Off the Deck

After heading out to dinner last Saturday with Marica (the intrepid cold water swimmer, currently training for her English Channel relay event later this summer), she showed me her new quilt created from several of her favorite swim t-shirts. I have to admit, I want one now!

Absolutely, I am sure that this idea isn’t new to the hordes of talented crafters out there who have been making their own quilts by hand for decades now. But if you don’t have the inclination or time to make your own, why not use a service (www.campusquilt.com) such as Marcia?

Hiring a service still allows for many options to individualize your quilt, including choosing the size, background color scheme and even the exact order of how your t-shirts will appear on the quilt. Marcia also appreciated how campusquilt.com kept her up to date as each step occured (i.e. “your kit has shipped,” “we have received your t-shirts” and so on).

Now if I could only figure out what to do with all the meet swim camps…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Yes, I am resting (and sleeping!) more this summer while I take a break from competition this summer. But that doesn’t mean I’m slacking off completely. If you’ve been reading along, you already know one of my summer projects is finding “good fuel” in liquid form for long and early a.m. practices. Another project on my list? “Improve health.”

Not that it was terrible to begin with. In fact, after a lifetime of year-round practice and weight training (and let’s not forget supplemental stuff such as stretching), taking vitamins and choosing healthy foods 80% of the time as well as favoring sleep over bar hopping into the wee hours, it’s probably better than what the average adult my age enjoys (or perhaps “suffers.”)

Yet, over the past few years a lot of nagging but seemingly random physical distresses (trouble falling asleep and staying asleep, poor recovery post workouts, bouts of what I call “irrational irritability” and crazy carb cravings, to name only a few) were creeping up on me. Individually, none was bad enough to send me off to the doctors. Instead, I just assumed that this was the natural result of aging and approaching menopause compounded by dealing with two chronic conditions, asthma and allergies.

This year however, the collection of symptoms and escalating intensity of them all finally wore me down. I booked an appointment with a women’s health specialist. First order of business? Blood work, since the last full workup I had was probably seven or more years ago.

Based on the fact that I have a primary relative who has had skin cancer, the specialist ticked off the “Vitamin D level” box on my blood test sheet. At the time, I thought this test would be a total waste of money. After all, I eat well, take a daily multi-vitamin and enjoy being outside.

Oh, but how the mighty are brought down.

Yes, there are some problematic hormone issues to address right now. But my Vitamin D level is what most concerned my practitioner. The “ideal” range for me? 60-80. My current level? 5. Yes, that’s right, I am currently severly Vitamin D deficient.

And let me tell you, after reading about why you need Vitamin D (beyond building strong bones and teeth, Vitamin D helps regulate hormones, including those for sleep, weight and mood, promotes a healthy immune system and heart, for the ladies, boosts uterine and breast health) I want Vitamin D coursing through my veins.

So I will follow my specialist’s recommendation to the T: a daily 10,000iu dose of Vitamin D for two months, followed by two months of 5,000iu daily and a repeat blood test. My specialist says I will be amazed by how much better I feel within a few months. As always, I’ll keep you posted…

Rebecca,
the swim evangelist

Recently I blogged about one of my summer projects: trying a mess of drinks to find one that best fuels me sans sugar-rush (and subsequent crash). Today I’ll review a combo I’ve been trying for the past few weeks.

First, here’s the “recipe”
1 cup soy milk
1 cup juice of choice
1 tablespoon psyllium
1 handful of frozen fruit of choice

A few details on the ingredients:
1) I use plain soy milk; the flavored ones are too sugar-y sweet. My reasons for adding soy milk? Easy source of protein, and being lactose intolerant (more on that coming soon in another posting), milk is not an option.

2) I favor the Naked or Odwalla juice brands. They are organic and contain a variety of fruits. I buy one or two little bottles a week to both keep the juice fresh and mix up flavors from week to week.

3) After reading about psyllium (plant-based soluble fiber) recently, I decided that it might help me feel “full” as I swim. Too often the sugary stuff makes me feel ravenous with sets to go. It’s not cheap, but you can control how much you spend at a time (and reduce packaging costs) by buying psyllium from a bulk bin at certain grocery stores.

4) I throw in a handful of frozen fruit more to keep the concoction cool while I swim and to create a fun, slushy texture than for nutritional or fuel value.

Ready for the commentary?
This is a pretty good drink for me when I hit practice first thing in the morning (and thus on an empty tummy). Although the juice has a higher sugar count (31g or so) than some sports drinks, if doesn’t seem to bother me as much. Maybe because it’s balanced by the psyllium and protein? Or maybe because the sugar isn’t atificial?

By sipping this drink on the drive over and then every 10-15 minutes or so while swimming, I stay pretty alert and fueled sans sugar crash for 90-minute swims. Certainly, it’s more affordable than the store bought stuff.

But it’s not quite perfect though. Obviously, you have to make it right before you swim, so you can’t pack it to use for a swim later in the day. The psyllium tends to absorb the liquids as well, so by the end of practice it’s hard to slurp the stuff down. And, I don’t seem to have that “boundless” energy that I get during the first half hour of practice on the manufactured drinks.

