Waterpolo Style?

DEasy: Flipturns are still a mess. I'm still have a headache from this morning's turns. I tried the waterpolo style of freestyle. For me it was basically dog paddle but with the arms out of the water. It was terrible. Water infront was churning wildly. Prince was there. He could only come Wednesdays.

I guess I overate from yesterday's HOM celebration at Blue Corner in Sta.Rosa. We were a group of 23 and ordered 35 sizzling plates! 10 Sisig, 10 Liempo, 10 Pusit and 5 Blue Marlin. Here's a pic of the partial plates in Cholesterol City! That's my left hand in the pic. Goodness, it looked like a Guiness eating contest. I'm still full. Burp!

New Clip

Easy: Was able to buy a replacement for the lost noseclip. It's the Speedo one and this time it's colored neon orange. Yah, even saleslady asked if I was sure I wanted THAT color. Well, I'm no longer taking ANY chances and lose another damned clip so I bought this one that was easier to spot in a pool. I even put a strap (pink color) to secure it to my face. Fortunately, I saved the parts from old goggles. The strap came Karen's old pink Speedo goggles. Speedos are expensive so might as well save them and milk them dry for whatever they're worth. The color plus the length of the the strap multiplies the clip's visibility should I still lose it.

Though I was excited to do them, I didn't do any successful turns off the wall. I did a complete lap of flipturns without walls. It's just to get the hang of it and keep my body straight. With the clip, it's tough staying relaxed while breathing. But it's so much better than getting a sinus headache after just 2 flipturns. We'll see how it goes. But for now, I just plan on doing flipturns without wall for the FIRST LAP of the daily workout.

The HOM presentation went extremely well. The emceeing that I did today was stupendous... for a first-time ever emcee!!! Though I felt rather stiff (and sounded it too), I warmed up with the audience after the 1st band song. Good thing I had the foresight to ask the booth soundman to raise the volume of my mic. My partner Flor wasn't as lucky. Her mic wasn't as loud. I was able to modulate more and not have to strain my voice. I thought I sounded good! I could've warmed up more but there was a time limit. The secret to it all? Connecting with the audience. Involve the audience. These is the stuff I learned with my kids at the dinner table. Thanx kids!

Lost Clip

TEPTE: Bad and Upsetting news today. I bought a TYR noseclip yesterday for Php175 at Royal Sporting Goods at Festival and today lost it in the pool. It slipped out on my FIRST stationary flipturn. I mean, how stupid can that be? It was much cheaper than the Speedo which was at Php299. But still, I should've known better that:

• Its color (clear) would render it hard to find in the pool. Against a backdrop of white tiles, it's camouflaged.
• A thing as small as that is surely hard to find, like finding a needle in a haystack. Heck, even a pair of goggles will take time finding in the pool!Although the label sez it floats, I don't think it did.
• The damned thing slips. A slight tug and it took off. This is the reason I lost it on my turn. I should've put a rubber band to secure it to my head.

Anyway after looking for it in the area where I did a flip turn for 20 minutes, I gave up and just did my workout. No sense spoiling the whole session. I informed pool maintenance (Raymond) about it. I'm not optimistic they'll find it soon but it's a long shot.

My bicep and shoulder muscles are sore today. Don't know why. We had the Unit A's ceiling and roof fixed yesterday (by Mang Bert and Rex) and cooked out for most of the weekend. The chopped wood is serving us quite well! Pic on the left is the cooker sitting on a pedestal which was painted junk. It's height now is much better to relieve the aching back. Clay pot below the stove collects the ash. Tin can at right is for storing the leftover charred fuel which is great for starting fires.

Flames away! Here's the color of the flames I like to get. When wood burns like this, it's hot. Fact I learned why firewood needs to be split. If the round log is stored fresh, the inside pith soon rots. When it does, it becomes a dwelling place for ants and whatever. I saw this when I put in a round log which I though has dried up. Hundreds of ants came out the other end when I put one end into the cooker fire. And they were carrying their belongings (foodstuffs).

