No meet for you.

So I was stoked about the Tiger Master meet this weekend, and I had even submitted my entry, but then this happened:



Kind of puts a crimp in your plans, non?

I should report, though, that apart from the usual soreness and abrasions from the airbag, I was not injured. Neither was the other driver. And it was not my fault. The car is totaled, but we got a higher appraisal than I feared. Thank you, car, for taking the literal brunt of this.

In short, I cannot complain.

But back to swimming. I tried to go to practice on Tuesday, but the combined stress of driving there (holy freakout, Batman!) and then being around a crowd, and then not being sure whether I could swim. . . . . Let's just say I got back in the car and drove home.



I did go to practice this morning (thank you, Patient Partner, for driving), and I managed to swim about 500 yards before the pain and soreness was more than I felt like trying to swim through. I had wonkiness in my lower back (an exacerbation, perhaps, of the soreness I had been feeling before the accident, which is related to my hamstring problem, I think) and in my left shoulder (which SCARED me, but which I am hoping is simply soreness and stiffness from the impact and the way I constricted my left pecs in a reflex protective move for a shoulder I would really like NOT to be hurt again).

And honestly, should I really be diving into a pool right now?

So I am withdrawing from the meet. It is a drag--I was looking forward to this. But given the alternatives, I am not complaining.

Tiger Master 2009.

It is official: I am entering my first swim meet since January 2007. The entry is in the mail. I cannot bring it back.

Granted: I do not expect any "best times."

Granted: I am not even swimming many of what used to be my "best events."

Granted: I will be satisfied with simply finishing the races for which I have signed up and completing the required warm-ups and cool-downs.

Granted: I am trying to do this just for fun, but I am also nervous as hell.

Still: ain't it great?

Week Two.

Short version: Swimming is still mostly feeling good, and help is on the way.

Longer version:
I still feel uninjured as I continue to try to build back into swimming regularly. I was thwarted early this week, however, by the, shall we say, inconsistent climate and temperature control in our aquatic center. At last Monday morning's 5:30 a.m. practice, the temperature inside the facility was not much warmer than outside, and sadly the water was cold too. I tried swimming anyway (I got my ass up, after all!), but after 1000 yards, I was not loosening up, and my shoulder and hamstring were feeling tight, so I called it in. When I went to the pool Tuesday evening, the water temperature had fallen by a degree, and given how things had gone Monday morning, I went home without swimming. But Wednesday's strength-training was rigorous, and Thursday evening I had a good swim. Saturday morning I had a great swim, clocking 2100 meters and even being able to do a set of 5 x 50 BA/BR descend at the end. It was at about 1500 meters that I started feeling really good--really loose and strong--and I took that as a good sign, because that is about when I used to start feeling good when I was swimming healthy.

I also managed to get in to see my physical therapist on Thursday (took some finagling to get past a receptionist hell-bent on requiring a referral, but I guess it pays to know people). He did quite a series of diagnostic tests, and even had another therapist do the same, and they agreed that the problem with my hamstring seems to be coming from tightness in the muscles of my hamstrings, hip flexors, and lower back. He has given me some stretching to do at home, and also some ab work, and when I get back from traveling this week, I'll have some regular appointments with him to work more intensively. I found that having gotten some expert opinion on this also made me feel more comfortable in the water: he said that he thought the problem may come most intensely from the way I hold my body when swimming, so I tried modifying position here and there, and I could see that that seemed right. I know, for instance, that kicking with a kickboard may make things worse, so now I do not do that.

This week's workouts will be disrupted by travel, and I even bailed on this morning's practice to save energy for the work I need to do while traveling. But I am hopeful.

First Week Back.

Short version:
I am back in the pool, and back at the gym, and so far everything is holding together. The rest of this post is lots of detail re that for the purposes of documentation--feel free to skip it.

Longer version:
When I went back to swimming on Saturday (after injury, holidays, travel, more holidays), it felt great. Nothing like the rich aroma of chlorine in the morning! My coach was happy to have me back, too, which made me even more happy. We talked about how I should approach recovery this time, and he recommended more rather than fewer sessions in the pool, but with lowish yardage, gradually building up, and some kind of other physical activity on the non-swimming days. More specifically, he recommended swimming four days a week, seeing how it goes, and (I thought I heard) increasing the yardage by 50% per week. I figured I would add in my two days per week of strength training, and then a wild-card day--either a nice walk downtown or playing squash with the PP, or riding my bike, or whatever. That all sounded great to me--except for the 50% increase per week, which sounded a little over-dramatic.

