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!

bumming

after 3 weeks and 1 day of non-running i decided to give it a try today. apparently, i managed to strain the ligament connecting my right hams to my hip bone and it seems to be taking forever to heal. i feel like i've tried everything- resting, icing, advil, no advil, swimming, no swimming, no walking around in heels, sitting on frozen peas, sitting on heat packs, about 4 different kinds of cream (one of which incidentally gave me an allergic reaction!), acupuncture and yoga- and it's healing but incredibly slowly. which is very difficult for a highly impatient person like me. i downgraded my workout from running to just swimming to just elliptical- can you imagine how boring it is to go on an elliptical for 2 hours?- to just giving up and resting. to be honest, the first week of sleeping in, journaling, enjoying the life outside training, catching up w/ friends, going to a concert, being highly productive elsewhere were a much-needed break for my body and my mind. afterwards, however, i started to feel bummed and weak and envious of people who can run.

so today i decided to give running a try. i put on my running pants and layers, stretched a ton, went outside, a little bit nervous, a little bit excited ... and lasted 2 minutes. for the first 15 seconds i felt fantastic. i felt my body resting into an easy jog and my breath settling into a comfortable rhythm. i missed that so much. then the nagging pain came back and by now i've learned to pay attention to my body, and remembered sb's advice to run until it hurts even if it is just running down the block. so i gave it up and went back to yoga. btw i am awful at yoga, i can't even touch my toes! claudia from swim recommended yoga, and i decided to take her advice since she has strong hips, she says.

cm and sb have been a great encouragement to me, like planning and/or swimming odd workouts with me that are heavy on the pull buoy and fly (since apparently i can do fly w/o hurting) and telling me that things will get better in time. i am trying to train healthy and my goal is to start imlp training 110% healthy even if it means resting more than and starting later than i want to. but i can't deny that, eloquently speaking, being injured sucks. feeling weak sucks. not being "in control" sucks. not being sure about what to eat and what to do with all of my energy sucks.

on the other hand, there is a lot to be learned from this whole ordeal although sometimes i wish i could go back to feeling invincible:
1) i need to listen to my body, and respect how it's feeling even if i feel "silly" about how it's feeling.
2) rest 1 day a week. this is important in resting my body and my mind and for remembering that life has other important things to enjoy and work on.
3) good friends are so important in commiserating with and encouraging me. sometimes i need someone who can see the bigger picture when i am feeling stuck.
4) i really really love movement. feeling like i'm flying when i'm running or floating when i'm biking or chilaxing when i'm swimming. just because i'm not the best at it, or as good as i would like to be, doesn't mean that i can't enjoy it. this- the appreciation for being healthy and active just for its own sake- is something i'd like to keep with me.

blog tag (yes, i am THAT cool)

here are the rules for blog tag, as found on matt's blog.

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

i don't really see the point of rule #6, and i believe the new rule for #4 and 5 have morphed into "anyone who reads this is tagged" so i'll opt for the lazier route.

A-- you are tagged!

6 random things about e:
1) i sleep with my eyes open.
2) i've been in over 20 car accidents (and have NOT been at fault for about 3)
3) i'm on the cover of this book.
4) i could live on peanut butter frozen yogurt.
5) i can (or at least used to be able to) read and write ancient greek.
6) i have a horrible sense of direction.

Photos from San Antonio

Some pics from that weekend:

At the Wedding


At Riverwalk

going on strike

i believe it's been 11 days since my hams started hurting, and drama queen that i am, can't remember what it feels like to run happy. swimming was starting to hurt in spite of my denial (my drug of choice), and it took me a good two days to talk myself into not working out all together for two days at least, until things were at least feeling like they were improving. i feel like i'm telling my legs, no working out until you stop complaining! which means that prospects for philly are not looking bright at all. ::sigh:: what a bummer. but priority #1 is to train imlp healthy and i have until mid-december to get there.

saturday's swim was fun- 4200m w/ a workout full of n/s and desc, in decreasing m's. the end of the set had 5x100 "best average" and i was kind of worried about running out of time to do this, so i did them in the middle and was pretty pleased to note that my 100 times on my own are still more or less what they were before. this time around, i've been working on relaxing by trying to pretend that i'm on drugs, taking longer and wider strokes, and trying to find the "zen of swimming" as one of the tnya coaches had told me earlier this week. i feel like i'm getting the hang of it and am enjoying swimming, in groups and alone. then i went to get a horrendously painful but very helpful massage from my favourite masseuse, christine. christine was quite amazed by how tight my muscles were and laughed at me while i whimpered and she continued to chat away. for a blissful 1 hour afterwards, my leg didn't hurt at all. i'm worried about my advil intake (from 12-16 a day last week) so am trying really hard not to take any more.