Thar she blows! Left pic is a shot of the top end of the chimney. When there's efficient burning the chimney churns out smoke really fast. This happens only if the chimney isn't clogged up with soot. The smoke color may vary from light blue to gray and isn't too noxious.

I'll be emceeing tomorrow's IT HOM presentation with Flor. I'm more relaxed and confident now that my first Brio Training is over. Had to rush preparations for that and had to back out from the keyboards portion of the band practice. I volunteered for the emcee part to help out so let's see how that'll go.

Birds and Cats

Easy: Ahhhhh... Finally a swim after 2 days of "drought". Training went well IMHO except for the lack of some training resources. The delivery of my presentation package was very well received by the attendees.

It was rather gloomy today. As I was doing elem back, I saw several birds flying over the pool in pairs and I thought what if these birds poop on me while I was facing the sky? Come to think of it, I haven't seen bird poop floating on the pool. Or maybe it sinks? Or it dissolves in the pool water fast? Yuck.

As I surfaced from one end of the pool today, I saw a cat sitting at the other end. Don't know where it came from. It wasn't dirty so maybe it wasn't a stray cat. Just found it funny that it was like waiting for something in the water. Like a fish to scoop, maybe? When I got to the other end, it was intently watching me maybe trying to figure out WHAT I was with goggles and all! Ah well, I just left it alone.

My poor old towel was disintegrating beyond all recognition so today I got to use my spanking new blue towel. That's it on the left still sealed in its plastic pouch. The tube at the left is where you roll it up and put in. Imagine, I got this at 40% off from Php775! Hope Arena goes on sale again coz I'm buying more! Maybe to prevent stains, it'll be better to scrub the skin regularly with pumice stone or whatever. It takes time, but it's probly worth it.

Did stationary flipturns today. Don't know, just did them out of the blue and they were good! I much straighter now than any of the turns I did in the past. I only managed 5 though coz I was getting a sinus headache. On my way out, I was given my new ID card for my renewed yearly membership - another year of swimming and freebies.

Body Pains

Easy: Am still feeling body pains and I've been taking Diclofenac yesterday. I'm kinda regretting the all-out "workout" over the weekend. Today they were chlorinating the pool. By the time I started, only about a fourth of the pool was green. I found it difficult to recover and was breathing rather heavily. It must be the chlorine gas, my fatigue or both. I was outta there before 8am. The water will chlorine-green for a while so I may need to pass on tomorrow's swim. Arrgghhh!!! Noooooooo!!! Well anyway, at least this'll give me time to finish up and rehearse on the script for my first ever training on BrioQuery.

The 3 small leftover bars of soap (yeah, I'm cheap, I only use leftover soap from the house) melted into a goop at the bottom of my soap sealbox. I didn't notice unusual weather yesterday although it did rain cats-and-dogs later in the afternoon. I'm out of eardrops and cologne, so will replenish.

Something interesting I read from Alicat at the USMS forum was a neat trick on visualization:

"Blast from the imagination past: I used to pretend I set off a bomb and swim really fast to the other side to get away. Hey, swimming can get pretty boring after the 10,000 flip turn!"

More Wood

Easy: Much too tired to do a double. Besides, I got a wound from yesterday's wood chopping/ splitting activities. I didn't want the wound to soak too much. I felt the wound everytime I would stroke with the left. How tired was I? When I slept last night, even DH felt my body twitch everywhere! But it would be definitely the last firewood collecting/ chopping/ splitting weekend for quite some time. It's hard work(out).

The pile at the left and the sack behind it is the chopped wood taken from the park. Some of the branches are a little dry and they could be cut by a little chop and then breaking. The first time we collected the branches there were small black ants and big red fire ants. Ironically it was the black ants whose bites were more painful and itchy. And no, these aren't the black ants of the sugar-bowl variety. These are small but "macho" kick-ass black ants.

This pile is the wood already sawn into firewood size. The branches girth varied from half inch to 3 inches in diameter. I had to wear gloves to prevent blisters while using the metal hacksaw. Sawing the wood, ugh, there's the workout for the right tricep! I was sweating buckets. No sense wearing a shirt for this activity.

