Going postal

This week was the USMS 1 hour postal challenge, during which participants swim as many yards as possible in 1 hour. My goal was to swim 5100 yards, and I was very happy to swim just over that, 5120 yards (1:10.3 pace). Kevin Herlihy swam 1 length more than I did, 5145 yards. Heidi Williams and my archnemesis Mark Mendendorp also cranked out the yardage (4850 and 4900 respectively).

::Disclaimer: Mark, if you are reading this, know that I mean archnemesis in the friendliest sense and that I of course harbor no real animosity toward you. But I think it's fun to have an archnemesis and I also really like using the word archnemesis. My only real gripe against you is that your drinking games involve too much thinking::

We had a nice sized group doing the postal, which helped the yards go by quickly. Having my archnemesis there also made things a bit more competitive because, as per usual, we were motivated to beat each other.

This brings me to my new goal for the season. Sources tell me that Mendendorp would like to do a 5:05 on his 500 free at USMS nationals. So my goal is to go under a 5:05! A 5:04.9 would be fine, as it would be under Mendendorp's goal of 5:05, but a 5:03 would be a PR, so I am making that my real goal. This is tough for me because in my world the 500 is a very short sprint. The last time we raced this distance, Mendendorp beat me by 9 seconds, so I have some catching up to do!

Since I like making comparison charts (like Mendendorp likes making nerdy graphs) I thought I would compare Mendendorp to Smurfette's archnemesis, Gargamel. As you can see, the circumstances are very similar. I have not watched the Smurfs in a while, so I did some thorough, very scientific research (Wikipedia) for descriptions of Gargamel.

	Gargamel	Mendendorp
General	“He is an evil wizard though his powers appear very limited... His main goal in life is to destroy the Smurfs and/or capture enough of them to create a potion to turn base matter into gold.”	Not full of evil, a decent fella really. Powers limited to making nerdy graphs (see exhibit A from the 1hr postal) and swimming distances under 1000 yds. Enjoys a more well-balanced life than Gargamel.
Goals	“Sometimes he wants to eat the Smurfs, other times he wants to use them to make gold, and still other times he has even more bizarre uses for them (in one instance he is so enraged by his loss that he yells "I don't want to eat them, I don't want to turn them into gold, all I want now is to DESTROY THEM!")	Not out to destroy me so much as defeat me in all swimming events.
Personal life	“Not much is said of Gargamel's relationships with women, although in one episode an ugly witch named Hogatha turns herself into an attractive woman in order to seduce Gargamel into giving her his secrets.”	Has a nice girlfriend. Seems to have more success with the ladies than Gargamel, perhaps due to his more upright posture.
Sidekicks	His mangy cat Azreal	Karen Fritchie, Keith, and other Davidson swimmers, none of whom have mange

Exhibit A (Mendendorp's splits from his 1 hr postal, a.k.a the nerdy graph):


So there we have it. I'm a bit out of my element with this speed business so any help/advice is appreciated!

Bring on 2010!

Well, I've decided not to heed my own advice. I know I was just talking about how if you keep your goals to yourself you're more likely to accomplish them, but quite frankly I'm too much of a blabbermouth (or perhaps bloggermouth) to pull that off. Silence is golden, but I'm much more of a sterling silver, faux bling type of a gal.

So here is my New Year's resolution for 2010: to get a PR in something. Not an old-lady, now-that-I'm-back-swimming, USMS PR, but I want to break one of my times from high school. See, I had one good swimming year when I was 16, then I started to burn out and ultimately quit, er, retired. But now I'm back with full-force and ready to challenge 16-year-old Kim to a rematch!

I did a little digging and looked up my times from 12 years ago. My goal is to break at least one of the following in 2010:

Short Course Yards
500 Free: 5:03.59
200 free: 1:56.5
1000 Free: 10:25.62
1650 Free: 17:44.45
200 Fly: 2:13.33
400 IM: 4:44.30

Long Course Meters
400 Free: 4:38.99
800 Free: 9:30.57
1500 Free: 18:05.19
200 Fly: 2:34.11
400 IM: 5:34.13

Certainly I have a long way to go, but 28-year-old Kim is ready for a new challenge!


How do the Kims stack up against each other, you might ask? Well, let's take a look:

Looks to me like a fair match-up. Let's get ready to rumble!!

New Goals

Yogi's goal: to make his kisses extra slobbery in 2010

Well, now that this Channel business has been canceled, I am excited to look forward to some new goals. Nothing as single-minded and all-consuming as swimming the English Channel, but I would like to set some challenging, shorter term goals.

