Rethinking Things

Is this really a swim blog? I swam today, but most of the things I write about now are not swimming. Maybe I’ll change it from /swim to /somethingelse. Maybe I should figure out what to call it before I make any changes? No. I changed the theme today. I recently added a Strava widget that was wider than the text area of my old theme (the default wordpress theme) and it looked bad. So I updated the theme to something wider. I may change it again if I ever figure out what to call this blog.

I started questioning my use of Strava, at least for running. They just changed their activity details page for runs and it is so much worse than it used to be. I’m pretty upset about it. They used to show you where your fastest mile, two miles, 5k, 10k, 15k, etc. segments were for each run. They don’t do that anymore. That’s just one example of things that are worse now. They also changed how you navigate through each run on the map. It’s much worse. You can’t view your performance by distance anymore, only by time. Etc. I’m not happy about it.

Maybe I’ll go back to using RunKeeper for my runs. Maybe I’ll start using RunKeeper for my bike rides too? No, Strava hasn’t messed up the bike ride activities yet, and it’s still the best around. But I may start using both Strava and RunKeeper for a few runs and see which I like better. I have a hunch that it won’t be Strava anymore. I don’t think I’m alone in being upset by it either. This could turn out to be a big mistake for them.

But enough of that. It was a beautiful day today. I thought it was supposed to be cold, but it was 68 and sunny at lunch, so I had no choice but to swim. The pool was empty and I got to do my own thing.

400 free
5 x 100 free under 1:15 on 2:00
5 x 100 kick no fins
500 pull with paddles
300 kick on my back with fins
200 IM with fins
100 warm-down
—–
2500 yards

Injured Reserve

We spent the weekend in St. George, Utah with some friends. We road our bikes out along Old Highway 91 over Utah Pass and back. That’s a great ride. The climb isn’t too steep and it has a lot of flat spots that let your legs recharge before the next piece of hill is ready for climbing.

https://app.strava.com/activities/46477303

We swam in the pool and played pool games like 500, etc. We went hiking in a couple slot canyons. We even did an easter egg hunt for the kids up in Snow Canyon. But I let them talk me into doing something stupid: Mountain Biking.

I don’t really enjoy mountain biking, but I wanted to spend more time with the group, so I agreed to borrow a bike and ride the very easy Bearclaw Poppy trail. I borrowed a bike, since I don’t own a mountain bike. This is where things went wrong. Not owning a mountain bike means the bike is not my size and not close to being fit to me. The shocks were tuned for someone much smaller than me. But the worst part is that I do not have any mountain biking shoes. I didn’t have any shoes at all and chose to ride the 10 miles wearing only my flip-flops. Sure, I could have spent 20 minutes to trade out the pedals from my real bike with the pedals on the mountain bike and then I would have been able to use my real biking shoes… but I’m far too lazy for that. Instead, I decided it would be OK to ride the trail in my flip-flops.

Several people stopped me along the way (it’s a very popular trail) to tell me what a big mistake I was making. Sometimes just to make a point of calling out my stupidity to their children, but other times out of genuine concern for my well being. These people were not wrong. It really was a mistake.

As I rode along, the seat of the bike kept getting shorter and shorter until I almost couldn’t make the pedals go around because of the angle of my legs. My feet routinely slipped off the tiny clip-in pedals and hit the ground, sometimes getting run-over by the crank shaft in the process. By the end of the ride I had a few nice slices removed from the backs of my ankles and heels. The experience in no way helped convince me that mountain biking is fun or worth doing.

So now I can’t run or bike for a while. I probably can’t do much swimming (especially nothing that involves wearing fins). I can’t even put on a pair of socks without feeling pain. So I wear my flip-flops around the house, to work, to the store, etc. Hopefully my ankles and heels will feel better soon so I can do something again.

Undersleep Underperform

Today was a running day. I broke down mentally and let myself walk a lot of it. I haven’t slept very well for a few nights and I think that may be starting to catch up to me. At least that’s what I tell myself to create a convenient excuse to allow myself to walk. So I need to work on my mental toughness.