I approached him about that on Tuesday night, saying that I was down with everything he suggested except the 50% increase per week. He said, "50%? That is insane. I didn't say that. I said 15%." Aha. Makes much more sense, as I was thinking that perhaps an increase of 10-20% per week would make sense. Which, of course, equals 15%. He looked at me with that look.

Anyway, here at the almost end of week one, things are feeling good. I am feeling physically tired, which is appropriate, I'd say, after stepping things up after a long period (it felt eternal, really--it had been about a month) of sitting around. My shoulder feels good--I am almost afraid to say that--like it needs strengthening but not like it is post-surgical. My leg is more or less cooperating, if I don't stress it too much. I am this week swimming about 1900 yards per practice, and that is most or all swim. Flutter kicking on its own stresses my knee, so I have to be careful not to do too much of that. Breaststroke kick is usually OK (does this seem backwards, or what? the stress point for the knee is when the joint is locked, which does not happen in BR kick--whatever), but on days when I have seen my chiropractor (like yesterday), my hips feel out of wack, and that makes the BR kick seem wrong, so I don't do it those days, since it was after a chiropractic visit that my knee freaked out before. And the strength-training days at the gym feel productive but not over-stressful. In all, great!

I am hopeful that with the year's respite from teaching, I'll be able to maintain a more regular pace, with fewer interruptions from the rest of life.

"No relief for gas pains."

That was a recent headline in our local newspaper, for an article about local gas prices and shortages, courtesy of hurricane Ike. Now the Patient Partner walks around the house devising other political headlines that can sound like commentary on one's, uhm, bodily functioning. I will spare you the details.

I do not know how things are where you live, but every other gas station around here is out of gas, or has only diesel. I have been trying to hold off filling up until the prices come down some (they are still up around $4 per gallon at most stations), but now I am thinking that if the shortages are going to persist, that may not be possible.

But this is not really a post about the southeastern U.S. gas shortages. It is about running out of gas in the pool. Scott warned me last week to be careful not to overdo it, and my body seems to have been thinking the same thing. I am still so tired from last week's swimming, that it is pretty much impossible for me to overdo things this week. But I'm listening, so I have dialed things back a bit.

This morning's practice contained yet more skill work, which I am loving. First, we worked on freestyle hand placement--placing your hand and forearm as a sort of paddle, or (if you are a more efficient swimmer than I am) even an anchor, such that you can truly pull your body to your hand, rather than vice versa. (I am, I'm sorry to say, all about the vice versa.)

Then it was on to breaststroke kick, where I am still trying to undo years of practice kicking the wrong way--or at least, the old-school way. The right way means keeping as straight a line as possible from your core through your hip and down your thigh. The old style--what I learned to do as a kid--had you bend more at the hip, so that (sadly) your thigh would become a sort of block to real hydrodynamic efficiency. And this old kick style is even more problematic if you, like I, have big honking legs. Also, I am trying to learn to keep my kick narrower: coach says that the power gained by the big wide kick is effectively undone by the loss in streamlinability (your new word for the day).

But he also says that he can see real improvement in my swim mechanics already this season, and that I am moving more like a swimmer. That is nice to hear.

Warm-up: 1000 with long fins (300 s)
First skill set: 400 swim/kick: 4 x 100, first 50 = technique free, second 50 = choice kick (200s)
Second skill set: 400 swim/kick: 8 x 50, first 25 = technique breast, second 25 = choice kick (200s)
Main set: 800 kick/swim: 4 rounds of 4 x 50, 1st three = kick, last one = swim; odds = build, evens = fast (200s)
Cool-down: 200 with long fins
TOTAL: 2800 yards (900 swim)

Dolphin + Freestyle modification.

Today was butterfly day, and since I cannot really swim fly yet (did I mention that I swam 2 separate 25s of it last Saturday? With long fins, but STILL.), I did a combination of dolphin kick and one-arm drill. My coach suggested really working to make each dolphin powerful--starting from the chest of course--instead of doing lots of little dolphins, which has been how I have typically done butterfly kick.

My coach will not even use the word "kick" for fly, because, he said, the stroke does not really have a true kick so much as a dolphin movement involving the whole body.

Working on the power of each dolphin made a huge difference, as I could really work on the power of the movement. Furthermore, I could use the 1-arm drilling to make sure that the rhythm of my kicking was pretty much the same as the kick rhythm when I actually swim. I mentioned earlier that my core strength is pretty low right now, so this was also a great drill for me in terms of rebuilding strength.