There are several factors to consider here:
1) New research is out that states that people are less likely to accomplish their goals when they share them with other people. I was very surprised by this because social support is important for just about everything. However, new evidence suggests that when you share a goal with others, you experience a false sense of accomplishment. This temporary rise in self-esteem from talking about your goal makes you less likely to go out and do the work to make it happen. Also, some people might talk you out of the goals, probably without realizing it.

2) Goals should be SMART (specific, measurable, attainable, realistic, and timely). Vague goals like "swim faster" or "read more" are not very useful. Pick something specific that you want to accomplish and give yourself a deadline. The goal should be challenging, but reasonable. It should rely on performance, not outcome ("Beat Mark in the 500 free" is not a good goal because it relies on an outcome that is beyond my control. "Swim a 5:10 in the 500 free at nationals" is a much better goal. Someone else might have a good or a bad race, but that shouldn't influence whether my goal is accomplished.)


Ok, so I took sports psychology in college. But my point is this: put a little thought into what you want to accomplish in 2010. Write it down someplace where you will look at it often. When you accomplish a goal, athletic or otherwise, or if you fall short but gave it your best shot, tell me about it and I will give you props on my blog. Good luck!!

In other news:


The "Get Fit Durham" challenge has ended. After 7 weeks, my overall fitness score did not change (my points had already maxed out in most of the subcategories when the contest began). But I improved in almost all of the subcategories. My results were the following:

Body fat: went from 28% to 27%
Resting heart rate: went from 67 to 70
Blood pressure: 165/107 to 128/75
Situps per minute: 49 to 54
Crunches per minute: 80 to 93
Pushups per minute: 40 to 52
Max bench press: 145 lbs to 175lbs

Mostly, I'm just happy that my blood pressure is out of the "way scary" zone!

Channel bound...well, not so much

To some this will come as surprise, to others less so. After months of training and a gazillion yards swum, I have decided not to attempt an English Channel crossing. My reasons for this are threefold:

1) I've been rather unsuccessful at finding sponsorship. I have not looked all that aggressively and certainly have not exhausted all my options in this area, so if this were my only reason or even my main reason, I wouldn't let it stop me. I could also *gasp* work longer hours at my day job. Holding 1 extra therapy session a day between now and the end of the school year would be enough to cover boat and pilot fees, the most expensive part of the trip. But, as convenient as it is to use finances as an excuse, I have to be honest with myself. Even if I won the lotto tomorrow, I still would not do the channel. Luckily, I've invested nothing but training in preparing for my goal so far, so there's little to lose by backing out at this point.

2) I'm not handling the cold well. While I'm fine when the mercury is above 60, as soon as it hits 59 I begin to suffer, even during swims as short as 1 hr. Temperatures in the channel typically range between 58-62, but can dip down further in cold patches. I worry about becoming hypothermic, especially when I am exhausted from hours of swimming. Boxing has made me lean, as least for a cold water swimmer. Perhaps I no longer have the insulation to handle the cold. My mom was very lean when she swam the channel, but her stroke count was over 90 strokes a minute. I swim at a similar speed, but my stroke count is only about 55 strokes/min. I don't have the turnover speed to generate as much heat as my mom did. But, as with issue #1, if this were my main concern, I would not let it stop me. Continuing to cold water train through the winter would help. I could also wait until after nationals and then spend some quality time with my buddies Ben and Jerry. An extra 10 lbs of insulation would goal long way towards keeping me warm. But this brings me to the real issue...

3) My heart just is not in it. I'm swimming faster that I have since high school and I don't want to give that up. The thought of doing 6 hour training swims fills me with thick dread. I am a distance swimmer, but I'm not the endurance machine that my mom is. Doing super long swims breaks me down and this takes me a long time to recover from. I don't like the cold and I hate swimming alone. I've been swimming about 25,000 -30,000 yards a week, but to get ready for the channel, I would need to swim about 50,000 yds a week. To build up to that kind of yardage, I would need to give up a lot - time, speed, sanity, and other activities I love, such as boxing. It just isn't worth it. I'm much more excited about other things - USMS nationals, next year's open water season, maybe one day learning to spar and box in the ring.

I want to thank everyone who has helped and supported me in pursuit of my goal. I couldn't have come this far without so much support from my family and teammates. Really, without you guys I would have given up after week 1! I can't say that I regret my decision to attempt to swim the channel. It's been a good year and I'm glad to be back in good swimming shape. One day, I might decide to attempt the channel again - probably when I am 45 years old and in the midst of a midlife crisis. If I do, I will go into it with a very real understanding of the kind of commitment it takes to pursue this goal.

I plan to continue blogging, but maybe should find a new name for this blog. Any ideas??

Cold feet

No, not this kind of cold feet...

This kind.