I even let myself walk on the down-hill section at the very beginning. That’s not cool. I decided to punish myself a little by going up the really steep hill in the park (20% grade). Of course, I walked that too, but then I jogged the rest of the way home.

https://app.strava.com/activities/45083138

San Diego

I moved to San Diego about 10 months ago. I have always enjoyed beach vacations and even learned to surf a few years ago. I thought moving to San Diego would mean turning into a beach junkie, surfing every chance I got, etc. I was wrong. For whatever reason, I haven’t been drawn to the beach anywhere near as much as I expected. I didn’t really take advantage of the amazing weather here until recently.

I signed up to ride Seattle to Portland again this year. This will be my third time riding it, but this time I signed up to finish in one day. 206 miles. The most I have ridden in one day is about 150 miles, so it’s going to be a challenge for me to get ready. I think that’s what I like most about the decision to do it in one day. Suddenly I have a purpose to my workouts. Suddenly I am taking advantage of the amazing weather here.

One way I’m taking advantage of it is by running outside at lunch. I work from home, which definitely makes it easier, but it’s really only possible because of the great weather. I’m not much of a runner, but I do manage to get in 5 or 10 miles in 1 or 2 runs each week. I’m using strava to keep track of my running and cycling. I won’t elaborate too much on how awesome strava is, but it’s much much better than all the other fitness apps I have used in the past (RunKeeper, etc.).

I have already been out running 9 times and riding my bike 4 times… and it’s only March! Maybe I love San Diego more than I realize.

Running?

I have always hated running as exercise.

In high school, our swim team had to run a lot. Some of us figured out how to get out of running the prescribed distance. We would bring a basketball along with us, pretending to bounce the ball as we ran to give us something to do. In reality, we would find a basketball hoop somewhere along the way and play ball instead of run, then hook back up with the group on their way back to the pool. I’m guessing our coach knew what was going on, but we thought we were so clever. Not surprisingly, we were all sprinters. The swimmers that figured out how to run the long distances, also knew how to swim the long distances. I never figured out how to do either one.

I have done several triathlons in recent years. These usually require swimming a decent distance. Having a background in swimming has helped me do well in the swimming portion, even though I still don’t swim distance well. I really enjoy the biking and the distance you ride in a typical Olympic-distance triathlon doesn’t seem all that long. But my “run” portion has always been terrible. In fact, I have been in the bottom-5 for my age group in the run on several occasions. That hasn’t really bothered me. In fact, I have been joking for several years that I’m going to start creating and selling T-shirts that say “Swim – Bike – Walk” on them. I haven’t ever done that, of course, but I still think it’s a fun idea.

My father had a heart attack this year, so I’ve been thinking a lot about taking better care of myself. I know that means I need to walk and probably run on a regular basis, so I started walking around the neighborhood at lunch (I work from home, so it’s easy to schedule). I found I really enjoyed the walking. It really cleared my head and helped me solve problems. It wasn’t long before I was walking 3 miles a day, 3 or 4 times a week. I didn’t have enough time to be gone more than about 45 minutes, so I just kept walking my 3 miles. But then something strange happened. My legs didn’t want to walk, they wanted to run.

I have been mixing walking and running my 3 mile loop for the past two weeks. I’m not in good enough shape to run the whole loop, but I haven’t had too much trouble running big portions of it. It wasn’t fun, but for some reason, my legs still wanted to run it, so I did. The amount of the loop I walk has been getting less and less, while the amount I run has been increasing.

Today something very strange and unexpected happened. I wasn’t planning on running any more than I had earlier this week, but after mixing running and walking the first mile, I started feeling really good. I started really enjoying running. I have never enjoyed running. It was a completely new experience for me. I ran the rest of the loop and really enjoyed it. I didn’t run fast by any means, probably somewhere between 5.5 and 6.0 miles/hr, but it was easy and enjoyable. I don’t think I’ve fully come to terms with what it means, but I’m already looking forward to my next run to see if it happens again.

Video Review

It wasn’t pretty. Everyone came away from the video review with a list of things to work on in the upcoming weeks. The first thing I need to fix is my head position. I’m keeping my head way higher than I previously thought. I need to get it down into the water so it will bring my hips and feet up.

After the video reviews, we only had a few minutes in the water. We mostly just worked on counting our cadence while swimming. We did a few 25s using a 2-beat kick, a few using a 4-beat kick, and a few using a 6-beat kick. For the most part, we all looked better using a 6-beat kick, so we’ll all be trying to use that going forward.