Also, my coach pointed out that in my freestyle, I tend to pull with force all the way through the pull phase, which leaves my arm and my shoulder tense at the beginning of the recovery phase, thereby putting unnecessary stress on the shoulder. Instead, he suggested that after my pull passes my waist, which is effectively the end of the power phase of the stroke, I release my elbow so that when the recovery begins, my shoulder is in a better position. I have not really got the hang of this yet--it is always difficult to integrate changes into a stroke--but I think I can really feel how this will be better for the shoulders.

I did not feel comfortable doing my 900 swim today, because I was feeling too much stress on my left shoulder.

Do I get extra points for doing 2600 yards of kick? I hope so, because I can hardly stand up.

THE WORKOUT
1100 warm-up: 600 with long fins, 500 with no fins (200 swim)
800 skill set focused on dolphining: 8x100, 50 dolphin + 50 something else (kick)
1200 main set: 6 rounds of 100 IM + 100 FR, where second and fourth 25 of each is swim; for each 100 by round: 25 fast/75 easy // 50 fast/50 easy // 75 fast/25 easy; after four rounds I cut out the swimming and did all kick (400 swim)
200 cool-down: with long fins, alternating 25 kick/25 swim (100 swim)
TOTAL: 3300 yards (700 swim)

Check out this kick set.

I am now one day into my second consecutive week of swimming.

I felt a little discomfort in my shoulder this morning, so I backed off my planned set: initially I tried to swim but with short fins instead of no fins, but that was only good for so far, so then I stopped the swim. Last week I was able to swim 900 yards per practice without discomfort, but I expect this is residual fatigue by this week.

But I did do a most righteous kick set that I highly recommend. It's a total of 1200 yards (or meters, if you do it in such a pool) and it goes like this. 25 fast kick, 50 easy kick, 50 fast kick, 50 easy kick, 75 fast kick, 50 easy kick, and so on, up to 200 fast kick, 50 easy kick. It is one of those sets where about half-way through you think maybe your legs are going to burn off, but then they go numb, and you can really crank.

WORKOUT (9/15)
800 Warm-up (including 200 swim with long fins)
600 IM Swim set (8 x 75 IM order, with short fins, substituting free for fly and also after a while substituting back for breast)
1200 kick (no fins), as described above)
200 easy
TOTAL: 2800 (including 800 y of swim)

Training.

I have started working with a personal trainer.

I resisted this approach for a long time, for a number of reasons. First, I figured that I know something about fitness and I should not have to pay someone to tell me to do sit-ups. Second, I come from strong, penny-pinching yankee stock, and I hate spending money on anything (except yarn). Third, I figured I was already working with a swim coach, and so really, how much athletic staff did I need in my life?

But then I saw how after her races in Beijing, Dara Torres had, like, six people massaging her and stretching her and OMG is that what I have been missing?

No, seriously: this summer I realized that the left side of my upper body is still rather atrophied after all my shoulder hoo-ha, and if I did not get serious about bringing it back RIGHT, I would probably never be able to swim well and consistently.

Also, I came to terms with the fact that I am a slack-ass about strength training.

So this morning I had my first session with K., and I am optimistic. She seemed smart, knowledgeable, articulate. She gave me good exercises to do on the first day. She did not overdo it. She treated me like an athlete.

But painful confession time: not only has my shoulder suffered from the last 1.75 years of erratic training, but I. HAVE. NO. CORE. STRENGTH. Yow. Crunches that would have been no big deal several years ago HURT ME. And I know from back when I was in shape how important core strength is to swimming.

Verdict: if I do not get serious about core strength-training, my poor shoulder will no doubt pay the price.

So here we go.

"Meet" Report.

This meet is happening this weekend. I was hoping this would be my first post-surgery competition. After some of the set-backs experienced recently, though, I decided that competition would be a mistake. I would have had to go out and "just swim"--not race. I decided that would be too difficult. It might be discouraging, and frankly I did not trust myself to let someone else win, even if it would have been what I needed to do to preserve the shoulder. So: no meet for me.

But this morning at practice, the coach had a "pre-meet" practice lined up, with some starts from the blocks and sprinting. Initially, I planned not to do it, just to do my own thing, but as I was warming up, I changed my mind.

Yesterday Elizabeth wrote about deciding to go out on her own for a wheel, even though she thought she should not. Even though everyone around her said she should not, and she knew that the risks involved would be tremendous:

I thought, “It looks like a good day to go training.”
I thought, “It would probably be better to spending the day resting.
Besides, training by myself is really risky." I paused, "AND Linda would kick my butt.”
I thought, “But, I’ve thought out the route and while it might be risky, it is also, I think, possible.”
Possible.
I thought, “When are you, Elizabeth going to decide to do SOMETHING?”
I thought, "Does it have to be this? This is riskier than the trip to Port Angeles and look what happened there!"
Possible.