after the 45 minutes of torture, i went tv-shopping w/ A and fell asleep while he was making a very exciting purchase.. i am such a supportive gf! it was actually amusing b/c i was napping next to another lady who was sitting on the couch while her man was wandering around the aisles of best buy. then fro-yo with sb, G9, fb and A before the girls went to fb's house to watch sex and the city with soup, fruit, dark chocolate, wine and champagne.

i was determined to sleep in on sunday, and A woke me up at 8:30 -- actually, a couple times before that but i refused to budge -- to watch ironman on his awesome 40" 1080 lcd hdtv (see.. i pay attention) and home theatre. then i did responsible things like work on my budget and work on work stuff. it is so strange not working out. what do people do who don't have a workout schedule...? all of the sudden there is so much time. i.e., when i got home, i cooked (and i use the word "cook" very loosely) two pots of soup, two meat dishes and got tomorrow's breakfast and lunch ready, and did more work so that i could sit on frozen peas. i really hope i feel better soon...all this sitting still and productive-ness is making me uncomfortable.

WHATA...WEEKEND

This past weekend, E and I traveled to San Antonio to attend the wedding of one of my childhood friends. It was a good time all around! The weather was wonderful throughout! I think E was a little surprised on finding out that there are people that actually like me, grumpiness and all. And E being so cute, she was a complete hit with my friend and his extended family. So much so, that the groom's parents wanted to take her with them back to Panama (with or without me, I'm afraid).

They say everything is bigger in Texas, and so would my ass be if we stayed any longer. We had too much food, too much booze, too much partying. But it was so much fun. On a kind of dare, we went to Whataburger to eat the first day of our stay, and then we could not drive past one without yelling "WHATABURGER". My training consisted to 1hr runs, followed by some lifting. Probably not good for the Philly marathon, but what the heck!

Now I'm back at the office, and I'm catching up for the two days that I took off. So i have been only running for 1hr before work, no swimming or anything else. Hopefully I can get back to training on Friday. I have to admit that running Philly has no appeal to me right now, I'll do it because I signed up, but I'm not excited at all by it.

gimp

last tuesday, i set out to do an easy 6 miles on the treadmill, alternating slightly faster and slightly slower. i had been feeling a dull ache in my hamstrings since the previous wednesday but had thought that since i "shouldn't" be sore, i wasn't allowed to be, so i kept going. by mile 2 i decided to stop being in denial and hobbled back to my room to get on the trainer for about 1:40. why? i don't know. by the end of the workout i could barely walk and i felt like someone kicked me with pointy-toed boots. i felt so silly! and spent the whole day downing advil and leaning on things (including the wall) to get around. what a bummer. the irony is that cm had been telling me to lay off the hard workouts this week and save up for the next, but i didn't want to listen.

fortunately, last week was also my free trial week for tnya and i had a ton of fun swimming with the team. everyone is (so far) so friendly and chatty, the coaches give good tips and the workouts are comfortably hard, mixing up the pacing and the strokes. i still detest my backstroke, however, and feel like i'm drowning.

A and i went to san antonio for a hard training weekend of massages, fast food joints, dancing and alcohol (can't have one without the other!), smoothies and nachos. i tried to run on saturday and had a bit of a breakdown b/c i only lasted 16 minutes, and then felt silly for trying to run again. at cm's suggestion, i resorted to pool running, which is actually quite fun but not for too long, and going back to the elliptical and stairmaster at the fitness center. i felt like i had regressed to my "gym rat" pre-tri phase and have not made the best nutritional choices, and am afraid to run if it will set me back on my recovery. so it is back to sitting on ice packs and frozen peas and trying not to feel like too much of a grandma. being human sucks.

sooo your two cents would be appreciated. if you had 3 weekends left until philly marathon but would probably hold off on trying to run until next tuesday so would likely have one weekend of good training before tapering.. would you do it? i'm itching to get into marathon zone and also don't want to waste another bunch of $$ but i don't want to have to stop running and then have the opposite of a runner's high. maybe i could pick a later marathon or just do my own, the latter of which has been done before! but is not as much fun.