St.John Beach to Beach Power Swim

We did it!  A 3 1/2 mile relay swim with two great teammates (Tad and Rebecca) and two great cheerleaders (Jason and Marissa).

This is going to be very long, just to warn you.  But it will have pictures and bonus guest bloggers!

Jason and I got to St. John on Friday, and on Saturday we went to the beach.  I was going to swim the second leg of the swim, from Cinnamon Bay to Trunk Bay, around Windswept Point at Peter Bay.  I wanted to get in a test swim anyway, but even more so after looking at my particular route and realizing that we would have to swim out pretty far to get around a shallow reef.  I put on my goggles and SwiMP3, and started swimming, only to realize that missing the reef was going to be tough.  I didn't really want to swim out too far all on my own since I wasn't exactly sure where the course would go, so I just swam around for awhile to get the feel for the open water.  Swimming in the clear, warm ocean with the sun on my back is so infinitely better than swimming in the dank pool at the Y.  I can't even tell you how pleasant it is.  I miss swimming outdoors so much.

Later in the afternoon, while I registered us, got our goodie bags and sat through an orientation meeting, Jason picked Tad, Rebecca and Marissa up from the ferry from St. Thomas.  He brought them back to Cinnamon Bay and we all decided to go swimming.  Tad, Rebecca and I did a little test swim, and I think all three of us felt a little more confident about the open-water part of all of this.  It's tough when it's been almost a whole year since you've actually been in open water!

Sunday morning dawned a little cloudy, but that cleared up, and despite the dire weather forecasts for the preceding few days (thunder!  lightning!  wind!), the day was absolutely gorgeous!  There was a bit of a swell, especially out around the points, probably from some storm activity in Puerto Rico or elsewhere, so the waves were a little bigger than the day before.  Still, gorgeous!

We went to Maho to get our color-coded caps (silver for relay!).   There were 6 waves of swimmers:  long swim (3 1/2 miles, green caps, hardcore people), long swim assisted (3 1/2 miles with fins and/or snorkel, light blue caps), intermediate swim (2 1/4 miles, pink caps), intermediate swim assisted (tan caps), short swim (1 mile, yellow caps), and short swim assisted (we can't remember their cap color...).

Rebecca started us out with her mile swim from Maho Bay to Cinnamon Bay.  I took the hand off at Cinnamon and swim 1 1/4 miles to Trunk, and then Tad swam 1 1/4 miles from Trunk to Hawksnest.

Here's our mighty team, waiting for the race to start:

Rebecca did a little warm up swim along the beach, then we all stood around, adrenaline pumping, for a final briefing from the race organizer.  After that the long-course and unassisted relay swimmers lined up at the starting banner, a guy blew on a conch shell, and they were off!


We watched the next couple of waves of swimmers leave and then the organizers told the relay swimmers it was time to hustle over to Cinnamon.  We hopped in the car and Jason drove us to the next beach.  I got in the water briefly, defogged my goggles, and waited at the Relay banner for Rebecca to swim ashore.

Here's an account of each leg of the swim from me and guest bloggers Rebecca and Tad.

Rebecca's Swim
Compared to my teammates, I had the easiest route by far: wait for the sound of the conch, race into the water, swim across Maho Bay, around the point, and toward Cinnamon Bay, where Kelly would be waiting.  My route was the shortest and the least choppy.  Still, this was my first open water swim, and while I was fairly hopeful that I wouldn't need to be rescued (!), there were a few unanticipated surprises.  First, I hadn't considered what it would be like to begin an open-water race.  I've only ever competed in pools, where lane lines separate swimmers from one another, keeping competitors neatly in their places.  This time, when the conch sounded, I found myself in a tangle of arms and legs, unable to move freely or breathe regularly.  We swam like that for several minutes before the faster swimmers broke ahead.  I was with the slower, and that was (mostly) fine with me.  My consciousness in the ocean, where I had to remain aware of an unfamiliar course, marked only by the occasional buoy, was very different from my consciousness in the pool, where it is almost impossible to go off course. I lifted my head out of the water every 30 seconds or so in an attempt to remain aware of the course--and as a result, I didn't see very much beneath the water.  I hadn't anticipated the sun in my eyes or the taste of salt in my mouth.  I likewise didn't anticipate the burst of energy I felt at the end of my race.  As I rounded the point and turned toward the finish line at Cinnamon Bay, I noticed a competitor in a silver cap.  My killer instinct would not be quashed!  In a burst of power, I passed her and headed toward the finish line.  Unfortunately, my power finish came to an abrupt and premature end: once standing on solid sand, my wobbly legs refused to run.  I walked across the finish line and give Kelly a tired but triumphant high five.

Kelly's Swim
I ran into the water at the same time as another relay swimmer and my competitive side took over as I tried to keep up with him.  Then I made myself slow down and pace myself because I would never make it 1 1/4 miles at that pace.

I'm on the right; the guy is on the left:

Reluctantly, I slowed down and let him pull ahead of me. I concentrated on pacing myself and breathing.  I felt on my own for most of the swim, probably, as I would discover, because I was way too close to the shore.  The day before at orientation, they had given us a landmark to site to on the way out from Cinnamon, but as I discovered, it would have worked better for me to site just to the right of that landmark.