Even though her post today is about the repercussions from that decision, it was one of the most inspiring posts I have read, because it was about how living life is about taking risks--even sometimes taking risks you know to have impossible odds--because otherwise you might not really be living. In some ways it might have been easier for her to decide not to go for that training ride, because it was not worth the risk, but she made the (really) harder choice and did the dangerous thing, the dangerous thing that for her is necessary to living life.

In no way can I say that my situation is like hers, but her post did come at a time when I needed a little kick in the pants. Too often recently I have tended to hole up at home rather than "getting out there," even though I know that "getting out there" makes me happier. It just seems too scary, so I stay in.

I am taking a long time to come around to saying that as I was warming up this morning, I thought, "If Elizabeth can go out for a training ride by herself (and without oxygen), then I can at least try to do this pre-meet practice."

I was a little nervous about whether diving might be risky, whether sprinting might be risky, whether I might be too tempted to pull too hard, but I decided to assume the risk and give it a shot, knowing I would be responsible for the results of my actions.

It felt great.

There is just something different about racing (even just sort-of racing) from swimming carefully, and I have not raced in a long time.

We did a series of break-out swims off the blocks (only 15 meters, which means the dive plus about three pull cycles), then a set of 2 x 25 sprint + 50 easy. I was ready to stop at any time if I felt any pain, but I managed to do the full set. And I beat the PP on most of the sprints. Heh.

For the first time in a long time, I feel mighty.

WARM-UP: 1000m with long fins (total of 700 kick + 300 swim)
KICK: 700m kick with no fins (7 x 100, odds w/snorkel, evens on back)
STARTS: 60m swim (4 x 15m sprint from dive)
SPRINTS: 400m [4 x (2x25 sprint swim + 50 easy kick)] (200m swim)
RECOVERY: 200m easy (140m swim)
KICK: 400m (2 x 200 fast kick with long fins)
COOL: 100m easy swim
2860 LCM (800 LCM swim)

And often barefoot.

From indexed.com (via):




Which one are you?

You cannot be careful enough.

My regular reader knows that in my work to come back from my surgery back in November, I have been extremely careful. Despite my desire to recover faster, I have been taking things at a snail’s pace, adding swimming at a rate of 10% a week, and backing off at even the smallest sign of discomfort. I have done my exercises regularly. I have kept my coaches in the know. I have taken careful notes.

It has been about 10 days since I went back into physical therapy. I believe that the stretching and new exercises my PT has had me doing have been helping. On Saturday morning, I was able to swim 900 meters in practice without any pinching or soreness or anything. Great!

But then: bad luck. I was swimming backstroke, because that is the stroke that is feeling the best right now. (I know: the irony, since it is, in terms of competition, my weakest stroke and the one where I have had to work the hardest as an adult to gain better skills—still very much a work in progress.) In the next lane, another swimming was also swimming backstroke, and somehow, under the lane line, our pulls matched up so that our left (yes, left—the bad one) elbows interlocked as we passed. Since the joint is weak and a bit unstable, the contact pulled my shoulder up and a bit out of joint. OUCH!

I stopped immediately, and I did a heavy icing and ibuprofen regimen over the weekend. Oh, and wine.

Today I saw my PT again, and he says the shoulder capsule is stretched, kind of like a sprained ankle. So I need to lay off it for a while, and off the exercises, until it can settle down.

What dumb luck: all that caution and then a freak accident. A friend told me that day I should buy a lottery ticket, but I was afraid I would get one of those tickets where I end up owing a million dollars to the state of South Carolina.

Swimming meditation.

It has been a while since I wrote about swimming. I realized this this morning at practice, which was not going the best. But surprisingly enough, this not-great practice let me make some important strides in approaching things in a more mindful way.

During this not-so-great practice, I remembered that I had meant to write about a couple of recent practices in which I have clocked 3000 long-course meters, of which 1000 of those meters have been swim. (Hooah!) Those have been pretty amazing practices, both because my body has been permitting that much swimming and because 3000 LCM was a new record for one practice since I have returned from Surgery Numero Duo. Let me tell you: I have legs of steel! (Too bad they are encased in sheaths of extra flab....)

