Off the Deck

Most people like spring because the season brings longer daylight hours, warmer temperatures and blooming flowers, trees and shrubs.

I’m right there with you except for that last one. Yes, spring blossoms are a revitalizing splash of color after the greys and browns of winter, but they also kick my butt every year due to their pollen.

Swimming with asthma and allergies means various fitness elements such as my endurance and speed in the water wax and wane depending on the season. This is beyond frustrating. Especially when I put a lot of effort into balancing good training and with maintaining health status quo. Yet depsite my best efforts, I have to regularly “ground myself” for days, some a week or more, to dry out and prevent a trip to the doctor’s office.

Like this morning. After three days of high, dry, hot winds blowing pollen and dust around, I knew that if I got into the water, my current level of congestion, inflamation and irritation of my nose, throat, sinuses and ears would get just worse.

Being sick for two months in late winter this year has already made me more than antsy to get back into the water on a regulas basis. But, I’m trying to go full-on adult this year, which means among other things, acquiring attributes like “patience.” So I decided that water whooshing around in my ear, excusing myself from meditation to hack up some sort of furball, and the desire to hibernate until allergy season is over are strong “take a break” messages from my body.

I would love to be one of those people who swims practice every morning and goes on with their day. But no, I am the “daily lavage-steam-take regimen of allergy & asthma prescriptions-squeeze in more rest-can’t eat that” kind of person.

Thus, my quest for better ways to handle my allergies and asthma with competitive swimming continues. Huh — I’ve just had what might be a breakthough thought — working on “acceptance of what is” is probably an even healthier goal for me now. I’ll keep you “posted”…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I get that pools are not dime a dozen across the USA. And, I understand that to keep them open for swimmers, management teams must make the facility profitable. So, many aquatic complexes offer a ton of programming — swim lessons, public lap swim hours, open swim hours, life guard training, children’s pool parties, aqua fitness classes and host several swim teams such age group, national and masters.

Of course, my selfish swimmer’s dream is to have the pool entirely to ourselves during masters practice. But hey, sharing the pool in order to have a practice is better than no practice at all. But what really makes me angry is that masters needs are always last on every pool management list.

Over the past few years, I’ve watched our morning practice shrink from 90 minutes, to 75, and and now to 60. And the start time keeps getting pushed back earlier and earlier. Yep, that means if you want to get a morning workout in, you have to get up between 4 and 4:30 a.m., depending on where you live. Canceling our practices right before key meets, such as nationals, occurs. So does switching the pool course to the opposite of our training needs just weeks out from key end of season meets.

As adults with jobs, kids and spouses, who also compete successfully on the state, national and international levels, there doesn’t seem to be a lot of respect out there by management for what we are trying to accomplish in the pool while juggling so much else beyond it. We serve as excellent role models for generations coming up after us. We pay dues and teams fees to use the facilities. I’m certain that if we could sit down with management and coaches, we could find creative, flexible and temporary solutions to pool use conflicts. But we never get this chance.

Yesterday at practice I noticed that our assistant coaches have been asked to take attendence again. I have a really bad feeling that this means management is looking for another way to cut our practice sessions and times yet again…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

It’s been a hard winter of plague. Many people I know are still fighting its lingering hold. (FYI: I just learned from my doctor last week that since bugs develop in the east [think Asia] and migrate west, east coast residents should get flu shots early in the season — October. West coasters should wait until November; otherwise they can still catch the flu in March, a time when most people assume that the flu season’s “over.”)

Because I have asthma and allergies, a “simple” virus or cold usually turns into a bacterial infection. I’ve learned from trial and error (accent on the “error”) that going to practice with a cold just isn’t worth it for me. The only way I can quickly shake the thing avoid secondary illnesses is to “ground myself” and not swim until I am 100%.

So, you can understand my amazement (actually envy) that so many people can “swim through” a cold. Yes, I know that the current rule of thumb says that “if symptoms are above the neck (i.e. headache, runny nose versus wracking chest cough or fever) a moderate workout is O.K.” But still. Do you really want to swim when you’re sneezing between breaths and hacking up phlegm after each repeat? Wouldn’t you rather wallow at home under blankets and watch junky TV?

Apparently not. I did an informal poll (translation: I emailed a bunch of my swim friends to get their opinion). No surprise — the majority said they’d swim with a minor condition. Top three reasons?
1) helps clear congestion
2) helps me sleep that night
3) I feel better if I do something, even if slower or less, than nothing

Ok, then, swim on people!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Right before I got the “plague” this past winter, I felt really in shape. I was hitting good intervals at practice, I was doing weights three times a week, and even stretching daily. I felt good. Really good.

Things seemed promising for States at the end of March. Normally, I have some um, “motivational” problems for short course meets because I love long course (Fewer turns! More “space” to get into a pace I want to hold! Swimming outdoors! And, so much more…)

But this year was going to be different! Staying in shape through the entire fall/winter season instead of missing weeks and even months of training due to fighting asthma/allergies complications after bouts with colds and the flu was going to be a first for me. I was actually looking forward to the meet, to see what I could do short course when healthy. The “brute squad” was my plan — 1650, 400 IM, 200 fly.

And then, of course, I got a virus which led to an infection, and other related health woes. I had to scale back, way back at States. (Please check earlier post for the full story).

By now, I have almost a month of regular pratices logged, and weights are back in the schedule as well. It’s a relief to be healthy, but I have to admit facing practices while in that nebulous stage of “shape” (not really in or out, just “shape,”) is tough.

You know — the phase when you feel like you’re straggling along, waiting for your endurance to catch up. When you choose less challenging strokes for choice sets because you know you still need to conserve energy just to get through the entire practice. When you can’t catch up with lanemates because you’re getting five seconds or less rest and you need air, damn it!

I know this phase will pass and I’ll be in great shape soon again, but I’m playing two mental games to tide me over. One is my new practice mantra, “you’ve come so far in a month. Think of how far you’ll be one month from now.” The other is recording workouts and times. When I feel particularly lost as teammates, who are in the final tune up stages for Short Course Nationals zoom around me, I can see that my repeat times are in fact dropping per week.

Until next time,
Rebecca, the swim evangelist

Even though I’ve been a masters swimmer for awhile, I still forget that I get to make all the decisions now. Even in practice.

In some ways this lapse is understandable. Afterall, “team” practice implies common sets and intervals.

Yet, masters is different from those age group and scholastic days when teammates had the same competition schedule, and thus the same training phases and similar goals.

Masters practice lanes can be a jumble competitive swimmers and triathletes who each have their own training needs, as well as people who are swimming for health and social reasons.

This morning, faced with a lane leader who wanted to skip the pre-set (which I really wanted to do to un-creak from yesterday’s weights) but do an extra round of the main set, I realized that I’m not using my masters freedom to ensure I get the best workout per day for my goals.

I think the lane leader was driven by “get in as many meters as we can.” This translated to tight inetervals of 5 seconds or less for everyone. And for me, stroke “option” parts were all back to keep on lane pace.

Obviously, this was not a good match for my goals this week — get back to regular a.m. practices after being sick; work but get some decent interval rest; work on all four strokes. But there I stayed. Probably because it’s been ingrained into me from age group and scholastic years that you don’t move around in practice unless a coach asks you to.

Of course, afterwards it occured to me: “I could’ve jumped into a lane that was doing the pre-set,” and “I could have moved down a lane to do all four strokes on an interval with rest.” Hopefully, from now on I’ll better at making quick decisions to move around to optimize my workout.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist