While living in Utah I took an Emergency Medical Technician course. As part of the course I had to spend 3 evenings in the ER observing the doctors and paramedics. One night a woman came in after her horse had nudged her shoulder and dislocated it. It was several hours before she came to the ER and her muscles surrounding the injury were in spasm. The doc gave her an intravenous sedation and she went immediately unconscious. As she started to slump, her arm popped back into place. It seemed that allowing her muscles to relax, enabled her bones to realign. After another injection, she came back into consciousness and asked how long she had been out. The whole thing took less than 5 minutes.
I realized today that I have been saying, "battling it out in the water." I've been reading and studying appropriate technique for swimming, but not aligning or progressing.
Today was different. With the advice and care of well practiced swimmer, I was able to break through a barrier. "Swimming is all mental. Make your stroke as monotonous as possible and just keep doing it; soon it will be like walking. Breath every other breath if you need to. You're kicks are huge, try to make them flutter."
It's nice to feel like now I can progress! Thanks DA!
Foodwise: Intake 2523 calories. We went to Disneyland with friend Tiffany and had the seafood crepe at Cafe Orleans. They were tasty. Output 1053 calories, plus whatever I burned up walking around Disneyland.
Weigh in. Yah... not too proud of this 224.5. Sometimes stuff like that is cyclical. All in all I have lost a half inch on my hips, a half in on my waist, an inch on my thigh, and gained an inch on my bicep. If we look at the mass, rather than the weight, then I can be pleased! Lovin' the way my clothes fit...
Showing posts with label swimming. Show all posts
Showing posts with label swimming. Show all posts
Monday, October 18, 2010
Wednesday, October 13, 2010
Day 13: Tunnels
Technically the pool wasn't open this morning as we turned the key in the lock. There were no lights to illuminate our swim practice, and the sun wasn't up yet.
Technically, after only four hours of sleep, I could have been justified staying in bed that extra hour to sleep (justified by whom?). I actually tried to stay in bed, but my brain was summoning my body into motion. No sense fighting inert will power. Besides, I have a race to run--in something like 135 days! Yikes!
The King of Sharks fell in love with a mortal woman. He changed himself into a man and married the woman. Nanave was the son of the King of Sharks and that mortal woman. As a young man, Nanave swam in the waterfall beside his mother's hut where he would disappear for hours. He often asked the local fisherman where they were headed to fish that day. Nanave would disappear into the waterfall. Eventually the local fisherman were unable to catch any fish and decided they had a bad god among them. A tricky little test proved that Nanave was that bad god. He was chased to the waterfall where he disappeard. Nanave's father, the King of Sharks, had created a tunnel from the waterfall into the sea.
If I had a tunnel running from my pool to the sea, could I get there? Not in one breath. Swimming today was great. I'm working on slowing my stroke and making it more effective. I'm also working on kicking.
When bowling, there is a four-step pattern. Swimming has the same sort of thing-6 kicks to one stroke and a breath on every third stroke. This and keeping my head slightly down, my tail up, and my arms reaching to roll from the waist. I want this to become mechanical, ingrained in my muscle memory. With my bike still in the shop and my Achilles tendons still tender, swimming and yoga are all I've got for the present.
Foodwise: Intake 2623 calories. JE showed up at my work this morning with a loaf of Boudin Sourdough bread still warm from the oven. I think it must have been a bit torturous for a couple of my coworkers who are on low carb diets. In fact, K. had been making verbal lists of the foods he wanted most only an hour previously. Warm sourdough with a dollop of butter topped the list. Poor guy!
Output: 849 in the pool and on the mat.
Technically, after only four hours of sleep, I could have been justified staying in bed that extra hour to sleep (justified by whom?). I actually tried to stay in bed, but my brain was summoning my body into motion. No sense fighting inert will power. Besides, I have a race to run--in something like 135 days! Yikes!
The King of Sharks fell in love with a mortal woman. He changed himself into a man and married the woman. Nanave was the son of the King of Sharks and that mortal woman. As a young man, Nanave swam in the waterfall beside his mother's hut where he would disappear for hours. He often asked the local fisherman where they were headed to fish that day. Nanave would disappear into the waterfall. Eventually the local fisherman were unable to catch any fish and decided they had a bad god among them. A tricky little test proved that Nanave was that bad god. He was chased to the waterfall where he disappeard. Nanave's father, the King of Sharks, had created a tunnel from the waterfall into the sea.
If I had a tunnel running from my pool to the sea, could I get there? Not in one breath. Swimming today was great. I'm working on slowing my stroke and making it more effective. I'm also working on kicking.
When bowling, there is a four-step pattern. Swimming has the same sort of thing-6 kicks to one stroke and a breath on every third stroke. This and keeping my head slightly down, my tail up, and my arms reaching to roll from the waist. I want this to become mechanical, ingrained in my muscle memory. With my bike still in the shop and my Achilles tendons still tender, swimming and yoga are all I've got for the present.
