Day 19: Rain

Soon after we were married, JE and I lived in Michigan. One night after a movie, we were walking back to our tiny apartment. It had begun to drizzle and within minutes, in true Midwest fashion, it was dousing us full force. Our saunter home turned into a laughing jog. Our laughing job turned into a full fledged sprint when a crack of lightening hit one of the light poles in the parking lot where we were. It sent me screaming and running. It sent JE running.

Rain in Southern California is a rare thing. Lightening and thunder are exceptional. Since we moved here 7 years ago, I can count the number of lightening storms we have had here on a high school wood shop teachers hand.

This morning we ran in the rain. It sprinkled while we warmed up. By the time we rounded the corner that marks the beginning of our run we were in an outright downpour, accented with lightening and thunder. It's fun to run in the rain. My mind concentrates things like not slipping on the algae flourishing on the sidewalk or stepping in the current of water in the storm gutters.

I work in one of the only costume shops in the world that actually has windows. Today the view from the window was amazing. The sky was so dark and stormy, with flashes of lightening on and off. At one point, a huge bolt of lightening lit up the room and the thunder crack was gunshot loud. One of the students screamed. Another student asked, "What would Julie Andrews do?"

No cycle commute in weather like this. I don't live in Seattle, where drivers are aware of the crazies who ride in the rain. Not so here! People have a hard enough time navigating rain without throwing something, like a cyclista, under their wheels. Rather than wait for JE to get me, I headed out in my sweet Marmot replacement rain shell (my first rain shell wore out after only 11 years. I sent it back to the company and because the lifetime guarantee covered that particular wear and tear, they sent me a new jacket) and walked in the rain a couple miles.

Foodwise: Intake 2306 calories--mostly leftovers from our uber extravagant weekend. Output: 1044 calories from our 50 minute run in the rain and my hour long walk.

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.