Back in the middle of March, I returned to swimming after getting clearance from my surgeon. I started with 450 meters of swimming in a practice, up to three times a week. My shoulder did not initially like swimming 3 times in one week, so for a while I swam twice a week. Then lately I have been able to swim 3 times a week more frequently, and all in all the recovery has been very steady, allowing me to add 10% of swimming distance almost every week, such that this week I am supposed to be able to swim 1100 meters.

Here is a sample of one of those 3000 LCM practices, just for the record (from 6 May):
1200m warm-up: 4 x 300 (=200 k + 100 s), with long fins [400m swim]
1200m IM set: 4 x 300 IM (= 100 FL k / 50 BA s / 100 BR k / 50 FR s) [400m swim]
400m kick/swim set: 4 x 100 (= 50 build k / 25 "madman" k / 25 s [100m swim]
TOTAL: 3000 LCM [900m swim]
I did a similar practice on 14 May, but with 1000 meters of swim.

But for whatever reason, at this past Saturday's practice my shoulder was unhappy, and I cut my swimming portion short. Thus far, things have gone extremely easily, so perhaps this is just a small check. At many points I have had some soreness along my triceps muscle that I believe results from some tightness of muscles elsewhere that I am stretching and stretching to try to loosen--which is working gradually.

Furthermore, my body is still adjusting to the long-course pool. Thanks to the lack of turns, and therefore opportunities to push off the wall, swimming one length in a 50-meter pool requires something like 10-15% more effort than swimming two lengths in a 25-meter pool. As someone who relies heavily on those big jumps off the wall, I take a while to get used to the long pool. (It is a bit of a shame that this adjustment had to come so early in my recovery, but so it goes.)

Today at practice, though, my shoulder felt a bit worse, or else I was being extremely sensitive and noticed it sooner. Given that the soreness is in the front of the shoulder, what I have come to call the "danger zone," I take it very seriously, and play things conservatively, since I would rather let the thing heal, however long it takes. I am concerned, though, that despite my doing regular rotator-cuff exercises, there may be some lingering weakness and instability in the joint, and that I have finally reached the amount of swimming where I can notice it.

So I backed off. Today I swam only 550 meters in a 2400-meter practice.

And while I am trying to remain optimistic, having this happen a second time in a few days does make me a little nervous.

What also made me nervous this morning was sharing a lane with The Human Propeller. I am not joking: this guy, who is rather tall and long-limbed, gets some serious crazy arms-everywhere action going on his freestyle. And on his backstroke, his stroke is wide wide wide.

I do not really mind sharing lane space with people when they are swimming in their normal allotment of the lane, but with this guy I was like, "DUDE. Feel free to take your half of the lane wherever you want it."

So I could feel myself venturing toward having A Bad Practice. Instead of letting that happen, though, I thought I would try a meditative technique. Of late I have been reading a book by John Kabat-Zinn, who writes extensively about mindfulness--living in the present--and how living mindfully can help counterbalance stress, deal with chronic pain, etc. etc. In his book, he talks about different kinds of meditation--walking meditation, eating meditation, sitting meditation, etc.

This morning I thought to myself, why not swimming meditation? Or more technically, kicking meditation? I was doing a set of 150s, which were supposed to go 50 kick + 50 drill or swim + 50 fast kick, but I had modified them to become all kick, alternating FL/BR/FR, and I was doing all of this with a swim snorkel, which made breathing much easier. So during the fly-kick 50, I started focusing on my breathing, and trying to think just about breathing, and then after that got easy, just about the motion of kicking. On the breast-kick 50, I coordinated my breathing with the kick motion, and focused on that. (On the flutter-kick 50, I was trying to kick fast, and that required a little less meditation.)

But the important thing here is that IT WORKED. I got myself back into the present moment of my swimming and out of my fears. Of course, this sort of thing requires rethinking what swim practice is about, which I was prepared to do. The notion of mindfulness as a practice is not something you do to perfect, but rather something that is more a way of life or a part of one's regular doings. In learning about this, I have wondered, What would happen if I thought of swim practice as that kind of practice rather than as rehearsals for meets?

Today I learned that it is easier to have good technique. I realized that during my last 150, I felt stronger and more efficient than during the first one, even though I was tired (and especially so because I had forgotten to eat anything before practice--duh). In particular, I felt that my fly kick was more powerful, as I was getting propulsion from both my down-kick and my up-kick. My breast-stroke kick felt more powerful too. My flutter kick engaged my hips more.

I will continue to practice this, as it were.

Swim.