The pile on the left is the split wood. Although some of the wood are becoming dry, some were rather fresh judging from the pith which was colored green. That's why they're laid out like this for drying in the sun.

A Complete Workweek

Deasy-L: Amazing, I just realized that I've completed a whole week of swimming! Okay, make THAT a workweek. But still, I think it's a first. In the past, I was preoccupied with the notion of 3x a week, or alternate days, or a day's rest here and there. But now that I've listed my only 3 possible justification for not swimming, I shouldn't have any other excuse. Heck, I just learned from one of the videos I downloaded that Michael Phelps trains 7 days for the whole year, birthdays and Christmas included - or so he claimed. But I guess he wouldn't be where he's now were it not for the mucho time he spends in the water.

I revived the side stretches today in the pool and it felt goooood. I've not done ththose stretches for a long time and I felt the stretch in my lats. Makes me think how valuable it is after all.

Tattered Towel

Deasy: Was sweating when I came to the office today from the morning swim. But it was a good feeling. I don't turn on the aircon nowadays especially with the relatively cooler weather. I only turn it on when there's heavy traffic on the way to the office.

I noticed that my first Arena Sports Towel is starting to fall apart. There's now a big tear 3 inches long and there are other smaller tears and holes. Has it been a year? I've had this towel since (hold on while I search the archives)... Yup, been more than a year. I've used it since July16 of last year and has served me very very well. I just don't know if the way I washed it recently contributed to its decay. It's been getting stubborn stains lately and I used bleach to remove them. The instructions clearly prohibits it though. Here's what I did to remove the stains and make it spotless:

1. Wash the towel well with detergent - no scrubbing, just wringing.
2. Leave the towel to soak in the soapy water for a day.
3. Rinse it well.
4. Soak the towel in water with 2 tablespoons of bleach for a day.
5. Rinse well and aerate in the shade.
6. Roll it up and put it back in the tube.
7. Pour a little vinegar in the center or core of the towel.

I modified the wrestling move I described a few months ago so it'll look ultra cool.

• Do NOT touch/ grab the deck or wall to support you.
• Push water down with both arms simultaneously to pull body forward and bend back.
• Raise your legs simultaneously so that the top of the knees break the surface. You'll need to ensure a lungful of air so the head doesn't sink.

Felt sleepy all afternoon today. I was up until midnight last night reading these articles/ blogs about migration.

Take It Slow

Deasy: It's still cold in the mornings especially when I wake up. But nopes, no more excuses! As MTS sez, think of the outcomes, the payoffs. Think positive not negative. The water's cool and one thing I did yesterday was to dunk my head a couple of times to acclimatize with the water before starting the laps. Maybe I should do that everyday.

Doing Deasy everyday is a doable. I just have to put my mind to it and not overly rush the laps. Today, I was more relaxed albeit slower on the second TEP. No rush, no tensing of muscles, no wild gasping for air, even. I thought that was refreshing. The first relaxed lap even felt like I was just lazily stroking the right arm as if I just depended on the turning of the body to propel myself ala a screwdriver. Maybe that's the core muscles at work. Whatever it was, I want to do that again coz it was much easier to go thru the laps. Reserve the wham-bam, gungho, furious stroking on some other day perhaps.

Tomorrow I'll park farther from where I park now. Those workers at the resort (mostly for the bottled water business) have the makeshift basketball goal up again. Trouble is, the goal is rather near the spot where I presently park my car, meaning near enough for the ball to hit the car. Especially now that that court is rebuilt, those guys are huffy-puffy again on playing. It's too close for comfort, so I'll just move. I don't know what's with those guys, they play bball, pretend to swim and then smoke big-time. Some jerk even smokes in the shower room. I know it's the rainy season and biz is slow, but still.

I found a nice quote from a USMS particpant (Guvnah) on blocking out distractions at the pool. It was a reply to an overweight guy who was insecure about other people's opinions and thought that Guvnah's pool was empty:

"Actually, it's often pretty full. Two people per lane, one on each side of the line. What I was saying is that for me, nobody else matters. (Unless they swim into me or into my space!) Just block them out and focus on your own zone, your own workout. Is the guy (or gal) in the next lane swimming twice as fast as I am? Good for them! I don't change my workout to keep up. Block them out. Do your own thing. That's all."