When I finally saw the first buoy that I needed to take on my left, it was well to my right and I needed to correct by swimming almost perpendicular to the point of land on my left.  I grew to hate that buoy because it never seemed to get closer.  For a very long time.

Out  along Windswept Point, I'm not going to lie, I struggled a bit as the waves were a little bigger than I had expected.  To the point where I would occasionally feel myself lifted up on the crest of the wave, then dropped down with a little swoop in my stomach.  Course correction was even tougher as I ran head-on into some of those waves.  I felt a little justified later when I heard some long-course swimmers talking about how the surf was kind of tough around Windswept.

At one point, my energy was flagging and I thought, as I swam over the reef, it would be really neat to see a turtle out here while I'm swimming (they're my favorite).  Then about 30 seconds later, not even kidding, I saw a turtle swimming under me.  He swam right by, but he made me smile, and gave me a little push of optimism.

I kept swimming and eventually got around that first buoy, then the next one and the next.

When I finally (FINALLY) got around the point, and turned to swim toward shore I did get a boost because suddenly I was swimming with the current.  Every time I took a stroke with a wave, I felt a little push.  Lovely!  Plus, I could finally see the finish line banner in the distance!  And as an extra bonus, below me was an awesome sting ray, big enough to have its own remora.

Then some other swimmers started swimming alongside me and my competitive side took over again.  I finished my leg, huffing and puffing, ran up the beach, high-fived Tad, and he took off.

Tad's Swim
Before Kelly rounded the point and came into view, Rebecca, Jason, Marissa, and I arrived at Trunk Bay; and I started to scout my trajectory.  I knew that the first leg of my swim would cross Trunk Bay far from the shore, and I wanted to be sure that I knew where I was going.  I clarified with race officials where the first buoy was.  Feeling relatively confident, I warmed up a little and waited for Kelly's approach.

The adrenaline started pumping when I saw Kelly headed for the beach, and after our high-five I sprinted to the water and once knee-deep dived in.  I raced through the gate (ten yards out) and pointed myself in the right direction.  After thirty or forty seconds, I realized that I needed to calm down and slow and lengthen my strokes.  It was about half way to the first buoy that I realized it was harder than I thought it would be to stay on course.  And as I moved further out into the bay it got more difficult.

When I passed the first buoy, I couldn't see the next one in the swells that had grown to several feet.  Knowing that the course eventually ran close to the shore as it rounded into Oppenheimer and Hawksnest Bay, I sited the visible point.  Several minutes later an official in a kayak caught up to me to tell me that I was way off course and that the next buoy was two or three hundred yards straight out to sea.  That meant that I had to swim across the current (running right to left/east to west) with the waves running in the same direction.  In all it felt like I probably lost five or more minutes and a lot of energy before rounding the buoy and heading back with the current.

Even then my directional woes were far from over.  The next buoy had been "lost" (whatever that meant), and we were to site on a kayaker.  While it seemed to me that the kayak kept moving, I'm sure it was just my inability to swim straight.  When I got all the way around the point and into the protection of the next bay the swimming got a lot easier.  Near Oppenheimer Beach a final gate marked the turn along the shore toward Hawksnest Beach.  I was feeling good--though kicking myself for all the time I'd lost.  Shortly after making the turn, in about twenty feet of water, I swam over a nurse shark sunning itself on the bottom and cursed my luck at not having a camera with me.  With the finish in sight, it was time to see what sort of finishing speed I could muster . . . as I swam past the finish gate and had to cut back to stumble across the finish line.


(Kelly again...)
After the race was over, everyone headed to Oppenheimer Beach for a BBQ and awards ceremony.  I won an adorable glass turtle suncatcher for being the 2nd highest fundraiser (thanks so much to all of you who donated!), and everyone who finished got a medal.

Sadly, we didn't get any team awards because in the end, we took 4th place.  We finished the race in one hour and fifty-two minutes.  We were pleased with that time.  If Tad and I hadn't both gone off course a bit, we might have been able to shave several minutes off of that, but it still wouldn't have been enough to place.  We came into the race hoping to take 2nd, because last year, while the 1st-place team was super fast, the 2nd-place team had a time we knew we could beat.  Alas, this year there were 3 amazing relay teams whose times we couldn't touch and we know that.

However, if we do it again next year and we decide to do the relay, we've talked about doing it assisted.  The first place time for the assisted relay wasn't too far away from our time and we are all powerhouses with fins!

I have to say, we caused quite a splash in our shirts.  Early on, I rallied for us to come up with a team name, both for solidarity AND because I planned to make us shirts.  We wanted something ocean-related and tied to Rhode Island, so we settled on The Rhode Island Quahogs.  I checked out a couple of online shirt design places, and came up with the bright blue shirts we wore.

All day long, people were calling out, "Hey, Rhode Island!" or striking up conversations.  We met a guy from Bristol, Rhode Island.  I even heard a couple of comments about Family Guy inspired by our shirts.

The best was when a freelance journalist/photographer took our pictures and interviewed us for a human interest article he's going to pitch around the area.  Not a lot of people from Rhode Island doing the swim, especially not with bright blue T-shirts showing off their Rhode Island pride.  He took my phone number and email, and will let me know if anyone runs the story.

