snowstorm anyway to go all the way to mid-town to my appointment and to get an x-ray. after telling him a little peevishly that it originally starting hurting "here" (pointing to my right sit-bone) and sometimes "here" (pointing to my right hamstrings) but lately has been hurting "here" (pointing to my left hip) and a few days ago "here" (pointing to my left and right ankles), he poked around a bit, took a look at my x-ray and said, "this is interesting! just what i thought." a stress fracture on my sit-bone. i stress fractured my butt!

WHAT!

my first thought was, "this is going to take forever." i sat down on the step stool (i don't know why i sat there instead of on a chair) and started crying. this is not what i want to hear! what a girl. he said it probably happened if i suddenly changed positions when i ran/biked. he was actually quite animated in explaining how exactly one gets a stress fracture and was very encouraging, showing me that it was already healing and that once you get a stress fracture, your body adds bone outside of that area so that as you heal, you actually get stronger than before. and that i can do any exercise so long as it doesn't require putting a lot of sudden pressure on my right foot, meaning i can swim, bike (!!), lift. i'm not quite sure why he says i can do all that if my stress fracture was caused by my hamstrings pulling from different places unevenly. i need to get a better bike fit and a new seat that's wider and more comfy.. G suggested i get a bike seat w/ a donut! how awesome would that be.

other things that help are acupuncture, yoga, a ton of stretching, and no more anti-inflammatories since for your bone to heal, inflammation is good. now that i am cleared to swim and bike, i am feeling better. the most worrying part about IMLP- and i'm assuming that i'm still doing it- is the bike so i'll be glad to give it a try.

i feel better knowing what's up although not excited about waiting even longer to get better. i am seriously racking my brain trying to figure out what exactly i did to get myself into this mess b/c i want to prevent it as much as possible next time. perhaps it's a combination of not warming-up and cooling-down properly, not stretching enough, not weight-training, even perhaps not giving myself off-days (which i hate to admit). i was frustrated b/c i felt like i was actually fixing my bike and run positioning..but i guess my body is not as strong as my mind.

after the doctor's appointment, i really really didn't want to swim b/c of the snow, but then i wanted to do cm's "snowman" swim. i believe i got it all done but in a different order, more like "nnowmas" b/c i was impatient to do the 500s and not excited about the scull. i did 3 or the 4x25's w/o breathing and have to check on the length of the pool b/c it seems too big for a 25yd but my times were not right for a 25m. btw, not breathing does a lot for streamlining! i have been wondering why i feel like i'm not on my game at the chelsea pool and i think it's b/c the pool is so dirty. talk about a hairball family! but if i can swim well there it will be good for me. although it would also be good for me to stop drinking the water every time i breathed. someone got into an interesting-but-lengthy conversation with me about relating the economy and astrology and spirituality, then the lifeguard, since he "likes my attitude", gave me an art book. i think i need to practice my "don't talk to me unless you want your head bitten off" face.

there is so much i want to try- like the water polo class at the dirty pool and G's inten-sati class that she loves so much. but i guess i have enough to keep me entertained for a while.

no complaining policy

i had an epiphany this morning that when people complain incessantly they are actually saying, "it's not my fault and there is nothing i can do about it" (and at my office it is usually implied, "so you do something about it.") it seems like a wimpy way out. so i'm going to institute for myself a "no complaining policy." the title may be a little extreme, b/c i actually mean that i can't complain unless i can say what am i going to do about it. you are welcome to keep me accountable with this..until i tell you not to. heheh. if i'm ever brave enough i may start instituting this policy at work with other people. "so..what are you going to do about it?" i'm learning that people may give me reason to be upset but ultimately my life is my responsibility and i can choose how i will react. or that even if i have reason to be upset or unhappy, i'm allowed to feel how i feel and then i need to decide, "ok, what am i going to do about it?" i think that will also help me develop some emotional boundaries, as in, not let it bring me down when people have negative attitudes. this will also be helpful when i go to massive family reunion time in tx. and instead of worrying incessantly about my leg and the drama of "when am i getting better?" i'll just have to respect that it hurts and give it time to heal. in the meanwhile will be having fun trying to stand on my head in yoga, taking bubble baths every night and doing pushups and ab-work until i can feel it all day. hey, if i can't run/bike i may as well prep for it!

of course, i am allowed to have my venting sessions every now and again. and of course, i actually enjoy listening to other people's venting sessions- just not incessantly- b/c it makes us all human.