On Wednesday, I saw my surgeon again, and I got the go-ahead to return to swimming, not just kicking. My physical therapist and I devised a schedule for coming back--starting back at about 500 yards of swimming, with a maximum of three practices per week, and then increasing 10% each week. If I have problems--such as pain--I back away from that increase until the pain goes away. If there are areas in my stroke where I have trouble with mobility, he will give me more exercises. I will continue doing my regular exercises daily for a month, and then gradually back off some of the exercises and I get more of my strengthening from swimming.

I am thrilled to be at this point. I can remember any number of times when I thought this day would not come.

But I also have mixed feelings, in that I have not decided yet how seriously I want to return to the swimming. Of course I am excited to have other options for exercise and fitness (which I have seriously lost over the last six months or so, not to mention the months before that), but I am still wrestling with how I want to pursue this. Starting in the fall of 2004 and culminating in the spring of 2006, I had achieved a very high level of swimming fitness: during that period I achieved several USMS national cuts, trained at a high level (swimming with masters and my team's kids' squad), competed in a lot of meets (including numerous USA Swimming meets where I raced with little kids--humbling), and medaled in the spring USMS SCY national championship. To return to my fitness level of spring 2006 would require a tremendous amount of work, and I would basically be starting from scratch. I do not yet know that I want to make that commitment.

But for now, I am just swimming. On Wednesday, after my appointment with my surgeon, I went to the pool and did a session of 2000 meters, of which 450 meters were swimming. Much of that swimming (300 meters) I did while wearing long fins, and I never swam more than a 50 at a time (for most of the swimming, I alternated 25 swim with 25 kick). I was both not surprised and a little surprise by how hard it was to swim, as I realized how weak my arms are (especially the left, but really both of them). On Thursday and also this morning, I was very stiff in my left arm, but PT exercises and stretching helps loosen that up.

And now for the next week or so, I am at the beach, doing the spring break thing. Note: for me, the "spring break thing" does not include big parties with lots of undergraduates gone wild. Instead, it will be a pretty quiet week, where my biggest decisions are which knitting project to work on, whether to go for a bike ride or watch the ACC tourney, whether to eat here in the condo or go to a restaurant, whether to sit around in my jammies or venture out for a newspaper, and how far to walk on the beach. I'll need to do some work in there too, but still. My condo looks out on the tennis courts, so this morning I am listening to the pock, pock, pock of someone's first game of the day.

I am going to see if by the end of this week, I can get myself back to a point where I can return to swim practice next week. I think that having feedback from my coach now, when I am trying to rebuild my stroke and trying to be very careful about pacing my recovery, could be a very important thing. But first I need to get to a mental place where I feel good about being at practice.

But for now, should I ride my bike on the beach or go pick up a New York Times?

p.s. Go Heels.

Back to the well.

I had been holding off on vertical kicking for a while, waiting for my knees to adapt to kicking again. It seems they are adapting, so I did some verticals last night--and remembered quickly that it is its own physical skill and much harder than horizontal kicking. All to say, I am still out of shape.

I did three rounds of a set where you kick hard for 10 seconds, rest for 30, kick hard for 20 seconds, rest for 30, kick hard for 30 seconds, rest for 30. Based on the sets I used to do, where it was always 30 seconds on, 30 seconds off, or else 20/30/40 on, I thought this would be a breeze. Wrong. The 30-second-on segments kicked my butt (so to speak).

But this is all part of the process. (She said, hoping this time she would believe it.)

MONDAY, 4 FEBRUARY
1000 warm-up (400 kick with fins; 300 kick w/o fins; 300 alt. 25 one-arm, 25 kick)
500 kick, descend sets (no fins)
.....3x50 FR kick descend
.....4x50 BR kick descend
.....3x50 BA kick descend
100 easy kick
300 flutter kick with board: 6x50s alt. 25 flat board and 25 "tombstone"
100 easy
8 minutes vertical kick (=~400 yards)
200 cooldown
TOTAL: ~2600 yards

Feels like swimming.

Last night at practice I tried again to do some one-arm drills (with the "good" arm, of course): this time, they felt just fine, so I did a set of 50s, with the first 25 being one-arm drill (cycling through free, fly, and back) and the second 25 being kick, thinking I should be careful not to overdo it. Since it kept feeling OK, I made it a set of 18 x 50s, or 6 times through the cycle of strokes. I did the whole set with the big fins, so there would not be too much pressure on the extremely out-of-shape upper body. Felt great all the way through: even the rotation for free and back did not cause any pain in my "spot," where the labrum was stapled back together. And best of all? It felt like swimming.

