Lifting with the big kids

I've been doing this "max strength" phase in weightlifting, which means with every bench press I will either get stronger or drop the bar and crush my larynx. It adds an extra thrill to the process. Every morning I have ever been at the gym there's this very big-armed woman in there, grunting and lifting everything in sight. It's practically empty except for her - always - and the occasional student athlete or soccer mom doing sit-ups. So Big Arms, as I like to call her, never even makes eye contact with me unless I nearly run her down coming around the blind side of the universal machine. She said hi once. That was a big deal. I told my husband: "Big Arms says hi!" Big Arms also has a friend, Burly Man, who starts out in a sweatshirt but soon strips down to his muscle shirt, the better to show off Even Bigger Arms. I wonder about these people. Who are they? What are their sports? Why are they ALWAYS at the gym? Maybe one day I'll ask.

Just keep swimming

Yesterday was an hour's swim at the Rec Center, where heavily tattooed men hang out playing pool on the other side of the glass wall of the swimming pool area. I wouldn't know from personal experience, but I think of it as how swimming in a prison would feel. The pool is on the warm side and too shallow, so I scrape my knees on the bottom if I go too deep on a spin turn, and my spin turns aren't that great to begin with. A good workout though. I'm thinking hard about reaching and gliding, not just powering my way through the water. Itty bitty improvements each time.

I'm also reading some mental training material. At the library I got Sacred Hoops by Phil Jackson - not bad, but very basketball-centered, obviously, and less good for individual sports. Then another one recommended by Jackson called Body Mind Mastery, written by a gymnast. I found it overly perky - possibly overly gymnast-y. The third one is called Thinking Body, Dancing Mind (or maybe vice versa), written by a Chinese athlete and an American marathoner. It's about maximizing performance using Tai Chi and Zen techniques, and I like it much better than the other two. It helps me to think about just letting myself swim, run, ski, etc., rather than forcing myself to go as hard as possible all the time. The 90% rule for example: you get maximum performance when you aren't tensing up, trying to get that last 10% of performance. Go for 90% and you'll stay relaxed and actually improve your overall performance.

On ice

Friday I got up early for more weights and some running on the indoor track at the college. A decent workout, but I'm really getting cabin fever in the nasty cold weather.

Saturday's workout was a quick run over the lunch hour of my hellish bar review. The next time you're tempted to pick on a lawyer, just remember, they too know suffering.

Today all I got was 45 or so minutes skating with my husband and little Bubu, who says he is a hockey player. He's getting better: he'll skate to me without any help, gets up when he falls, lets me skate him around backward. It must be hard to be a little guy who wants desperately to play with the big guys and sees how long a road it is to get there. Come to think of it, I know just how he feels.

Like a fish

My swimming lately is all focused on technique. I'm doing swim-on-your-side, catch-up drill, laps with fins to work on streamlining, counting strokes, everything I remember from Aida the killer Lithuanian coach I had last year. I think it's starting to come together. Yesterday I was doing the minimum possible number of strokes per 25m (something like 16) and still passing the high school swimmer working out in the next lane. Whether this translates to actual race speed remains to be seen, but I feel a lot more comfortable in the water than I used to, and I'm finally managing to do spin turns without nearly drowning myself.

Caucus injury!

My weight training today involved extreme caution so that nothing touched my elbow. Last night at the Iowa caucuses my 220 lb/100 kg husband came crashing down on my elbow, which I had allowed to hang over the armrest of my high school auditorium chair. &*(%%^% that hurts!!! I thought it was broken! Much ice and ibuprofen later I think it will only be a bad bruise. The big hulking man in question has been properly chastized.

Not getting anywhere

I cycled for a full hour this morning and went exactly nowhere, although I did review most of the Contracts outline for the bar exam. Fitness machines, imho, must figure prominently in hell. You're really sweaty, the scenery sucks, you never get anywhere, and it all smells funky. Afterward I was so hungry I ate the following: a candy cane, a Clif bar, a black bean burger, several jalapeno poppers, a few fries, half a slice of cake, and a lot of water. I achieved spiritual oneness with The Very Hungry Caterpillar. I would've eaten more but by then - like the Caterpillar - my tummy hurt. Looking forward to becoming a beautiful butterfly.

A Swim Less Ordinary

Okay, swimming is swimming, especially in winter - you're face down, following the black line, trying to maintain interest by swapping pool toys every few laps or checking out the guy in the teeny Speedo in the next lane. Lucky me, today there was one under 60.

But in order to get the workout I had to bolt early from my mother-in-law's birthday party. The husband and 3-yr-old bolted right along with me and we all went to the pool for a little immersion therapy. Ahhhhh. Bubu hasn't yet embraced the idea of getting his hair wet and Andy isn't very into swimming, so they played in the family swim area while I did laps. The less ordinary bit came about as I popped out of the water every time I heard a shriek to make sure my kid hadn't just thrown himself into the diving well. Old lifeguard habits die hard. I felt like a duck: butt in the air one second, head up the next.

It was a foreshortened workout because of the presence of Bu, but I still got in a warmup, drill set, a hard 300m piece and a cooldown before, yet again, bolting. I tri therefore I bolt. We're playing tennis tonight so all in all I will get up to my goal of 5 hours' training this week. In my world, cross training counts as much as anything. Propping up Bu during Friday night Rock 'n Skate down at the ice arena counts double.

This week is a prep week. Five hours of training, which I interpret very loosely. I've been to the gym a couple of times for weightlifting, working on building maximum strength in things like squats, seated row, and bent-arm lat pulls, because they're like cycling and swimming. I also do core exercises and leg extensions and stretch to excess.

For flexibility I've been doing a yoga DVD featuring this white-haired Indian guru who lives in Alaska and has a young guy demonstrate all his moves. I love it: "Now Philip will demonstrate stretch pose. If you feel yourself shaking, you're getting it right. The original instructions say 'do it until you shake like a leaf'." Meanwhile Philip's not shaking at all and I am in so much pain I can't do it anymore period, whether shaking like a leaf or not. Then at the end there's cheesy inspirational relaxation music and Alaskan scenery. I prefer the Rodney Yee videos, where Rodney himself is scenery aplenty, but I can't seem to find mine. Perhaps my husband hid it?

A few good runs: 45 minutes today at a nice brisk pace because going out along the Iowa River I was into a headwind and wishing I'd worn my parka. There's nothing like a headwind to make you run fast on the way out for warmth, and faster on the way back for gratitude. Apparently I should be doing drills and fartleks, but I'm enjoying putting one foot in front of the other. Why mess with that? I just wish it would snow some more so I could drag out my skis. Winter without full-on ice and snow is the pits. You would never know I was born in California.

My last blog ended in great vengeance and furious anger. I told the truth. I have a great weakness for telling the truth, regardless of how ill-advised it is, and law school failed to cure me. But this blog is entirely about ME - my triathlon training, my rash opinions, and my dog, who by definition cannot sue me. In this carefully delimited subject area I will try to keep things under control.

I'm working out of the Triathlete's Training Bible this year, just worked out my yearly training plan. I did several sprint distance triathlons last southern summer (in Australia, that is), so now I'm suffering through 2 winters back to back after moving up top. I have a 5k planned for February 1, but the main season will be June, July and August. That's what I'm training for.

A minor challenge on the horizon: finding a reasonably accessible pool. I live in a small town (3000 ish people) where the pool is only open in summer. The nearest masters squad is a half hour away and trains at 5:30 a.m. I'm still trying to get my head around the 4:45 am wake-up call. I'm a morning person, but that's not morning. That's a few hours after the late show got over.