All in all it was a great experience!  I loved that we could do the race as a relay team, and I've had such a fun time training for the swim with Rebecca over the last couple of months.  We're already talking about what we need to work on for next year (bilateral breathing and siting).  Not that we'll definitely be back, but wouldn't that be fun if we were?

Pre-Vacation Jitters

Does anyone else have that dream where you're supposed to be on a flight in a half hour for a very important/fun/exciting trip, and not only are you not even at the airport yet, but you've completely forgotten to pack?  I put it in the same category as the dream where I realize I have a final exam today for a class that I completely forgot to go to all semester.  Usually it's a Spanish final.  Because I might be able to fudge my way through an English or History final with some good BSing, but there's no way to fake that I have no clue how to work the Spanish subjunctive anymore.

I love to travel, but I always get a little nervous beforehand because I'm convinced I will forget something vital.  Truth be told, I usually forget something, but it's usually not something vital, and I can usually buy whatever it is wherever we are.  The one time I really triple-checked the suitcase was when we went to India because I had no idea what India would have in the way of, say, Oral-B floss, and whether we would even be anywhere close to a place where I could pick some up.

My mild pre-trip anxiety is exacerbated today because the swim is on Sunday, and given that I was kind of pooped after a 500 this morning, I'm a little nervous.  However, I ate some junk food yesterday (office mid-afternoon snack break + BBQ and pie at a friend's house) and I definitely noticed I didn't feel my best this morning.  Or last night, for that matter.  Motivation to eat healthy on Saturday!

I'm also a little nervous about the yucky weather forecast next week.  Fingers crossed that it's just an island thing and while it will probably rain a little every day, it won't deter us from any of our fun plans.  Or from getting a tan. 

I miss being tan...

Wish us luck!

Review: SwiMP3

Jason gave me a SwiMP3 for Christmas 2011, and because I'm a horrible person, I just used it for the very first time a week and a half ago. 

Actually, my conundrum has been that pretty much for the last year and a half whenever I swam, I was either with the Masters team, or with a swim buddy, and it seemed rude to just flip on the music and tune out.  However, the Saturday before last I had scheduled a long swim and I knew my swim buddy couldn't be there.  So I charged up the SwiMP3, loaded it with some songs, and tried it out.

I love it!  First of all, the SwiMP3 uses bone conduction, rather than headphones.  I've heard swimming headphones can be tricky, so this seemed like a useful innovation. The only thing is, when the music is on, for some reason it really amplifies the noise of the water rushing by my ears, and the sound of blowing out water when I breathe.  Maybe because I happen to be listening harder, so I notice ALL the sounds...?  When I do backstroke, it's less noisy because there's no blowing out air prior to breathing and my head is in the water for the entire length of the pool.

That's a minor quibble, though, since I quickly adjusted to the ambient noise and focused on the music.

The two side pieces hook onto each side of your goggles, and set on top of your upper jawbone/cheekbone.  When I tried it on the night before, I was worried that the plastic would dig into my face and give me a headache after a long swim, and if I loosened the goggles anymore, I was afraid they would leak.  I needn't have worried.  I don't know if its a buoyancy thing, but I didn't even notice the plastic pieces resting on my face after a bit.   

The sound quality is a bit tinny, and I miss my bass beats, but, seriously, I'm listening to music underwater through MY BONES!  That's pretty awesome.

I definitely need to make a new playlist.  I've used it twice now for long swims (20-25 minutes) and have discovered that some songs just do not work for me and swimming.  It seems like repetitive, intricate music and beats, with simple words get me in a nice groove.  Think "Lift Me Up" or "Bodyrock by Moby, or "Right Here Right Now" by Fatboy Slim.

My conundrum now is that I really want to use the SwiMP3 during our St. John swim, because wow would that make that 1 1/4 miles go quickly!  I think I'm going to call the organizers and see if I can.

(This is in no way a sponsored post, though that would be pretty sweet if Finis decided to give me another SwiMP3.)

Shin Splints

I'm pretty positive I have shin splints, which has happened before when I've started running.  My buddy and I were still planning to go to kickboxing tonight, and I was going to tell the teacher I couldn't run, only it turns out she pulled something in her back the other night.

And she's 22 and teeny, so it's not just because I'm old and decrepit and overweight.  This is some intense stuff and we need to be careful.

Which begs the question, what kind of ridiculousness does he put his "Elite Training" class through?  I can't even imagine.

So we probably won't go tonight, which is a shame, because I wanted to get in the workout and, despite the pain, I am really enjoying the kickboxking/Cross Fit experience.

Here's a couple of questions for you:  have you had shin splints?  How long did it take you to get over them?  When you started running/walking again, did they come back?

So Basically I'm Doing Cross Fit...

I think I signed up for Cross Fit Lite without realizing it.  Not that I'm opposed to that.  I've been intrigued by Cross Fit for a few years, but never signed up because the locations aren't that convenient, it's really expensive, and, frankly, it's pretty intimidating.

However, kickboxing definitely incorporated some Cross Fit elements last night.  We showed up and the teacher had us run around the parking lot a few times.  He got on my case for walking part of it, but, the fact is, if my shins are hurting in that splinty kind of way, I stop running.  Since I've managed to injure myself enough to have to stop working out for a few weeks each of the 4 or 5 times I've tried Couch to 5K, I'm probably excessively cautious when someone asks me to run. 