WEDNESDAY, 30 JANUARY
1000 kick warm-up (500 with fins, 500 without fins)
900 one-arm drill + kick (18 x 50, alternating FR/FL/BA)
100 easy
300 BR/FR kick (no fins, of course)
TOTAL: 2300 meters

Back to Life.

This has been a week of remembering pleasures that I had tried to forget until I could come back to them. These include:

* sleeping on my side (ahhhhhhhh);
* leaving my house without the sling, and therefore not having to negotiate the sling in the putting on and taking off of coats;
* carrying something, even something light, in my left hand;
* driving my very own stick-shift car;
* looking at my sling lying in a heap on the floor and just leaving it there.

OK, so that last one was not so much something I had experienced before, but it is sure sweet.

The difficulty of being rid of the sling is that there is a bit more soreness and tenderness around the place where the surgery was done. (It feels a bit sore and then if I touch it there is no question of the exact spot.) I believe this is part of the process: not wearing the sling puts the wound under a bit more pressure, as I relearn to use the muscles around it to support it. But so far my body has not rejected any of its bionic parts.

But most of all, I have been to swim practice twice. Those of you who swim regularly probably do not remember what it is like to come back to practice for the first time after a long time of being kept away, but being in the water? Moving your body in some strange way that, because you have done it for so long, actually makes you move pretty efficiently through the water? Realizing that you remember every little automatic thing that you do to keep from getting water up your nose? Discovering that it is absolutely possible to do a (somewhat half-speed) flip turn with one arm's worth of propulsion? These are amazing things.

Saturday I was allowed to add a couple of hundred meters to my practice, so it was a total of 1500 meters. Less one-arm drill, because that felt a little bad in my shoulder where the surgical work was done, and the goal here is to do no harm. I am guessing, given that oblique ab work in the gym did something similar, that the body rotation puts some strain on that spot, strain I had no idea about. So I will back away from those drills completely, and then see if they can come in gradually sometime later. For now, then, kickery, and seeing how long it will take before I can do an entire practice. (But this is not a race.)

I know myself well enough to know that after a month or so, I will start to get frustrated that I cannot push further. I might tend to focus again on what I cannot do instead of what I can do. I might get stressed out by my job and lose all my senses. So I am writing this now to try to remember that even being here is terrific.

Resolve.

I have been trying hard to decide whether or not to bother with resolutions this year. Last year's swimming goals were pretty quickly dashed by my stupid shoulder, and I am not sure I want to tempt the Kindly Ones into giving me some new injury. But why resist the draw of the calendar? Admittedly, Dear Reader, this post is about navel-gazing and record-keeping, so it may be one to skip.

So first, assessment of last year's goals.

General resolutions:
1. Swim 150 yards or more of butterfly in every swim practice. Well, this went down the tubes when the shoulder did. I see that I was doing a decent job about it until then.
2. Find non-computer-related break activities and use them to replace aimless internet searching, doing several days worth of Washington Post sudoku at a time, etc. See? This is one of those embarrassing resolutions, because I was just thinking recently about how I needed to work on this, not even remembering
3. Turn off internet and e-mail while working. I have been much better about this, if only because I have finally come to believe that e-mail mostly brings annoying requests from bosses and colleagues and students. I now also have a sticky on my monitor that reads "NO RAVELRY DURING WORKTIME." So far, yes. We'll see how it lasts.
4. Eat one salad, one large piece of fruit, and one other vegetable per day. Um, hi. I totally forgot this resolution existed. I think, though, that I have usually succeeded on two out of three.
5. Exercise 4-5 days per week instead of 3-5. Did well with this until about October, when I got so damn depressed about the shoulder that I could no longer face the pool or anything else.
6. Do shoulder exercises every other day and also stretch on those days. Shoulder exercises: yes, for the good it did. Stretching? Well, again: this is one I was going to put down for this year.
7. Ice sore shoulder after swim practice. Check.

Then I had a bunch of swimming goals:
1. Swim 200 back in competition.
2. Swim 200 fly in competition.
3. Swim 1000 SCY free in competition.
4. Swim 400 IM strong in competition.
5. Beat previous best time in 100 SCY back (1:23.67) and SCM (1:33.45) in competition.
6. Beat previous best time in 100 SCY fly (1:16.73) in competition.
7. In one week during the summer, swim every practice that my masters team offers.

I doubt I need to say much about these, since I swam in exactly one meet (SCY), where I did not beat my best 100 BA time, and scratched the 1000 FR and 200 BA because I was having shoulder problems.