i went to TNYA swim today for the first time since the last week of October. and even if it takes me an hr and 10 mins to get to the Wednesday TNYA pool, i love swimming!! i put myself in the slowest lane (there are only 3.. and lane 1, the fastest lane has only one person but his 100's descend start on 1:20) for the warmup, decided that i would try the middle lane again and ended up swimming well. i didn't really check the clock (such a relief to not be the lead!) but i believe our whole lane stayed w/in our intervals meaning that we stayed around 1:40 on the 100's. i actually kept bumping into the person in front of me until i was the 2nd in line. oops! the tnya people are super friendly and nice and it is just nice to swim with people who can push you but don't bring their egos into the pool. i would like to get to an average of 1:35 for 100's w/in a few months (i think i'm close!) and then maybe 1:30 before the end of next tri season. is that doable? there is a 1-hr swim on jan 24 or 25 and i think it would be fun to try. even more exciting is that TNYA does water polo every tuesday night. wouldn't that be fun to try out? some day...

wanted: new obsession

i love planning the next weekends. swim w/ sb, G and cm have been fun. sb is catching up so that originally got me scared, thinking, "swim faster!!" but has become better motivation for focusing on technique and moving forward. way to go, dude! and w/ cm's sets, i've been doing tons of fly in the limited amount of time that i'm "allowed" to swim.

maybe it's time to think of some contingency plans. it's been 7 weeks since no running and it's really been a bummer. every day i wake up thinking that everything is going to get better today but i wish sometimes that i didn't want to get better anymore. yesterday was the first day of IMLP training...which will have to get pushed back to who knows when. i need to decide when is the absolute cut-off point for deciding not to do IMLP. and then really really pray that i don't get to that point! i love running on christmas morning and on esthermas morning but it seems like that is not going to happen. i finally gave in and am working on booking an appointment with a sports orthopaedic surgeon. i was a little scared off from seeing sports doctors b/c the last time i saw one, he told me, "maybe you're just not meant to be a runner." so of course i had to prove him wrong! but i don't want to be told that again. we'll see.

on a random note, since i'm a veggie lover, here is the cutest t-shirt that my little brother showed me from woot.com:

27 going on 70

happy month of esthermas, everyone! i love celebrating my birthday, especially since i get to count down all the way to new year's eve eve and have something to look forward to after christmas.

the acupuncture is actually working, and so is resting, sitting on heat packs and taking hot baths. resting is such a tough job! the acupuncture guy told me to buy a donut to sit on and i finally gave in after he nagged me a couple times. i was so embarrassed to ask for it at the drug store and pretended it was for my grandma but when i actually used it at work.... "haaaalelujah!" WOW. you have no idea how much sitting on your butt is tiring on your butt until you get one of these! i loved it so much i bought one for my car, shamelessly going to the drug store, browsing amongst the canes and wheelers and feeling like by the time i am really an old lady, i'll be well equipped.

i can't wait to be 100% better but feel like my body has been teaching me a very tough lesson to listen. i was rather amused by myself when i was laying on the acupuncture table w/ needles in my butt, recounting to the acupuncturist that i had run edinburgh marathon and the nyc marathon and was trying to go faster so i hurt myself and couldn't do chicago or disney..and then was trying to run philly but hurt myself training so i couldn't do it. that was finally when i realized, i guess it's time to train smart. duh!

but i can finally swim w/ less pain. i went to watch cm's meet with sb and when cm asked me to count her 1500 i was like, "heck no! i can barely count to 200" as sb can testify during our practice that morning. thank goodness we had those signs that you can use to change the numbers..but still i was pretty nervous and trying to concentrate on counting her laps while my neighbour chatted in my ear. cm's santa suit certainly stood out among the plain speedos and i felt so proud of her that she was going to do well and have fun. cm did a fantastic job as usual and sb took 134312748301957 photos as usual. then i got my free and fly videotaped for only $10, very well spent. top 2 things to learn for both strokes are to:
1) swim in a tube (smaller kicks, don't go so deep w/ your arms, don't move your head too much)
2) focus on moving forward rather than up and down (makes sense, doesn't it)

it was actually a pleasant surprise to watch my fly since i feel like i'm flailing all over the place when i swim fly, and i actually looked like i knew what i was doing. whew!

sunday i swam a bit w/ cm until she got pooped, then we did abs and stretches (thank goodness for cm's stretches) until G and sb got to the pool. since EVERYONE wanted to time their 1500s i thought why not and had a lot of fun. i believe i finished in 26:10 which i thought was rather miraculous considering i hadn't worked out consistently for about 5 weeks (gasp!) but it feels soo good to swim. the 3 of them had to practically pull me out of the water afterwards but i'm glad i was told to stop b/c i was running out of gas.

on a side note, i dug up some old photos.

this is my funny family a couple years ago, although my now sister-in-law is missing:


here's my brother and sister-in-law a few christmases ago, giving me the garment steamer that i subsequently brought to england and broke upon usage the first time b/c i didn't understand the difference between an adapter and a converter.


here is me jumping into a "holy" lake in tibet, apparently the highest lake in the world and you weren't allowed to swim in it..but it looked so beautiful i had to go in!


this is when my friends in london decided to throw me a surprise party and hire a stripper. i was so embarrassed!