I’m guessing the next few weeks will involve a lot of drilling and probably a lot of distance (to really drive home the importance of proper form).

Stroke Drills

Tonight we did a lot of stroke drills. I think this is to make sure we all know how to swim each of the major strokes. I’m sort of afraid to find out how long and hard the workouts will be once our coach is convinced we know what we’re doing.

The first 600 of our warm-up consisted of nothing but kicking. That was a bad sign. I hate kicking. Of course, I also love kicking, but mostly I hate it. I brought my longer fins tonight, because they are a bit smaller and fit me a little better. But it didn’t matter, because we were kicking without fins. We started off doing 4 x 150 kicking each 150 a different kick, in IM order (fly, back, breast, free). After that we did 4 x 100 IM on 2:00.

After warming up, we worked on backstroke flipturns. These have changed a lot since I was in high school. Gone are the days of guessing where the wall is and flipping directly over from your back to your back. Now you take a couple strokes past the flags, then turn over and do a freestyle flipturn (without twisting, so you come out on your back). I seemed to err on the side of caution, never getting quite as close to the wall as I really should, causing me to have a fairly weak push off the wall.

When we were all making good turns, we had a little head-to-head competition… starting from the middle of the pool, 2 people would race backstroke to the wall, flipturn, and then back to the middle of the pool. It turned out to be much closer than I expected.

After several heats and re-races (when people tied), we moved to our main set. This consisted of 8 x 50 stroke drill on 1:00 followed by 100 easy for each stroke (fly, back, breast, free). We ran out of time and cut the breast stroke out.

For the fly drill, he had me do left-arm, both-arms, right-arm, both-arms. Supposedly it’s a drill that Michael Phelps uses. It’s a killer. By the 6th 50 I could barely breathe. I do feel like my fly is improving a lot though.

For the back drill, he had me focus on rotating my hips with my shoulders. I think I used to consciously try to keep my hips flat and only rotate my shoulders, so I’ve got some work to do to un-learn that bad habit.

At the end we did 2 x 50 free fast on 1:00 followed by 4 x 25 underwater kick on 1:00. He made us a deal that he would bring donuts if we all made it the full length of the pool all 4 times. These were with fins, so it was relatively easy for me. A few people missed a few times, and each miss cost us a donut. From our dozen, we lost nine. So I’m sure we’ll be doing this exercise again and again, each time adding a few donuts to the pile. When we get to a dozen, he’ll bring them in.

I’m really impressed with our coach. He’s doing a great job making us feel like a team, not just a bunch of old people trying to swim. He sends email out to the entire team and has us work for things as a team, etc. It’s really a lot of fun. The $30/month price tag is a bargain!

Triathlon Bound

A lot of the people I meet at the pool seem to be there for a specific purpose: training for a triathlon. They usually tell me that I should do a triathlon. According to them, I would be good. What they don’t know is that I may swim like an animal, but I can’t run worth crap, and I don’t have a road bike. Despite all that, I’ve decided that I am going to do a triathlon next year… not because I think I’ll do well, but because I think it will be fun.

I’m relatively sure that my running skills are my weakest link in getting ready for a triathlon, so I’ve started running on a treadmill once a week. Well, I’ve just barely started, so we’ll see how long I hold out. The first day I ran 2.0 miles at 6.5 miles per hour. That’s right, I was only “running” for about 20 minutes before I was dead. Interestingly enough, it was only my muscles that were dead. Cardiovascularly (is that a word?), I was fine. I couldn’t walk for the next 4 days and was still quite sore on days 5 and 6. But the next week came and I ran 3.2 miles in 31 minutes. I was pretty happy with that result. And the best part was that I only felt sore for about a day. After that I skipped a week, then ran 2 miles the week after that. I tried to run at 8.0 miles per hour for the first mile, but I only made it to about 0.75 mile marker before I had to walk. Since then I’ve skipped another week.

But today is Wednesday again, and that’s the day I’m supposed to run. So I’ll be heading out to run in about 15 minutes. I just wanted to get that in there in case I forget to post about it after lunch.

