I'm baaaaaaack!

I racewalked today. And, truth be told, I racewalked a little yesterday, too :). I figured one day early wouldn't hurt! Yesterday I did 15 min on the treadmill, and honestly, it felt a bit on the awful side. I did the treadmill after bike & elliptical, so I was a bit tired to start with. My racewalking muscles are out of shape, and so I was slow (12 min mile; 5 mph!). And my right piriformis was bugging me almost immediately (it has never really gotten better, despite no racewalking for 2 months - that's another story, but I think I might have something else going on w/it - might be a disc problem, sadly). But I was racewalking, and that was great. My foot did not bother me at all, which was great, too. I didn't really expect it to be a problem unless I did a longer workout or more miles, but you never know.

Today I did 20 min on the treadmill, after 45 min of swimming. The treadmill felt much better today. I was able to do about 5.3 mph, and the piriformis didn't bother me much. After that 20 min, I did a couple minutes on the concrete around the ice rink at the gym. That felt even better :). I felt much smoother today than yesterday, and my foot didn't hurt. Good stuff. I'm really looking forward to tomorrow morning, when I plan to RW around SugarHouse Park. Yay!!!!!

Back to the swimming for a second. The gym has been a good thing - I met this woman, Jill, who works out there all the time. We've hit it off and often chat while we exercise. She knows a ton of people and is always introducing me to someone. Anyway, she has a friend, Chuck (female, believe it or not), who is a pretty darn good swimmer. Chuck was going to give Jill some pointers at the pool this morning, and Jill invited me to tag along. I'm SO glad I did. It was amazing. Chuck said I'm actually looking pretty good, but she gave me a few tips about my swimming that I think will really help a lot. I wasn't reaching as far forward as I could with my arms, and I was reaching toward the middle of my body (head) rather than to my shoulders (straight ahead), thus wasting several inches or more with each stroke. In addition, I wasn't bringing my elbows high enough on the recovery part of the stroke (was dragging my arms sideways a bit in the water, wasting energy). Finally, I was doing a few minor things wrong with my hand position, and my kick was mostly good but she did have a few tips for me there as well. I think that if I actually practice the stuff she showed me, I'll be able to average 57 or 58 sec/50 yd rather than the 1:05 (or more) that I've been doing. Of course, now I can racewalk again, so I'm not sure how much I'll swim. But it was great to get the pointers and I do plan to do a little swimming in the near future so I can practice them.

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Personal life --- work has been busy but good. I feel like I'm finally getting into the groove of the new job and the new relationships in the lab seem to be settling in. Whew. However, I've worked a lot of hours in the past few weeks, and that plus the computer problems I've had AND all the holiday stuff has meant little sleep. Not good. Oh, and I've also had a bunch of stuff going on with special music for church...as if the above-mentioned stuff wasn't enough? Ah well...'tis the season I guess.

My weight is up a bit (150 this morning) but I've been really good about my eating so probably just some water retention. Still, I'm staying on it, and no treats until Christmas is still in effect (and I'm doing well with that - not easy; my piano student brought me a thing of Dove chocolates today. I gave some to the kids but am saving most for when I can have them again!). Anyway, I'm just persevering through it all. The craziness will not last forever.