Luckily, there’s plenty of time to tinker with my home-drink formula over the summer as well as try other drinks on the market!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Last Saturday it was heartening to see so many dads accompanied by their offspring at practice.
Many of the older (i.e. college grads and up) kids are masters now themselves. In town specifically for Father’s Day, they joined our sets for the morning.

How cool is it to participate in a sport where parents and their kids can do the same workout together? I don’t think you’d see this at a football practice, for example. Especially since you wouldn’t see the father-daughter combo on the field as much as you would in the pool.

Not to get all sappy about my love for swimming, but the sport does have several key elements that promote the familial bond factor:

Low Impact: Heck, grandpa (and grandma too of course) can zip along side their child and grandchild in the water. Swimming is truly a sport for life if you so choose.

Four Strokes: O.K., maybe mom or dad isn’t as limber as they were in their youth. But so what if that knee replacement or shoulder injury prevents them from swimming breast or fly. They can still do free or back!

Workout Variation: The beautiful thing (or at least one of many) about masters is that you get to do it all your own way. Want to swap out breast for back in a 200 IM set? Go ahead! Don’t want to go off the blocks for sprints? Do a in-water push-off. Want to warm down after 10×100 vs 20? As long as your lanemates don’t mind, indulge! Need fins for those kick sets to make the interval? Have at it! Practice flexibility and modification means just about anyone can do swim sets together.

Pool Space: Sometimes parents and their children aren’t even close to the same speed. No matter — you can still go to the pool together and swim in different but pace-appropriate lanes. Then compare notes on the way home.

Unlimited Age Groups: There’s no age cap in masters. Everyone in the family can go to the same meets. And while you’re gathered there, how about swimming on a relay together?

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Last Wednesday I swam in open water for my first 90 or so minutes of the season. A cloudy-cool day combined with a water temp of about 65 made me opt for my wetsuit.

Initially, I like putting on my wetsuit, but probably for the wrong reason — I feel like Emma Peel of The Avengers when hanging around in it on shore. But actually swimming in it? Not so much.

Foremost, it throws my alignment off (I know, I know, “bouyancy” is the main reason tri-geeks love their wetsuits). But I no longer feel like I am swimming downstream. Second, I have to widen my hand-strike position due to less shoulder mobility. That same lack of mobility makes swimming any other stroke but free too awkward to attempt — boring!

My third complaint is chaffing, right by the nape of my neck. I think it’s from the velcro-closure shifting around from a covered to exposed position when I swim. Whatever! It feels like I have a third-degree burn back there. A nice scaly patch of skin that now stings in the shower, in the sun, when my hair rubs it, when I apply lotion — basically when anything comes in contact with it.

Finally, getting the thing over and off my feet and ankles is nearly impossible. There I was — hopping around on one foot, losing my balance and keeling over in the water repeatedly while trying to get at least one leg off. If not for the kind and gracious Susan who not only offered her arm for balance but also got one wetsuit leg off of me (and never laughed, not even once!), I believe I would still be there, thrashing around. I do have some of that “glide” stuff made specifically for this problem, maybe I should actually bring it and use it…

Thankfully though, today it’s 90 degrees, the average temp predicted for the entire week — a promising water-warming trend to hopefully eliminate the need for the wetsuit by next Wednesday!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Now that I am officially taking a break from competition this summer, I’m starting to think about other aspects I can work on over the next few months to better support my training.

Topping the list is “fueling while swimming.” It’s definitely something I have been at odds with my entire swim career. I know (and feel in my body) that I need to ingest something during hard practices that are longer than an hour. But I have struggled to find “the” solution. The main problem? Sugar and caffeine, the two main ingredients to most sports drinks, make me crazy.

Therefore, this summer I plan to review and sample as many as I can to see if I can find a good match for my training needs. Peridoically, I will share what I learn here.

Today, I’ll start with one drink I have on hand and have tried on and off over the past few years: Accelerade.

Here’s the skinny:

Serving = one scoop
Calories: 120
Total Fat: 1g (O saturated; 0 trans)
Sodium: 190mg
Potassium: 65mg
Carbs: 21g
Sugars: 20g
Protein: 5g
Fiber: 0g

Also, Accelerade uses a whey(milk)-base for protein.

I am of two minds about Accelerade. On the pro side: 1) I tolerate it better than some (i.e. no cramping or nausea while swimming hard!), 2) as a powder, it’s super easy to use/carry, 3) it does keep me fueled during practice, 4) the fruit punch flavor tastes yummy.

On the con side, however: 1) the sugar content does terrible things to me (makes me jittery, jacks up my sugar cravings, and probably is a the source of two pounds I don’t really need), 2) It’s pretty expensive (as high as $47.99 for 60 servings), 3) because I have asthma, I need to avoid milk protein, which is known to cause congestion.

