butt = kicked

The last two practices at Nitro in the morning have successfully left me gasping for air and red in the face. I like these kinds of workouts, and I’ve been left sore for the past four days. I particularly remember a warm-up set last Friday where we all lined up at the far edge of the pool. Each person dove in, swam a length, climbed out, did a push up, and dove in the next lane and swam back (repeating until we “snaked” down all 23 lanes). oy. My butt hurt Saturday morning…didn’t understand it much but appreciated the extra burn in my buns, makes me feel like I’m working hard!

MY SWIM MEET, oh yeah and the rest of my weekend…

So the swim meet went well. Not great, but good. We got there about 25 minutes into the warm up which caused me to freak out repeatedly on the way up there. Especially when we had to stop and get directions.

“WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DOOOOO?”

was my reaction when we made a wrong turn and had to turn around. Frantic Eryn was in full swing. You could tell especially when we parked the car as I was 28948503 steps ahead of both my mom and Alex ready to plunge into the warm up pool the first chance I got.

Turns out, I was worried for nothing. I had more than enough time to warm up and do a few practice starts off the blocks. To my surprise our friends Kearney and Robin showed up as well to cheer me on. I was really touched by the gesture, especially since they had to wake up at 7am on their Saturday morning.

I was signed up for five events and had no clue that Masters meets run A LOT quicker than the meets I was used to in high school. Instead of 87 heats separating my events from each other I only had one heat separating my first two events. EEK. Especially since my first two events were my hardest. You can see me swimming the 200 free in the below video that Alex took. (You can’t miss me, I’m the blinding white spot in lane 2). You can also hear my mom exclaim during the first 50 yards, “Pick up the pace.” Yayyy. Unfortunately, I listed my best high school time as my seed time and was thus put into a heat with people who could still swim that time…I on the other hand cannot. And in this video it shows….so yes, I do come in last in this event, and to save me misery Alex said he stopped taping when he realized that. AWWW how sweet of him.

Despite the pain and overall fatigue that came around with each event I really had a great time. It was nice to be back in the meet atmosphere and there were a handful of NITRO swimmers present that cheered me on.

Someday I’ll swim at another Masters meet, but first I want to get a wee bit stronger in the water…and next time I’ll learn from my mistakes and won’t sign up for more than 3-4 events in one day.

After the meet on Saturday I spent the rest of the day primarily in a horizontal position on a bed or sofa or floor. Drooling was involved as well as Saci snuggles. It’s as if she knew how bad my body was hurting.

Today I had a spotting. A celebrity spotting on South Congress!!!! Let’s just say that I was sitting at a crepe trailer while Alex retrieved the nutella and strawberries crepe from the window. I then peered a great pair of sandals walking by with a great dog attached as well. “What cute sandals!” I exclaimed to myself, although I heard myself gasp. Then I gazed up at the owner of cute footwear and exchanged a lip pursed smile with Drew Barrymore. It was pretty coo!

Big day tomorrow…

…or big morning at least! Tomorrow morning at 8:30am my first swim meet in seven years begins! EEK. I’ve been a little anxious all week leading up to it…mostly because I signed up for five events and really want to do well in the majority of them.

I have no idea where my times will be in comparison to where they were in high school. My coach has been timing me sprint at practice lately, and they seem to be right on. So we’ll see!

This morning I got my yearly physical…and ladies, we all know what a yearly physical entails. All of that plus a tetanus shot (mine had expired), urine sample, and getting blood drawn before 8am is more productive than I’ve been in months. Many many months. And I want to give a big shout out to Ben, the lab tech that drew my blood. He was a rock star and was in and out of my vein within seconds. I was very very impressed…and so very thankful!

Now I’m just hoping that the achiness in my left shoulder caused by the tetanus shot subsides before the meet tomorrow!

sharp shoulders

I heart this model. For one reason and one reason only. She has sharper and larger shoulders than I do. YIPPPEEEEE! And she’s displaying them proudly in this ad…which was a Macy’s ad in my inbox this morning but that’s besides the point.

When I started swimming in high school my ever growing “swimmer shoulders” were brought to my attention by a fellow swimmer friend. Me and this other dude on my team were the female and male specimen of what true swimmers looked like. Since starting up Masters Swimming this past January I’ve been told that they look larger….GAH, NOOOOOO!

I wonder what event this model swam…because ya know, I’ve already decided that she’s a swimmer. SHE HAS TO BE! Oh and she apparently has an Asian husband…or lovah.

I went.

Just in case you were wondering. I managed to drag myself out of bed at 4:58 AM, put contacts into tired eyes, fed myself a few handfuls of cheerios, and jumped into a chilly pool by 5:30.

There were a lot more people than I was expecting. I venture to say at least 30-40 people. And a lot of them really gave me a run for my money in the water. It felt good to be up WAY before the sun and to be getting in a great workout!

It came at a price though. All night I tossed and turned in anticipation of the alarm going off at an unwelcome hour. Don’t you just hate that game you play with your mind? And now i’m so tired and have “jell-o” arms. But when I go home tonight, I get to sit my ass down and watch Dancing with the Stars. Because that’s what’s important in life. Oh yeah, we’re also going to make kabobs on the grill. gimme gimme!

I have to post again…

…so each time I log on to my blog I don’t see my crazed face from the below post.

I don’t know if I’ve ever mentioned before on this blog how competitive I am. In sports yes, but also in all aspects of life! It’s kind of different…some examples are as follows:

• when I swim at masters practice I strive to be the fastest in my lane if not in the entire group that night. If someone passes me I have to catch up…otherwise I feel like I didn’t work as hard as I could. I don’t take into consideration that I just started back up a month ago after pretty much being out of the water for 6 years.

• you may not like me if we ever play board games together. well you probably will…only because I try really hard to mask my emotions. I tend to shout and make fast body movements in frantic, “crap, I may lose” situations! Don’t even try to cheat, I’ll eat you alive!

• when Alex was about to propose to me he needed to make sure he was having the ring sized correctly. He however didn’t have the slightest idea what my ring size was. Because he knows me all too well he enlisted my good college friend, Kristi, to help in the quest. He told Kristi to call me one day and make an excuse to talk about ring sizes….because he knows that I know that I have the smallest/skinniest fingers I’ve ever come across….I challenge all people who say they have skinny fingers!

Kristi: “I think my ring size is 6, that’s small right?”
Me: “Um NOOO, I’m a 4.5….beat that HO!”

Yes folks, that’s right, without even asking me what my ring size was I volunteered the information in an effort to let Kristi know that I HAVE SMALLER FINGERS THAN HER!

• Last night things got a little crazy, before falling asleep Alex and I watch “Friends” reruns…pretty much every night. It’s all for him…he needs TV and other “white” noise to fall asleep, ugh. Be forewarned that you may not totally get this example if you’re not an avid “Friends” fan. Anyway, it was an episode where Phoebe mumbled “oh no.” after she made an “eff” up. Alex then mentioned that Phoebe does that a lot and tried to come up with another instance where she said that in other episodes. He failed at said task and turned over to fall asleep. In an effort to beat his score of ZERO, my mind kept churning and came up with SIX. Alex pleaded with me after number six to let it go. But not before I made him proclaim that, “I WON!” and what I had just done was “Really Impressive!”

that is all for now. I’m sure me being competitive in some weird way will make its way back into this blog sooner or later!

Swimming Stronger

I kind of had a breakthrough this week…as far as swimming goes. The first two weeks were brutal. I was battling with finishing sets and making intervals, leg cramps, shoulder pain, etc. However, this past Monday I finally caught my stride…for now at least! I had the “fresh” feeling that I would feel occasionally while swimming in High School. The “I’ve been working hard in the water, but am recuperating nicely” feeling. Hard to explain I guess…my strokes just felt smooth (finally), and even though I was still challenged by the work out…I just felt strong. Tuesday’s practice followed through with the same feelings…and so did last night’s. Now it’s time to start challenging myself a bit more…not going to get too comfortable. I still like the feeling of barely being able to lift myself out of the pool because I worked hard in the water.

So there’s that…I’m also still flying high since the inauguration on Tuesday. WE HAVE A NEW PRESIDENT YO! I love hearing him being referred to as the president…in the past those words evoked feelings of frustration and distrust…now they conjure up feelings of hope and prosperity! We’re in good hands once again, worthy hands!

On the house front we’re slowly but surely still making small improvements in the more neglected rooms (i.e. the office and garage). Yes, the garage, since before even moving in Alex has had grand visions of painting the garage a bold color and putting up wall graphics…we did the same to the office last night. We’re both excited with the outcome of the office walls and now need to purchase two new (very streamlined) desks. Thank God for IKEA…we’ve already picked them out! Pictures to come soon!

A little bit of this and that

Alex and I recently signed up for Netflix and are lovin’ it! I don’t know the specifics about the deal we have, but it’s through our Xbox 360 that we get the service and it’s only $8.95 a month. We’re able to download over 17,000 movies instantly from the computer and immediately be able to queue them up on our Xbox and watch them! A lot of them are in HD too! Then…for newer and more popular movies we simply put them on our queue and get them in the mail a few days later! I’m more excited about the instant part of the deal, because the a lot of the 17,000 movies we have access to are independent and foreign films…basically right up my alley!

This past Sunday I watched “The Other Boleyn Girl.” It starred three of my favorite actors, Natalie Portman, Scarlett Johansson, and Eric Bana. The story was craazzzyyyy, I knew Henry the IIIV was a jerk, but dang! I wasn’t expecting a lot of the twists and turns that ensued. For those of you who enjoy period pieces…go check out this flick!

Another great flick we watched was “Two Days in Paris.” I have an obsession lately with Parisian settings…basically all things Paris. I don’t quite know what it is…but you’ll even see me being captivated by “Ratatoulle,” a Disney CARTOON set in Paris. So besides having my setting of choice the movie starred two adorable actors, Julie Delpy and Adam Goldberg (who I LOVE).

Tagline: He knew Paris was for lovers. He just didn’t think they were all hers.

Plot: Marion and Jack try to rekindle their relationship with a visit to Paris, home of Marion’s parents — and several of her ex-boyfriends.

Needless to say, Alex and I were rolling during some of the scenes and I would love to re-watch it! Check it! You won’t be disappointed!

I’m also still in the process of getting over whatever I fell victim to over a week ago. I’m able to function fine, even go to swim practices, I’m really just an orifice of snot. And come night, I love to cough cough cough. So much so that I’ve reverted to sleeping in our guest room for the past few nights…quite sad really, but I hate to keep Alex up!

Also on the swimming front…last night the cramps returned. I know. Thankfully it was at the end of practice during an easy set. I was able to make it through our taxing distance set relatively cramp free…with the exception of my toes misbehaving…seriously! Bad Toes! And bad calves…now that I’ve incorporated a ton of potassium into my diet I’m blaming it on not having enough sodium in my system. I could possibly be drinking too much water while at work (not surprising, I drink it all damn day) and flushing all the sodium out of my system!

I fell ill…

…for the second time in two months. ugh. I pride myself on having a super duper immune system. I guess it wasn’t enough for these sicky time months to ward off icky germs!

Wednesday I had to work from home and had to skip swimming that night because I wasn’t up for it. That pissed me off to no end. I was telling people lately, that when I get sick…I get mad. How dare you [illness] keep me from going about my everyday life. Keep me from going into work and screwing up the first week of my new year’s resolution!!!!

I turn into a vigilante and in spite [of the infection/virus having its way with me] will do these things anyway. Which is why last night (Thursday) I went to swim practice. I really felt fine the entire way through except for the, what I’ve dubbed, Satan cramps. Yes that’s right…cramps straight from Satan himself! They first started Monday during my first practice, I got a calf crap unlike any I’d ever experienced before while swimming freestyle. I had to stop and stretch it out in the middle of the pool…since then my calf has been sore!

Last night was a totally different ballgame. They first started in my feet…lovely, I would get these all the time in highschool while swimming. Something to do with always flexing and pointing my toes while kicking and not enough potassium in my diet. Ok, foot cramps, I’ve dealt with you before, I know how to handle this…however, they started working their way up both legs…crapbags! And finally, got to the point where I had to pull myself out of the pool and the coach had to rub them out of my legs. Looking down at my leg I saw muscles I’d never seen before slightly protruding in my calf…no bueno! And no matter what I did for the next 15 minutes they just wouldn’t quit!

So here’s the plan…eat my bananas, tomatoes, potatoes, and avocados! Also, sip a sports drink (preferably gatorade) before practices….and STRETCH even more than I have been! I definitely don’t want those cramps to make a third appearance!

Masters Swimming

Last night I went to my first Masters swim practice. It’s my only New Year’s resolution, to start swimming again…specifically on a Masters team where I’ll have more structure and be able to compete in meets.

With the indoor facility being so close to the house I really have no excuse to not go! Last night I met one of the Masters coaches as well as the other 8-10 swimmers that were there. The workout was tough, I knew it would be since I haven’t had a proper practice in six years or so…but it really kicked my butt! I wasn’t used to all of the distance swims….the warmup and first set alone were over 2 miles of yardage!

In any case, I finished it…and feel really comfortable about my ability level compared to the other swimmers! I’m looking forward to the aching feeling in my right shoulder to go away once I get used to the strain again and to not be as clumsy as I was last night after swimming…I was falling all over the place!

I plan to go again this Wednesday and Thursday!