(My feet are the flattest ever (as told by a man who has fit many, many feet with running shoes).  Even in specially-fitted shoes, my alignment is just wrong.  So I walk a lot, but I don't run.)

Anyway, then he had us do sets of walking lunges and suicides and butt kicks.

Finally, we went back into the gym and had a good look at what were obviously 3 sets of stations he'd set up for us to do.  No kicking, no boxing.  For the first 35-40 minutes of the workout, we did weight lifting and body weight exercises.

First circuit:

- 10 box jumps
- 10 push ups
- 50 jumping rope (slightly humiliating fact I confirmed last night - I cannot jump rope)
- 10 100-lb deadlifts
- 1 lap around the parking lot
- 10 tricep dips on the punching bag base
- 30 rope bounces(?), alternating arms (I don't know what you call them.  You pick up 2 giant ropes like they use on big sailboats and swing your arms up and down, making the ropes bounces in waves)

Repeat.  I got through two sets of those because I was in the 2nd group to go, whereas my gym buddy only had to do 1.  Which means I'm better than her, right?

Second circuit:

- 20 step ups and toe taps (20 each leg)
- 50 bicycle crunches
- 50 jumping rope (again, humiliating)
- 10 rows per arm (picking up one end of the 100-lb barbell)
- 1 lap around the parking lot
- 5 incline push ups (with our feet up on the base of the punching bag)
- 20 rope bounces, arms together

Got through that circuit once.  Everyone was pretty dead after that, but then he rolled out the punching bags and we did some boxing, which is fun.  Though, even then, he's all about the cross training.  Because we did  3 minutes of jab-cross, followed by a minute of burpees.  Then did 3 minutes of backhand-hook-hook, followed by a minute of mountain climbers.  Which, ow.  Plus, we did a lap around the parking lot following by toe taps on the base of the punching bag, twice.

This morning, as usual, I'm not really feeling it yet, except my upper back muscles are really, really tight.  I expect the pain to show up at around 3 PM.

Not Eating Enough?

I've read a couple of posts recently about the similarities between signs of adrenal fatigue and starvation.  A lot of people are being diagnosed - or self-diagnosing - with adrenal fatigue.  Here's a tidy definition:

Adrenal fatigue is a collection of signs and symptoms, known as a syndrome, that results when the adrenal glands function below the necessary level. Most commonly associated with intense or prolonged stress, it can also arise during or after acute or chronic infections, especially respiratory infections such as influenza, bronchitis or pneumonia. As the name suggests, its paramount symptom is fatigue that is not relieved by sleep but it is not a readily identifiable entity like measles or a growth on the end of your finger. You may look and act relatively normal with adrenal fatigue and may not have any obvious signs of physical illness, yet you live with a general sense of unwellness, tiredness or "gray" feelings. People experiencing adrenal fatigue often have to use coffee, colas and other stimulants to get going in the morning and to prop themselves up during the day.  (Source)

I think I might be unwittingly starving myself, ever so gradually.  After this past weekend, these articles have really hit home as I try to figure out what the heck is wrong with me.  This weekend was ridiculous.  After 7 hours of sleep Friday night, I dragged myself to the pool and swam a crappy 2500 yards. I felt so, so very tired.  I got home and prepped some things for a party we hosted Saturday night, and then I took a 3-hour nap. 

I don't nap unless I'm sick.

Sunday I woke up after 8 hours of sleep, feeling ok.  I made it through church and then Evensong, but by the time we got home, I was dragging. I fell asleep on the couch at 8:45 PM.  Jason told me to go to bed and I protested that it was too early.  Then 15 minutes later I decided he was right.  I woke up on my own this morning at 5 AM, had a good swim, and so far today I'm feeling pretty awake

So we all know that I had the flu, followed shortly by shingles.  Suffice it to say, my body has not been at its best.  I think I'm well past the shingles fatigue period, since I think I had a pretty light case of the shingles.  I think my issue might be lack of fuel, especially as I'm starting to get more regular with my workouts (and adding more intense things like kickboxing).

My nutrition guru friend has told me before that if I'm not losing weight and I'm eating clean and working out, the problem might be that I'm not eating enough.  Logically, in my brain, I know I have to eat enough to fuel whatever I'm doing.  However, I also know that my job consists mainly of me sitting on my bum typing on the computer.  So I'm much more apt to follow the adage of keeping my calories low, even while I amp up my workouts.

That's a surefire recipe for stressing out my body and packing on/retaining weight.  I am nothing if not metabolically efficient.  On the savanna, my people could totally outlive your people.

So the other night I found this BMR calculator. I really like that it has several different activity inputs, so you can really tailor it to what you're doing each day.  I entered my stats for today, and just to stay alive (ie, my BMR), I need 1739 calories.

I've been kind of sporadic lately with logging food, but I usually eat the same general diet, and after tracking calories for YEARS, I know I average around 1400-1600 calories per day.  Including the days when I kickbox or swim.  As other people have noted, the World Health Organization defines starvation for women as 1800 calories per day. 

(Think about that if you're only fueling yourself with 1200 calories per day...)

For the next few weeks, in addition to focusing more on being active, I'm also going to focus on fueling my body.  I'm going to be more diligent with logging my food, and my goal is to eat at least to my BMR every day.