The cold water training continues. And as predicted, the quarry temperature is declining at a regular rate. At 61 degrees, getting in was difficult but once I started swimming the water was comfortable enough. 59 degrees, however, was another story. There's no accurate way to describe it except to say that the water was f**king cold. No matter how hard I swam, I couldn't get comfortable. My core stayed warm enough, but my extremeties went numb fast and never regained their feeling. I didn't realize how little blood flow was going to my feet until I climbed out and my feet had a "pins and needles" feeling as if they had fallen asleep. The wornout little suckers stayed asleep during the mile and a half hike to the parking lot. I managed not to trip over any branches during what turned out to be the longest hike ever and blasted my heater as soon as I got to the car. It wasn't until I was home in the bathtub that my toes regained their feeling.

Perhaps I need to kick more...


Now for some more encouraging news. Last week was the Fall Brawl, a masters swim meet at UNC. I hadn't swum in a pool meet in many years, besides a scrimmage against Jordan high school the week before. I was very encouraged with my times, my best since swimming masters.

500 free: 5:24
100 IM: 1:05
1650: 18:20


My time in the mile set a new state record for my age group. Heidi Williams broke her age group record for the mile too!

For the first time in a long while, I'm excited about racing in the pool. I hope that by masters nationals in May, I can get my times down closer to lifetime PRs.

Week 46:
Mon: swim 4500 yrds, 1 hr kickboxing
Tues: swim 4500, 1 hr boxing
Wed: swim 4500, 1 hr kickboxing, run 5 mi
Thurs: rest
Fri: swim 2500
Sat: swim 8,000
Sun: swim 4,000 in 59 degree water, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Total: swim 28,000, 4 hr/boxing/kickboxing, run 10 mi


Week45:
Mon: swim 5,000 yds, 1 hr kickboxing, run 5 mi
Tues: swim 5200, 1 hr boxing,
Wed: swim 4500, 1 hr kickboxing
Thurs: swim 4800, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Fri: rest
Sat: swim 3300, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Sun: swim 4000 in 61 degree water, box i hr, run 5 mi
Total: swim 26,800, 6hr boxing/kickboxing, run 20 mi

Get Fit Durham

or as I like to call it, sticking it to Bill Bell. The mayor of Durham has initiated an 8 week fitness contest that I decided to participate in, sponsored by the LA boxing where I train. Participants take a free fitness evaluation, have 8 weeks to "get fit", and then take another fitness evaluation. The winners are those whose fitness scores improve the most over the 8 week period. Being that I already do my fair share of exercise (like the pope says his fair share of prayers) I didn't think I had any chance of winning. But the evaluation contains a lot of free, valuable information so I decided to give it a shot. My results fell into 3 categories:

Excellent:


Overall, my initial fitness score was the highest out of all the contest participants and also higher than anyone who had taken the test at my boxing gym since it opened. My results in many of these areas were off the women's charts.


Pushups (not the girly kind): 40 in 1 min
Crunches: 80 in 1 min
Situps: 49 in 1 min
Bench press: 145 lbs
VO2 submax: 48 milliliteres per minute


Average:
My body fat was 28%, well within the healthy range for women, but I was told it's a little high for "someone as fit as me."
My pulse was 67 beats a minute. Again, not a bad number, but a little high for "someone like me."



Scary. Why aren't I dead yet?:
Blood pressure was not part of the fitness score, but it's something that the contest monitors to make sure that participants are getting fit safely. My blood pressure was a whopping 164/104!! Holy Hypertension, Batman! Why on earth was it so high? I've been eating healthily and my job is pretty peachy. True, my dad and grandma developed hypertension later in life but not at the ripe age of 28! What was going on? Would I even be able to pass a physical to get clearance to swim the channel? I knew that this was something I needed to get under control ASAP.


**** Warning - the following section mentions "ladies issues" and may not be appropriate for male readers not in touch with their feminine side****

I wondered if my blood pressure might be artificially high due to a visit from my reliable Aunt Flow. See, I can usually tell when I'm about to get my period because I'll gain about 4 lbs all of a sudden. Sure enough, such was the case the morning of the evaluation. Wouldn't all that extra bloat increase my blood volume and therefore my blood pressure? I'll be curious to see what my blood pressure is like the next time my annoying relative makes a visit.

