swimming – The Shrinking Jeans of Thea

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June 1, 2011 By thea

Yeah, so… May kind of came and went and I felt like it may have trampled me a little bit.

I definitely fizzled out there towards the end of the challenge, and that’s kind of normal for me. I wish it weren’t so, but that’s the way it is.

I weighed in this morning at 157, which puts me at 16 weeks out of 22 for the year that I’ve stayed in my healthy range. And the 6 weeks I wasn’t in range weren’t horribly off target. I’m kind of digging this year. I’m definitely feeling more in control and less a slave to the scale. ‘Tis a nice feeling.

Now, for this challenge in particular, I didn’t do too horribly. Let’s look at the bullet points, shall we?

  1. Be able to do 10 push ups from my toes – Yep. I can do it. And I can do more than 10. So take THAT, goal!
  2. My head will hit the pillow by 11pm during the week and by 12am on weekends. – I suck at going to bed early. The end.
  3. Get in one swim workout a week – I got two swims in this month. 50%. Hurrah for mediocrity!

May 18, 2011 By thea

I’m not sure how I maintained this week, because “good choices” was definitely NOT my mantra this week. More like “indulgence” and “binging” and “sleep deprivation”.

And now I’m sick. Which just makes me want to indulge and binge that much more. Hellllooooo, pity party!

On tho the goals…

  1. Be able to do 10 push ups from my toes – Today is my last day of Week 2. I took a few days off, but I think I’m back on track now. Or something.
  2. My head will hit the pillow by 11pm during the week and by 12am on weekends. – So. Did. Not. Happen. Not one single day. Which is why I feel exhausted and sick now. Good plan.
  3. Get in one swim workout a week – I did a swim last Wednesday. And that’s it.

UGH! I’m so not on tap with this challenge! I’m not sure what my mental break is for, but I need to get back into it before I go too much further down the Slippery Slope of Complacency!!

May 11, 2011 By thea

I have to keep it short and sweet today, ’cause I’m on the GO! Not a horrible week, but definitely room for improvement.

But nobody’s perfect, right?

I maintained last week, which puts me at maintenance for the 14 of the last 19 weeks. WOOT! I can’t even begin to tell you how AMAZING it feels to hit a groove.

On to the goals…

  1. Be able to do 10 push ups from my toes – I’m done with Week 1 of the 100 Push Ups challenge, and it is TOUGH to do toe push ups. I’m going to keep on keeping on, though.
  2. My head will hit the pillow by 11pm during the week and by 12am on weekends. – I’m calling this one a wash. I was successful 4 out of 7 days. My husband is out of town and I always go to bed super late when he’s gone. So I didn’t get to bed until between 11:30 and 12:00 on a couple of school nights. But even that is a huge improvement, because when he’s gone I typically stay up until 1am…sometimes even 2am.
  3. Get in one swim workout a week – This one didn’t happen last week, but I’ve got my gear all laid out to go today and I’m headed out as soon as I hit “publish”. I’m gonna get this done! Let’s do a little cheer that my swimsuit even still fits,  yo. It’s been a long time. I went once in February, and then it was October of 2010 before that. Oy. That’s bad.

May 5, 2011 By thea

I’m a little behind with the May Your Way challenge, but that’s how I roll. Sometimes, sometimes gotta give and unfortunately blogging seems to be the thing that gets left behind.

But I am keeping up with all my healthy living type stuff (even if I’m not blogging about it) and I’m happy to report that I was in my weight range goal (153 – 157) BEFORE I left for the cruise, AFTER I got back, and am still in it this week. I’m going to make the giant leap to say that I was in range DURING the cruise, which brings me to the current total of 13 of the last 19 weeks have been in goal range.

WOOT!! Who maintains weight on vacation? I DO!

Which brings us to May.

I’m not sure how many other Maintainers out there have this problem, but I find one of the biggest challenges of being at goal weight is finding NEW goals to strive for. It seems like everything’s been done and I sound like a broken record. That’s honestly one of the reasons I hadn’t blogged goals for May Your Way yet…I couldn’t think of any.

But I buckled down, thought about what I wanted out of this month, and came up with three things:

  1. Be able to do 10 push ups from my toes – While I’ve done the 100 Push Up challenge before, I chose not to participate during the last challenge. It was in the back of my mind though, so when I heard that April and Bari were giving it a go starting this week, I jumped on board with them.
  2. My head will hit the pillow by 11pm during the week and by 12am on weekends. – I had been doing so well with this several months back but then I got out of the habit and never picked it back up again. I NEED SLEEP!
  3. Get in one swim workout a week – I’m having problems with my knee again, so I need a way to keep moving. Plus, official triathlon training starts at the end of the month (or is it the beginning of June – I should check on that) so I need to get back in the habit NOW of  hauling my arse to the gym.