The Kickboxing Pain Cycle

After 3 kickboxing classes, I've identified a specific cycle of recovery pain:

1.  Tuesday night, 7-8 PM:  Kickboxing class.  PAIN.

2.  Wednesday morning, 6:30 AM: Wake up, feel a tiny bit achy, think, "Huh, maybe that wasn't so bad..."

3.  Wednesday afternoon, 3:00 PM: "...Why can't I move my shoulders anymore?"

4.  Wednesday night, 8:00 PM: "I hate stairs!"

5.  Thursday morning, 6:30 AM: "I don't remember getting run over by a truck, yet here we are."

Followed by sucking in of breath and slight shrieks every time I have to move all day Thursday. 

Remember how I was going to swim this morning?  Yeah, no.  I'm going to go for a short lunch walk and hope my legs don't fall off in the process.

Despite all of this, I'm loving the kickboxing!  Probably enough to keep paying for classes after our Groupon trial is finished.

May! & Challenge Update

Today the weather has decided to say it's sorry.  The first of May is beautiful with not a cloud in the sky!  Growing up in Tucson, I never realized how rare a cloud-free day could be.

I went for a long walk at lunch and really didn't want to come back inside at all.  I was talking with a friend yesterday about how if I knew then what I knew now, rather than go to law school, I would have become a park ranger.  Or a scuba instructor.  Something that would let me be active and outside!  The complete opposite of a lawyer.

You know it's bad when your legs ache from NOT moving around.  At least today I'm in pain because of last night's kickboxing class.

Speaking of which, I'm long overdue for a challenge check-in.  I had kind of a bad week last week where everything kept getting in the way, but I did try to walk as much as possible. 

So here's how it's going:

• April 19, Day 5: 1-hour swim
• Day 6: 45-minute swim
• Day 7: 40-minute walk
• Day 8: 1-hour swim
• Day 9: 30-minute walk
• Day 10: um...nothing
• Day 11: Nothing (was supposed to kickbox, but everything conspired against me)
• Day 12: Nothing (was supposed to swim.  Again, fates, conspiring, etc.)
• Day 13: Drove a lot and walked some.  We drove teenage girls to Albany and then Jason and I went to Lake Placid where we walked all along the main street and in shoppes.  So I got 8000 steps, despite spending about 11 hours of my day sitting in a car.
• Day 14: A solid amount of housework, including carrying multiple loads of laundry from the 2nd floor to the basement and back again.  I also spent some quality time in the hammock recuperating from the previous day's trip to Albany.
• Day 15: Over 90 minutes of walking
• Day 16: 1-hour kickboxing
• Day 17: 45-minute walk

All told, I think I'm at around 66% compliance with the 30 minutes for 30 days challenge.  Not awesome, but better than nothing, right?  I mean, I could have just been sitting on my bum every day, not even thinking about how I should be out there moving.

Tomorrow I plan to swim, Friday I'm planning to hit the strength training class, and Saturday I'll swim.  At the very least, this week is shaping up to be much better than last week.

(If you want to donate to my St. John swim, The Rhode Island Quaghogs' page is at http://www.active.com/donate/B2B2013/quahogs)

At Least I Made It To the Pool!

I didn't actually get in the pool, but I was there, darn it! 

My swimming buddy canceled this morning because she wasn't feeling well and I flirted with the idea of not going, but convinced myself to get up and go.  Which I did. 

Only when I got to the pool, it was jam packed.  There were 2 super fast women in one lane, and I knew if I got in with them, I would drive them crazy.  All of the other lanes were full of people swimming soooo slooooowly.  Like, casually doing breaststroke slowly.  I knew if I got in with them, I would have to keep stopping and trying to pass people and I would go crazy. 

So I stood there for almost 10 minutes, holding my kickboard and goggles, hoping someone would get out.  A guy who I've seen there before and who swims at about my pace came out of the men's locker room, quickly made the same assessment of the other swimmers as I had, said "I don't have time for this", and walked back into the locker room.

I finally gave up too, and drove home.  What I should have done was brought my sneakers with me so I could have hopped on the elliptical instead, but I hadn't thought to do that.

So I walked halfway to work, and I'm planning to walk home tonight.  Not as good as a swim, but at least it's something.

Quahogs!

It's official, we are fundraising for our swim in St. John!  If you're interested in donating, check out the page for our team, The Rhode Island Quahogs.

What's a Quahog, you ask?  First of all, it's pronounced coe-hog.

Second, it's a giant clam and in Rhode Island you can often find their big white shells on the beaches. 

Quahog clams are used in Stuffies, a Rhode Island specialty.

Quahog is also the fictional town in Family Guy, which is set in Rhode Island and takes on new layers when you actually live in Rhode Island and know the people here.

(I kind of love that when you do a Google image search for "Quahog" you get a pretty even mix of pictures of clams and scenes from Family Guy.)

So the Rhode Island Quahogs are set to dominate!  Or at least finish.  Our team has had a series of illness and injury setbacks this Spring, so when we finish those 3.5 miles, I'm just going to be happy that we did it, no matter where we fall in the line-up.