One thing that is worthwhile (read: a little painful) about this assessment process is the reminder of my great optimism c. January 2007. It reminds me of how I was thinking about swimming before my hubris got nipped. And while my Older and Wiser part is inclined to laugh derisively at that year-ago me, I do not think that is the right answer: instead, it gives me something to shoot for, a place to get back to, though the getting there will take time. And patience--a commodity in short suppy in these parts.

So, 2008, the year in which I set some easy goals and some harder ones.

1. Begin getting back in shape. This means making exercise a serious part of my life again. It means that rather than focusing on how much I am not presently an athlete, I remember that I want to be one again, and that that takes work, and then doing the work. For now, in a concrete way, this means coming back to the pool a couple of days a week (and working to keep my perspective while I am there), getting back in the gym for some other kinds of cardio work (presently, the recumbent bike, because it does not strain the shoulder), and remembering that junk in = junk out. Later (after, say, my March 12 doctor's appointment), this will mean beginning to swim again, and then gradually, beginning to train again, and perhaps eventually, beginning to compete again. But for this year, I probably have to phrase these things as beginning. Really, beginning again.

2. Keep working at nipping the solitaire addiction. Really, I mean this in terms of my general tendency to spend too much time on the internets. I am not really sure how I am going to approach this (and please refrain from commenting about how this post may not be helping. Thanks.)

3. Stretch. Oh yeah, and try not to forget about this one.

4. Learn to knit complicated cables. Then make something with such a pattern. Start simple: make a cap. If all goes well, I'll achieve this one this month, since I am already started on such a project.

5. Learn to turn the heel of a sock. There is even a sock on the needles, eagerly awaiting its new heel.

6. Remember how far I have come. My new Life Coach mentioned this in the context of returning to sports, but I could stand to learn it more generally, rather than constantly focusing on how I do not measure up. Yee haw.

Last night's practice.

My regular reader knows that I rarely post the details of my swim practices, but last night was a somewhat momentous occasion: the first time I've been in the pool since October 13!

The practice itself was not much to write home about:
400 free kick on sides with long fins
300 fly kick on front with short fins
200 free kick on front with little cup fins
100 BR kick on front with no fins
300 alternating 50 BR kick on back / 50 right-arm free
(1300 total meters)

But here I am, writing home about it anyway, if only because it happened. And it wiped me out! And that in itself felt good. As did the feeling of being in the water, remembering what it is like to dolphin off a wall (even if I can only streamline with one arm), and pull with one arm, and kick kick kick. What did not feel good was (1) wearing a swimsuit after too much sedentariness (or, in my case, sedimentariness), and (2) how quickly I got winded. But that is fine. I have to start somewhere, and this time, here is where I am starting.

O Happy Day!

Went to see my surgeon today, and he told me to take the sling off and get back in the pool for some kicking and one-arm drills.

So tonight I'll go to practice and come home exhausted.

How cool is that?

How long must I sing this song?

Joe asked, "How long until you can get back in the pool?"

I suppose technically I could get in the pool (not really to swim but to do therapy) after I get my stitches out on Monday, but the word from my PT is that I can go back to swimming in 8-10 weeks, which is mid-January or early February. Then it will be a very slow and gradual start, and I do not expect to be able to compete for quite some time.

But just being on the improving end of all this is a nice thing. Remind me of that when I get impatient.

For now I am doing very minimal PT exercises--pendulums, passive range of motion, external rotation to 0 degrees and forward elevation to 90 degrees. I will continue to do those thing for about 3 weeks, and then move on to full range of motion for external rotation and forward elevations. Then, in week 5, I start on active range of motion exercises. In the sixth week I can move on to seated rows, standing forward punch, shoulder shrugs, bicep curls, and bear hugs. I start weight training in week 78, but with a fairly limited range of motion and with minimal overhead activities.

Joe's question also made me think about a few other milestones:

Sling off: 4 weeks
Computer work: 4 weeks (though I can type one-handed in the meantime)
Driving: after I quit the big pain meds and get clearance from my doctor (2-3 weeks? depending on pain level)
Reading: once I back off the pain meds enough to concentrate for more than half a paragraph at a time
Teaching: once I am capable of maintaining a non-surreal conversation with more than one person at a time (though my students have assured me that they would like me to come back sooner. . .)

Sometimes I think that the pain meds don't have a real effect, but then I ride in a car, and I find that although the driver is only going 15 mph or so, it feels like we are careening around. Or I try to participate in a conversation with numerous people, only to find that I cannot keep up. Or I go to a yarn store to by yarn for a new sweater for myself, and I look at the label, wondering, "how much yarn is in this skein?" Then I look at it for a little while longer and still have no idea how much yarn is in this skein.