So that’s it for me. Better late than never, right??

July 23, 2010 By thea

I can’t believe that it’s finally THE weekend. My first triathlon, people!

I’ve been training for 11(ish) weeks and I’ve learned a few things along the way. Will you indulge me while I share them with you?

thankyousomuch

And you know I love me a good quote, so that’s how I’m going to give you my tidbits.

Or I guess if it’s quotes it’s their tidbits.

Whatever. Here’s what  I learned.

  • Well done is better than well said.  ~Benjamin Franklin
    I can talk all daggone day long about doing a workout, but unless I’ve actually done the workout, my words don’t mean much.
  • Toughness is in the soul and spirit, not in muscles.  ~Alex Karras
    Seriously, what I can do has more to do with what I THINK I can do then whether I’m actually physically capable of doing it.
  • Seventy percent of success in life is showing up.  ~Woody Allen
    This one is so true. If I go to the gym, if I go to the pool, if I go walk outside and get my bike…I’M GOING TO EXERCISE. It’s not like I go to the gym and sit on the couch. If I take the first step, the rest will follow.
  • Arriving at one goal is the starting point to another.  ~John Dewey
    About 3/4 of the way through the training, I knew that I already needed a new goal to focus on for AFTER the triathlon. If I didn’t pick something before my first event was done, I knew I would flounder aimlessly for a while. My triathlon is Sunday and I start training for my 2nd triathlon the next day.
  • Whether you think you can or think you can’t – you are right.  ~Henry Ford
    It’s amazing how much of exercising or sticking to a plan is mental. On the days where I grumbled about going out, I had sucky sessions. On the days where I felt good about going out, I enjoyed it a lot more and I did better. Talk nice to yourself. Pretty simple.
  • Be not afraid of going slowly; be afraid only of standing still.  ~Chinese Proverb
    I’m slow. I swim slow. I bike slow. I run/walk slow. But slow is better than stopped. Just keep moving, just keep moving, just keep moving.

April 22, 2010 By thea

I love the pool.  I’m a big fan of chlorine and being able to see the bottom and not swimming with other species of living things.  I love playing with the kids and splashing around and seeing how far I can get underwater while holding my breath.

That being said, I’m a nervous swimmer.  I know how to swim, but I’m just not all that strong.  I definitely prefer breast stroke to freestyle.  I know how to do freestyle, I just never learned to do it correctly.  My breathing gets all messed up and I panic and I stop.

I have not swum (swam, swimmed, swim past tense) a lap in 20+ years.

But I decided that it was time to get in the pool again.  I bought myself a swimsuit (as opposed to a sit-by-the-pool suit), a swim cap and some goggles.  Then I printed out a copy of the gym’s lap pool schedule and put it next to my to-do list.

And there it sat for a full month.  All of it.  I never took the tags off of any of the stuff that I bought and I never even looked at the lap schedule.

But yesterday, I bit the bullet and did it.  I packed up my stuff and headed to the pool. And I swam 200 meters.  And I didn’t die.  I was really happy I didn’t die.

Here are some things that I learned and some observations I had:

  • I loathe locker rooms.  I’ve always hated them. In high school, I was the one who changed in a stall after gym class. I don’t like disrobing in front of people…which is exactly what I did yesterday.  It wasn’t until AFTER the swim that I found changing rooms that I could use.  Good to know for next time.
  • I need to get a cheap pair of flip flops.  I fear that I have athlete’s foot growing on me as we speak because I walked through the locker room and pool deck in bare feet.
  • I purposely didn’t bring my goggles and swim cap because I didn’t want to seem like the overzealous newbie who was trying to be all hard core.  It turns out that I was the only one that DIDN’T have that stuff.  And the fact that I wanted to claw my eyes out all day yesterday is a good indication that goggles are your friend.
  • I tried the freestyle for a few strokes and didn’t do too badly.  I just had to stop because (in the absence of aforementioned swim cap) my hair kept getting in my eyes and I couldn’t see where I was going.
  • When in doubt, ask.  Before I ever got in the water, I was asking people about stuff I wasn’t sure about.  I asked another woman in the locker room (we were both dressed) what she did with her locker key while she was in the pool.  When I wasn’t sure which lanes were for open swim, I asked the lifeguard on duty.
  • Nothing is as scary as your mind works it up to be.

I need to figure out a schedule of how I’m going to fit swimming into my schedule (the lap times are a bit tricky), but I’m thinking that swimming is here to stay…