Released

(Posted on both of my blogs, in case you think you're seeing double)

In my church, we have lay clergy and everything is done by volunteers.  For example, my bishop has a day job - he's a doctor.  I'm a lawyer, but for the past almost 4 years, I've been working with the 12-17 year old girls in our congregation.  It has had a huge impact on my life and has taken up a lot of my physical and emotional time and energy. 

Some of our girls come from tough backgrounds.  One of the girls was 13 when I started, and now I plan to help her with her college applications in the Fall.  Two of our girls are starting college in the Fall.  Some of them are the first (or second) in their families to go to college, or to even think about college.  I'm so proud of the goals they've set for themselves and the things they've accomplished, all while being active with Church and just all-around good people.

I won't lie, I've been feeling kind of burned out.  I've tried not to let it show to the girls, but I worry that it has.  We have lessons every Sunday that I coordinate.  We have weekly activities, sometimes on Saturdays a long ways away.  We have other activities in other states.  There is a lot of driving (a LOT of driving) and coordinating.  And then there's just generally being concerned about the girls and wondering if I'm doing enough for them. 

(The answer?  No.  It's never really enough, but sometimes I have to set limits for myself.)

Last Sunday the Bishop called to ask if he could come by.  I had a feeling either Jason was getting a new calling, or I was getting released from mine.  It was the latter - I was getting released as the Young Women's President.

Yesterday, I was officially released, and the new Young Women's presidency was put in place.

I've spent the last week feeling alternately relieved to not be in charge anymore, and near tears as I think about not spending as much time with the girls.  I've also spent a lot of time pulling together resources and information for the new Young Women's President.  We got together Friday night and I went through my typed, page and a half outline with all of the things I wanted to discuss with her.  And I realized this morning that I still forgot something. I wanted to tell her a little bit about each of the girls, and also about how we've done things in the past.  I'm hoping she might still want to do some of the fun Summer activities I had started to plan.  I know she'll want to do her own thing, but she is brand new in our congregation and in the Young Women's program here, and she seemed to appreciate my thoughts.

The good thing is, I'm not moving away, so I'll still be around to help if anyone has any questions, and I'll still see the girls.

Jason and I are driving 5 girls to upstate New York this Saturday for a giant regional activity and then I'm officially done.  I feel completely confused as to what I'm supposed to do with myself.  Concentrate on my job?  Exercise more?  Dedicate more time and effort to the two local organizations who just put me on their boards?  Clean the basement?  Probably all of those things, really.

I still haven't been given a new responsibility at church.   Jason speculated yesterday that maybe Bishop is letting me rest.  My swimming buddy told me this morning to enjoy it.  I still feel like there's an emptiness where I used to be so consumed with something so important - the girls.  Now they're someone else's official responsibility, and it's hard to realize that and relax.

On the other hand, yesterday I conducted the music in Sacrament Meeting and I had a flashback to my huge student ward in college where all I had to do every week was pick the hymns and wave my hand around in front of the congregation and no one really cared if I was right or wrong because half the people never even glanced at me, and the other half didn't know enough to know if I was making mistakes.  Sometimes an easy church job with extremely low stakes sounds appealing.

Challenge Update

Today is Day 4 and let's just say Day 3 didn't go exactly as I had planned.  I came into work with the intention to go for a walk at some point during the day.  It was absolutely gorgeous yesterday.  However, as I was walking into the office, I got a call from a client with an emergency*, which I dealt with off and on all day, in addition to another appointment and all of my other work, and I closed that day with a phone call from the same client, and then ran home and got things ready for a Young Women's activity at my house.  So, yeah...

However, I would just like to note that despite not seeking out activity, I still managed to get 7300 steps yesterday, which isn't bad for having such a sedentary job and is significantly higher than the days when I just sit at my desk and go home and watch TV.  So I'm going to count all the cleaning and running around from last night as "activity" and call it good.

Today, though, I got in a nice 40-minute walk.

Tomorrow, we swim!



*It's never good when your day starts with, "Holy crap!"

Challenge: 30 Minutes, 30 Days

I was going to write this yesterday, but, you know, other things seemed more important.  I'm so glad no one I knew was hurt in the explosions at the Boston Marathon, and I'm so sad about what happened.  But I'm heartened by the lovely words and feelings everyone is sharing today.

So I've decided to challenge myself in a way that has worked well in the past: 30 minutes of activity per day for 30 days.  I started yesterday with a great 3.4 mile walk first thing in the morning.  Today I went for a walk at lunch up the hill to the sporting goods store and back down to work.  I bought boxing gloves because tonight my friend and I are going to our second kickboxing class.* 

Prepare for blog posts and Facebook updates complaining about the kickboxing soreness.  The good thing is, with this challenge, I can't stop moving.  I may only go for a walk, or a little swim, but at least I'll be doing something to work through the pain, and I won't be sedentary all day long.


* I say ugh to the pink boxing gloves.  For the ladies.  The thing is, I like pink.  I like the red that I bought better, but I would be more inclined to buy the pink if I didn't feel like someone was patronizing me. 

Kickboxer

(Wasn't that a bad Steven Seagal movie...?  No, wait.  IMDB informs me it was Jean-Claude Van Damme.)

Last night, a friend and I checked out a kickboxing class, courtesy of a Rhode Island Monthly* deal.  I've never done kickboxing before, but have always been intrigued by it.