Driven by fear

We had a code review during lunch, so I wasn’t able to go swimming until later today. I haven’t missed a day in a long time and I wasn’t going to miss today, just because of poor scheduling. I arrived around 4:45 and noticed a sign at the front desk as I was showing them my barcode. The sign said the pool would be closing at 5:00 every Friday night for the next month, so they could “hyper-chlorinate” it over the weekend. I didn’t read when it would reopen, but I’m guessing sometime Monday. Needless to say, I was not impressed.

Why do they need to “hyper-chlorinate” the pool? Because the government says so. There have been an unusually high number of cases of children getting sick at public pools this year due to Cryptosporidium infection. The decision to hyper-chlorinate and close the pool at Gold’s Gym is wrong on so many levels that it’s almost sad. It did make me realize the true nature of health clubs and gyms, though. They don’t exist to help people exercise or get in shape or anything of the sort. They exist solely to make money. They don’t care if you ever show up, as long as you keep paying. In fact, they probably prefer it if you don’t show up, because that only makes it easier to sell more memberships.

Chlorination is used to kill most viruses, bacteria, and protozoa like Giardia, but studies have shown that Cryptosporidium is more than 200,000 times more resistant to chlorine than Giardia. It has been shown that Cryptosporidium spores are almost completely unaffected after more than 18 hours of exposure to 3% chlorine; they are still fully viable. Anyone that does much wilderness survival hiking knows that Chlorine and Iodine may inactivate many waterborne pathogens, but you need ultra filtration or reverse osmosis to remove the Cryptosporidium spores from your water.

The primary transmission method is fecal matter of children under five years of age (and old people that have lost their ability to control their bowels) in the water at public pools. I have never seen a child under five years of age anywhere inside a Gold’s Gym… ever. And I’m there almost every day. So how would an indoor pool that has never had a child step foot in it be at risk of leaky diapers? It just doesn’t make sense.

I did my best to swim 1000 yards before they kicked me out around 5:10.

Swim:
300 Free warm-up
200 Free
100 Kick
200 Free
100 Kick
100 Free warm-down
————
1000 yards

Eating like a champion

I took a mini-vacation last weekend to play in the Pacific Ocean near San Diego. I kayaked, snorkeled, surfed, and swam. But the best part of the trip was eating at In-N-Out Burger. I even tried a few items from their (not so) secret menu.

Swimming in the ocean is pretty cool. Charmaine and Julie were in an ocean kayak paddling from La Jolla Shores to the caves around La Jolla Cove. I was swimming along behind them. The water was fairly clear. I could easily see the sand along the bottom when it was more than 15 feet deep. At one point we ran across an old anchor and some kids who said they saw a leopard shark. After further questioning, they admitted they hadn’t seen a shark since the day before. I think it would have been cool to see a shark, but I didn’t think there was much chance of it.

I did manage to step on a stingray, though. That freaked me out. I guess they are in the area this time of year. I jumped off my surfboard once and landed on something the wiggled and wiggled to get free. It turned out to be a small stingray. I was very glad not to have been hurt by it.

I’m not much of a surfer, but I really enjoy it. The waves were fairly small at Pacific Beach and at La Jolla Shores Beach, but there will still 20 to 30 surfers enjoying them. I have a hard time balancing on my board, but I think it may be because I’m renting such a big board, so it rides higher in the water. Maybe I just suck at balancing, I’m not sure. But I can pull myself onto the board and get up to speed to catch a wave as well as most of the surfers that were there when I was there. There weren’t many “good” waves, so I only ended up riding about 15 waves in 3 hours, but it was still better than working.

The snorkeling wasn’t all that impressive. I liked what I saw just outside Avalon on Catalina much better than the stuff around the kelp beds outside the La Jolla Caves.

I got to hit In-N-Out Burger twice in my 3 day trip. That was awesome. The first day I got a 3×3 Animal style with a chocolate shake. I think that’s the perfect combination, but I was willing to try for better the next time. When I ordered the 4×4 Animal style and a Flying Dutchman, the cashier confirmed that I knew what I was ordering and that I really wanted it. That was good, but I think the 3×3 was better. If a 3×3 isn’t enough food for me in the future, I’ll just get 2 of them.

In-N-Out my way