Foodwise: Intake 2623 calories. JE showed up at my work this morning with a loaf of Boudin Sourdough bread still warm from the oven. I think it must have been a bit torturous for a couple of my coworkers who are on low carb diets. In fact, K. had been making verbal lists of the foods he wanted most only an hour previously. Warm sourdough with a dollop of butter topped the list. Poor guy!
Output: 849 in the pool and on the mat.
Sunday, October 3, 2010
Day Two: Swimming
In the summer, Mom and Dad would drop my sisters and I off at the local pool. We swam for hours, play mermaid tea party in the deep end, have dolphin races where we couldn't separate our feet the distance of the pool, and lie flat on the bottom and watch people swim over. My favorite way to move through water has always been close to the bottom stealth swimming. I could travel so quick that way, which I am sure was a huge frustration to swim instructors trying to make sure their 9 year old instructies didn't disappear and drown (where'd she go?!?). I love the solitude and peace underwater, with hardly a sound but the tiny clink of my earrings swiveling on their hooks. And when the sun is out, I love swimming through the reflected rainbows.
The community where I live has several pools, three of which my condo overlooks. I waited a while after my run for the rowdy (rather be in Glamis) all male party to vacate the area, then headed over. I was solo in the big pool. A family with 3 girls played in the shallow kiddie pool nearby.
I've been reading about swimming, visualizing myself moving through water with perfect body rolls and outstretched arms,legs kicking powerfully at that invisible soccer ball--6 kicks to one stroke. One article described how to lay on the water and stretch my arms above my head, swing one arm around to take a stroke not moving the other arm until the one in motion taps the other. Laying on the water was fine, no problems there. However, making my arm stay in wait for the other to finish it's revolution was like trying to move my pinkie without my ring finger! I am a born windmill! I just can't seem to coordinate the lower half, my kicking is sporadic, at best.
I now understand what Josh and Ethan meant when they said, "If you feel like you're drowning, just roll over and do the back stroke." Running has gotten easier because of the perfect rhythm in my breath and heart, my built in stereo. But swimming is a whole new animal! Eventually I will get the rhythm of it and find my breath at the moment I need it, but today, this first real day of swimming, it was overwhelming. I kept finding myself rolling over to back stroke, breathing really hard. I don't think I've encountered an activity more wholly physically demanding. At one point I had just rolled onto my back and was finishing a lap when I noticed an osprey flying high over head. Osprey aren't natural gliders, they flutter flap occasionally to keep their place in the sky.
A day without chocolate, can it be? Yup, I think so! Smokes!
We made empanadas. I tried a traditional recipe and then tried to make it a bit healthier by adding whole wheat flour and pumpkin and removing some of the butter. Not quite a complete failure, but definitely not a recipe for sharing, yet!
Total calories: 2374 Expenditure of calories in exercise (according to mynetdiary.com which I think is really high in their estimates) 1095 calories.
The community where I live has several pools, three of which my condo overlooks. I waited a while after my run for the rowdy (rather be in Glamis) all male party to vacate the area, then headed over. I was solo in the big pool. A family with 3 girls played in the shallow kiddie pool nearby.
I've been reading about swimming, visualizing myself moving through water with perfect body rolls and outstretched arms,legs kicking powerfully at that invisible soccer ball--6 kicks to one stroke. One article described how to lay on the water and stretch my arms above my head, swing one arm around to take a stroke not moving the other arm until the one in motion taps the other. Laying on the water was fine, no problems there. However, making my arm stay in wait for the other to finish it's revolution was like trying to move my pinkie without my ring finger! I am a born windmill! I just can't seem to coordinate the lower half, my kicking is sporadic, at best.
I now understand what Josh and Ethan meant when they said, "If you feel like you're drowning, just roll over and do the back stroke." Running has gotten easier because of the perfect rhythm in my breath and heart, my built in stereo. But swimming is a whole new animal! Eventually I will get the rhythm of it and find my breath at the moment I need it, but today, this first real day of swimming, it was overwhelming. I kept finding myself rolling over to back stroke, breathing really hard. I don't think I've encountered an activity more wholly physically demanding. At one point I had just rolled onto my back and was finishing a lap when I noticed an osprey flying high over head. Osprey aren't natural gliders, they flutter flap occasionally to keep their place in the sky.
A day without chocolate, can it be? Yup, I think so! Smokes!
We made empanadas. I tried a traditional recipe and then tried to make it a bit healthier by adding whole wheat flour and pumpkin and removing some of the butter. Not quite a complete failure, but definitely not a recipe for sharing, yet!
Total calories: 2374 Expenditure of calories in exercise (according to mynetdiary.com which I think is really high in their estimates) 1095 calories.
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