Well, it was fantastic.  When I say "fantastic", I mean it completely kicked my butt.  I don't think I've ever sweat so much, and that might include when we moved during a very hot and muggy July with no air conditioning. 

I knew I was in trouble when I was winded and in pain from the WARM-UP.  Burpees, jumping jacks, running in place.  Gah!  Last night I was already having trouble walking.  Today I am sore all over, which is great.  I have to say, kicking and punching a big bag is pretty gratifying, and toward the end I really felt like I was getting in the groove.

The instructor was a really nice and welcoming guy, who made you laugh even as he was trying to kill you.  Everyone else in the class was nice too.  There is camaraderie in group suffering!  The girl I share a punching bag with told me she's been coming there for a couple of months and she loves it because the workout is always different.  (If you're local and want the info on the gym, let me know.)

My friend and I have 4 more kickboxing classes on our deal, and we're going to try to go once a week for the next month.  We also have 5 kettlebell classes to use, which is something else I've never done.

Of note: I spent most of yesterday in a deeply fatigued state.  I wasn't sure how far I would get in the class, but once we started warming up and my heart started pumping, I was in it all the way, and felt really energized.  Which tells me that extreme shingles fatigue is no excuse, and maybe working out might even help with my fatigue.  Good to know.

* Non-compensated plug: If you live in Rhode Island, you should get Rhode Island Monthly.  It's a really good magazine with lots of useful information and reviews.

Sleepy

I've decided to blame everything that is wrong with me over the next few months on SHINGLES.

The rash is gone and the pain is gone.  All told, I think I had a pretty mild case.  But the fatigue.  Oh, the fatigue!

I honestly don't know if the fatigue is related to the shingles or not, but I'm going to say it is, rather than call myself lazy.  I managed to get in a good 2500 yard swim on Saturday morning.  My swimming buddy and I decided to do a 20-minute benchmark swim to see where we are.  We finished 1100 yards in 20 minutes, which is about on pace for us to swim a mile in a half hour.  We can now confidently say that we could swim a mile right this second if we had to.  Yeah, we were tired at the end of that 1100 yards, but we weren't dying.

So that's good news for St. John.  Even if we only swim once a week for the remaining 7 weeks until the swim, I know we can definitely do a mile.

Starting Saturday afternoon, I started having this off and on headache, accompanied by off and on extreme fatigue.  One minute I would be fine, and the next I would want nothing more than to curl up in a corner and go to sleep.  When we got home from Evensong yesterday afternoon, I immediately got in my pjs and into bed.  Only to get up 10 minutes later, feeling fine, and ready to finish making dinner.

Weird.

This morning my alarm went off to go swim and while I was trying to convince myself to get up, my swimming buddy texted me that she was sick and wouldn't be swimming this morning. Yeah, I could have gotten up.  Instead I breathed a sigh of relief and slept for 2 more hours.  This is after I went to bed last night about an hour earlier than usual.

Today has been a struggle against the sleepiness.  It has not been helped by the fact that it's almost 80 degrees in my office (building management turns on the AC on May 15, never, ever before.  At least it's taken this long to get warm outside.)  What I would really like to do is go home, break out the hammock in the backyard, and take a nap.  Instead, I work.  And I have a meeting tonight.  Fingers crossed I don't nod off while the client is talking.

Like I said, I have no idea if this is shingles-related, but I would really like whatever is is to stop now and to be able to get back to a normal workout, work and sleep schedule where I don't need 10 hours of sleep just to barely crawl out of bed and sit drowsily at my desk all day.

Recipe: Apple Maple Mustard Pork Tenderloin

I love the internets.  This morning I woke up and thought, I have a tenderloin, Dijon mustard and homemade applesauce.  That sounds like the beginnings of a good recipe.

Sure enough, I found this.  Only I wanted to use the crock pot since we had to leave at 1 PM for Evensong and wouldn't be back until after 6.  So I made some modifications and by the time we got home it smelled SO good in our house.

Jason declared it my best tenderloin ever.

Apple Maple Mustard Pork Tenderloin

2 1/2 to 3 pound pork tenderloin
1/4 C. Dijon mustard
3 T. maple syrup
1 T. fresh rosemary
1/2 t. salt
1/4 t. pepper
1 1/2 C. applesauce*

Brown tenderloin on all sides in skillet (or IN your slow cooker, if you have a Ninja like I do) and place in crock pot.  Combine mustard, maple syrup, rosemary, salt and pepper in a small bowl, then brush on all sides of tenderloin.  Pour applesauce around the tenderloin.

Cook on low for 8 hours.  Remove tenderloin from crock pot and let set for 10 minutes before slicing.  Use sauce in crock pot as gravy.  It's yummy!


* I used homemade applesauce that I canned a couple of years ago.  It has cinnamon and cloves in it, so if you use plain applesauce, add about 1 t. cinnamon and 1/4 t. cloves to the applesauce.

A New Day

I swam this morning!

And now I feel like going to sleep.  I was determined that today would be the day I also refocus on my clean eating, but I think I may need to have a Diet Coke in a little bit here, or else my head is going to hit the desk.  A day of clean eating + a Diet Coke = not TOO terrible, right?