So really, I would like to find something more ideal…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Last Sunday morning was one of those glorious days to be swimmer in an outdoor long course pool. The sun was out, but the air remained cool-fresh. We had the pool to ourselves for an entire practice.

Such happy, relaxed swim atmospheres are known to spark random convo in the middle of the pool, which is exactly what happened during cool down. Barkely (of the paper suit) abruptly stopped in her lane and swam back to where I was kicking away in my lane to share an intriguing insight: Rowdy Gaines has a man-crush on Ryan Lochte.

We had both spent much of the weekend watching the Santa Clara meet and hearing Rowdy’s commentary. And you know, I think Barkely’s onto something. But really, who could blame Rowdy or any other male for that matter?

Ryan is one of those rare individuals that inspires crushes in both sexes. Women adore him, men want to be like him. Obviously, he’s very good looking, so that explains the female attraction. As for the men, well, there’s a lot about Ryan for men to envy — good head of hair, ripped physique, he’s at the top of his game, and he is just flat-out cool (who else but Ryan could get away with wearing a white speedo?) But here’s the key to the man-crush: Ryan seems so darn nice and personable it’s hard for men to dislike him.

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

Outdoor pools? Pool age? Local pool design element?

I don’t know what the common factor is (or even if there is one) but the jets in the outdoor pools I’ve been swimming lately are awfully strong.

Not that this is new. I have long been aware of where jets push me off course per length per outdoor pool.

But seriously, what’s up with those jets? Last Saturday, for example, the jets in one spot in that particular 50m pool whooshed me over to the opposite side of the lane — really not a good thing when you’re circle swimming during practice. And a tweaky low back on one side the day after made me realize just how much I was altering my stroke and pace to fight that current.

I’m not sure what the answer is to the jet mystery. For what ever reason, they don’t seem as strong in indoor pools. Maybe the jet in the 50m pool I swam in last weekend was designed to prevent people from splamming into that wall after torpedoing into the water off the slide. But this doesn’t explain why jets push me back as I approach the wall to flip in another outdoor pool, this one 25m, unless it used to have a slide too.

Hmmm..maybe I should research pool engineering and design through the ages…

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

I’ve got a lot of long, wavy fine hair. I just can’t “get by” sans cap when I swim — it’s like trying to swim through the swish-y scrub strip cycle in the car wash.

So there I was this past Thurday, standing on deck, playing the “can I wrangle one last swim?” game out of a cap that began to rip up the back when I put it on.

Absolutely, latex caps don’t have the longest life. But it’d be nice to have some warning that they were thinking of checking out versus just splitting apart one moment. For this reason, I carry a spare cap in my swimbag. On that Thursday however, my bag was located all the way across the outdoor pool, up a walkway, through a door, down another hallway, in a locker. I just wanted to get in and swim!

After cramming my hair into the now smaller cap, I decided I might get away with it if I could sort of hold the cap together with my split-strap goggles. I have to admit, that for the most part, this method worked. Well, at least when swimming free or back — I only had to re-wedge the cap down on my head during flip turns. And deal with that odd sucking noise by my right ear as a torn piece flapped around…

Butterfly and breast were another story though — we’ve all seen those races when someone’s cap slowly starts peeling off the head from front to back. Everyone else in the pool that day, and probably the guard too, must have thought I had some sort of obsessive-compulsive disorder that compelled me to adjust my cap every 10 seconds during butterfly or breast. Either that or I was angling for a lot of breaks.

In all though, I can’t complain too much. Although distracting, the cap did hold it together for 90 minutes — not bad. Furthermore, it’s always fun to sort through the cap collection at home and pull out a fresh one. In many ways this rip was timely as it forced me to switch from a heat-absorbing navy blue one (thanks again to Teri Jean for picking it up for me at Olympics Trials!) to a heat-reflecting yellow one (and here a shout out to Chuck for picking it up at the Washington SC Nationals.) Just in time to help my head stay cooler during outdoor practices as it gets hotter this summer!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist

My scheduled summer break from specific training, while proving to be an adjustment on some levels, also provides many perks. Today, to walk on the happy side, I’m reporting on some of the new program’s good points I’ve already noticed:

1) Less schedule stress: No more rushing to get into the pool early or planning to stay late to get in those distance miles. And, so what if the primary long course pools are closed for a weekend, or the weeks leading up to Nationals. I can swim open water, or even run instead.

2) Tally-free workouts. For the next few months, who cares how much I swim per session?

3) Math-free swimming: I can focus on my stroke, turns, streamlines, or even watch the clouds drift by overhead outside because I am free of interval and repeat calculations for awhile.

4) Locker room zippy-ness: It’s shower and go for me now — no sets/intervals/repeat times to record in my log, no mixing and gulping down some sort of grainy replacement slurp-y drink.

5) More sleep: Practice is not so essential now, which frees me to swim whenever I can when a pool or open water venue is open. Days are a littler easier when you don’t get up at 4:15 a.m., aren’t they? And hey, maybe I can have a social life on weekdays over the summer!

Until next time,
Rebecca, swim evangelist