Bloat nonewithstanding, I knew my blood pressure shouldn't be as high as it was. I bought a home monitor and started reading the book The Blood Pressure Cure: 8 Weeks to Lower Blood Pressure without Prescription Drugs. A lot of the advice in my book was things I was already doing - exercise, not smoking, avoiding stress, not acting like a raging bitch, limiting saturated fat, etc. But, I found out, there was a lot more I could be doing, especially in the area of diet. After reading the book, I made the following changes:

- Cut out diet soda (I went from about 7 a day to 0, overnight). This temporarily made it hard to follow other blood pressure lowering recommendations (namely not acting like a raging bitch). But, after staying clean for 3 weeks now, my caffeine cravings are subsiding and I'm no longer acting like someone who might eat babies.
- Balance my electrolytes. I cut way back on sodium and increased my intake of the other electrolytes. I'm taking calcium and magnesium supplements and sprinkling potassium chloride on food.
- Take enough supplements to recession-proof GNC. I have added the following supplements to my diet, all of which have been found to lower blood pressure by several points: Fish oil, coenyme Q10, folic acid, melatonin, arginine, grape seed extract, and tomato extract.


The result? After 3 weeks, but blood pressure is way down. I've been checking it at different times of the day and it usually ranges from 115/75 to 139/90. Still a little higher than I'd like, but I shouldn't keel over anytime soon.


More scary news - Jason and I hosted our annual Halloween party last weekend. Here are a few of my favorite costumes:

Amie, the swine flu

Yogi, a skunk

Karen, a skull set. The scariest costume by far!

Me, a boxer. Not a successfule boxer, but a boxer nonetheless!

Week 44: Recovery
Mon: swim 4500 yds, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Tues: swim 4800, 1 hr boxing
Wed: swim 5600, 1 hr kickboxing, run 4 mi
Thurs: swim 5300, 1 hr boxing, run 4 mi
Fri: 1 hr kickboxing
Sat: rest
Sun: 3200
Total: swim 23, 200, 5 hrboxing/kickboxing, run 11 mi


Week 43:
Mon: swim 5200, run 5 mi
Tues: swim 5100, 1 hr boxing, run 3 mi
Wed: swim 5299, 1 hr kickboxing
Thurs: swim 5000, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Fri: swim 4700, 1 hr kickboxing
Sat: run 4.5 mi, 1hr boxing
Sun: swim 4000, run 5 mi, 1 hrboxing
Total: swim 29,200, 6hr boxing/kickboxing, run 22.5 mi


Week 42:
Mon: swim 4500, 1 hrkickboxing, run 3 mi
Tues: swim 4800, 1 hrkickboxing
Wed: swim 5600, 1 hrkickboxing, run 4mi
Thurs: swim 5300, run 4 mi, 1 hr boxing
Fri: 1 hr kickboxing
Sat: rest
Sun: swim 3200
Total: swim 23,200, 5 hr boxing/kickboxing, run 11 mi

Feeling nipply...

These past few weeks have been light on swimming, heavy on fun. Since open water season is now over and I don't have any races for a while, I've let my yardage slip a little. There have been lots of other fun things going on like:

A white water rafting trip...

Karen Fritchie and me

Me, Billy, Jessica, and Josh

Me

Jimmy and Whitney's wedding...

Sarah Hoffman, me, David Hoffman

And a visit from my mom:






With fall upon us, I've also begun my cold water training. (Ok, so far, it's only really been cool water training, but close enough). The best news is that I've found a cold water training buddy! I absolutely hate to swim alone, and I was dreading that even more than swimming in the cold. But, it turns out my teammate Sean George is training to do an Alcatraz swim in San Francisco next summer and needs to start cold water training as well. Jason is also pleased with this arrangement, since now that I have company that means he doesn't have to come to the quarry every weekend to make sure I don't get hypothermia.

Sean checking the water temp

Last weekend, I swam 4,000 yards in 67 degree water (air temp 50). So far, so good. My core stayed warm, although my skin felt a little cold the whole time.

Week 41:
Mon: swim 5300, 1 hi kickboxing, run 3mi
Tues: swim 5100, 1 hr boxing
Wed: swim 5200, 1 hr kickboxing, run 6 mi
Thurs: swim 3300, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Fri: swim 5600, 1 hr kickboxing
Sat: swim 4000 in
Sun: rest
Total: swim 28,500 yds, 5 hr boxing/kickboxing, run 18 mi


Week 40:
Mon: swim 5200, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Tues: swim 5200, 1 hr boxing, run 3 mi
Wed: swim 5200, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Thurs: swim 3100, 1 hr boxing, run 5mi
Fri: rest
Sat: 1 hr boxing, run 4 mi
Sun: 1 hr boxing, swim 4000, run 6mi


Week 39:
Mon: swim 2000 yds, 1 hr boxing
Tues: swim 5300, 1 hr boxing, run 4 mi
Wed: swim 5700, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Thurs: swim 4900, 1 hr boxing, run 4 mi
Fri: 1 hr kickboxing
Sat: 4 hr white water rafting!
Sun: run 7mi
Total: swim 17,900, 5 hr boxing/kickboxing, run 18 mi