Today the sleepiness is non-shingles-related, at least.  It is a legitimate sleepiness brought on by meeting my swimming buddy at 6 AM after not going to sleep until probably midnight-ish.  I'm not sure of the time exactly.  I tried to go to sleep earlier, but then Jason came upstairs and we spent awhile ruminating on the changes to our church congregation.

(Mormons are weird in that our congregations are organized by geography and yesterday our regional leadership let us know they had decided to split up our congregation among a couple of others, and then add some people from another congregation to ours, simply by changing which town lines make up which boundaries.  Anyway, I'm trying to be positive, but if I'm honest, I'm a bit irritated at the results.  So is Jason.  Thus, we were up late talking about the impact.)

But the real point is, I swam 2100 yards this morning and I'm tired and maybe even a little sore, but it's a start.  Again.

This Is Not Going as Planned

It's the first day of Spring!  Which, you know, great, except for I feel like time is flying by and I'm not where I wanted to be at this point at all.  I'm feeling frustrated, but also pretty philosophical about it, because, what can you do?  I can't spend my days angry and shaking my fist at the sky because I've been sick and haven't lost the 10-15 pounds I was hoping to have lost by this point in the year, and I haven't yet been able to train for my St. John swim.  It is what it is.

I talked to the other 2 members of my relay team on Sunday night and we're pretty confident that, if pressed, we could all swim our part of the swim right now.  It wouldn't be pretty, and we wouldn't post a stellar time, but we could do it.  So, really, I have 2 months still to get my pace up to something respectable.  I can do that.

Just as soon as I get over the shingles...

Friday through Monday I felt pretty good.  I had a fair amount of energy and I needed it because I was really busy.  Sunday I didn't take any Alleve at all, which was great.  Then I woke up Tuesday morning feeling like I was hit by a truck.  I dragged myself downstairs to the loveseat, where I sat for the rest of the day, working from home.

I have a lot more energy today and I'm back at work today.  I am itching to get back into the pool, and my fingers are crossed that next week is the week I start back in earnest.  However, I don't think I'm going to be ready to join Masters again in 11 days.

The good news is, I've been experimenting with additions for my grain-free cookies and came up with a couple stellar ones.  First, Heath bar toffee bits.  Second, half semi-sweet chocolate chips/half cinnamon chips.  You're welcome.

Improved Grain-Free Cookies

I've gone on and on about how good these Paleo Chocolate Chip Cookies are, but I have to tell you, I made them even better!

First off, I started using butter instead of coconut oil.  I love coconut oil, but it definitely gives the cookies a distinctive coconut flavor.  If you want chocolate coconut cookies, then by all means, use the coconut oil.  People eating strict Paleo don't eat dairy, so I understand making these cookies dairy-free as well as grain-free.  However, I've never had a problem with dairy, and we love butter in our home.  So butter instead of coconut oil.

Then, I decreased the amount of honey and eventually took out the honey altogether.  The first batch I made were very sweet and very honey-tasting.  So the next batch I made, I halved the honey in the recipe.  Honestly, the chocolate chips add a lot of sweetness to the cookies and you don't need as much sweetener.  But the cookies still tasted a lot like honey.  Not a bad thing, per se, but not exactly what I was looking for.

So a couple of days ago I sweetened the cookies with a bit of maple syrup.  Yum!  The cookies don't taste like maple at all, and I think this is the closest I'm going to get to mimicking real chocolate chip cookies.  Jason agreed, best cookies yet!

Here's my recipe.  I went ahead and doubled the proportions from the original recipe because, frankly, 18 cookies is better than 9.

Grain-Free Chocolate Chip Cookies
Yield: around 18 cookies

2 1/2 cups ground almond flour
1/4 teaspoon of salt
1/2 teaspoon of baking soda
1/4 cup of maple syrup
4 teaspoons of water
1/4 cup of butter
1/2 cup of dark chocolate chips (also try butterscotch chips because butterscotch!)

1. Mix all ingredients into a large bowl.
2. Place on cookie sheet and put in the oven at 325 degrees.
3. Cooking time can vary from 10-15 minutes.  They are done when they start to brown a little on top.

Nicknames

For some reason that even he doesn't remember, Jason calls me "P".  I think the last time Jason actually called me "Kelly" was maybe our second or third week of dating. "Kellito" was popular for awhile, but now it's "P", which morphs into "Peasworth" at times.

Nicknames are big in his family.  His brother Taylor was "Taylora" then "Lora" then "Lora Bora" and now just "Lobo" or, as Jason likes to call him, "Lobo Grande".  Our cat Tiny has about 75 different nicknames, bestowed by both Jason and his brother Brandon.  Tinykins, Tiny Whiny, Chutsworth, Pooper, Pooper Charlie, Agent Bauer (following a viewing of a particular episode of "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia").  Brandon even taught his 3-year old daughter to call the cat "Pooper Charlie", which I'm pretty sure is what she thinks the cat's actual name is.

(Story: when they visited us last July, we went to a local park to watch the sun set.  As we were leaving, I said, "OK, Anya, time to go home."  She exclaimed, "Yeah, have to go home and see Pooper Charlie!")

Anyway, ever since my diagnosis on Friday, Jason has taken to calling me "Shingley P", which makes me feel beautiful and like a delicate flower, as you can imagine.  Thanks so much, Jason.