Unsymmetrical Again

Partial DEasy or TEPTE: I'm getting the habit of not rotating enough again. The left arm doesn't clear the waterline enough and it felt like splashing too much water. I rotated automatically and the left arm clears when my head turned with the body though. I gotta remember that. I used the thigh and groin(?) muscles more for the Paddle today. It felt that way coz that's where I felt the slight tiredness. Maybe this will save the knees more.

It may be a fluke but elemback today's count was only 8! To streamline myself, I put my palms on my front thighs. On the medz front, I forgot to take Pritor (my anti-hypertension drug). Good thing I always keep some spare tabs in the car. I'm a bit apprehensive to workout if I didn't take it. What if my BP spikes? A coronary situation in the pool isn't a pretty sight. I gotta think of a way to take this first thing in the morning. Take it with my tall glass of water? with coffee? put it on the dinner table the night before?

I've downloaded lots of videos today from fan sites. Interestingly, there are plenty of Aussie videos (Thorpe and Hackett) to download from various fansites around. When you search for US videos, most of the sites (not fansites) ask for money. Luckily I found one fansite for Phelps. I'll put all these on a cd later. These will keep me happy and inspired for the next few days.

Finally Out!

SEasy or Easy: Sun's finally out today after a whole week of rains. It was a Single Easy day today.

Muscles (right biceps and shoulder) are still sore from the weekend's wood chopping for 2 days. We collected cut tree branches from the park where some trees were heavily trimmed. I cut them at home using a steel hacksaw and split them for drying. In all these activities, I didn't feel "pooped out" at all. Of course I needed a few minutes rest occassionally. Overall, I was sweating like crazy but it wasn't as tiring as before when I didn't swim. In fact it was the blisters and the hand soreness that gave out first. I must say that all these swimming has tremendously improved my fitness. Now if only I could say the same for my knees. I had some difficulty sitting and rising from the low stool as I was chopping the wood especially yesterday. I wonder what I could do for them. Stationary bike? Knee bends/ squats with weights?

The pool was cool and clear today. The new guy is ultra-busy cleaning, even on a slow day like Monday. I guess I won't be able to dive for some sunken coins for quite some time.

Gloomy Day

DEasy: Still a gloomy day today. Although the weather appears to be clearing, the sun's still shy just content at peering from above the nimbus clouds. The water's much cooler today than yesterday and I used my new cap (M-Cap brand). It was tighter than the Voit but that was expected since it was new. But there's absolutely no discomfort and it kept me warm nicely. I think I do need to alternate both caps coz the Voit may have loosen up a bit. After a few laps, I sometimes feel the top part of the back of the cap to be flapping a bit.

Today's workout was good. I had thought of lessening the rest time and I shortened the rest between free and a utility stroke. It seemed like 3 breaths and I'm off. But after the utility stroke, I REALLY rest. I've gulped so much water with the couple of Dog Paddling that I did. My mouth just kept sinking as I was gasping. The shortened rest literally took my breath away. I started at 7:25 finished early too at 8:10 just beating the office buzzer. I do need to concentrate on what I do MORE than watch what others do in the pool. Focus on the workout and do what I came to do. Mind your own workout!

Something I read last night that I thought was useful was the switch-on-switch-off technique on mind training. Click here for the article. Think of the title as "Maintaining Focus for Multi Day TASKS", so that rather than think "competition", think "training or practice". This should take my mind off swimming for the rest of the day and focus on other matters. Other matters would include practicing the piano again after listening to that hauntingly beautiful song "Ni Yao De Ai" (Meteor Garden theme) today.

With no sun in the previous days, the sports towel has started to smell like rust and mildew, ugh. The smell even stuck to my skin. I need to have it bleached AND washed PRONTO.

Cool Swim, Cool Cap

Double Easy with full laps: After a WHOLE weekend of rain, the pool water was much cooler. Typhoon's gone (Gorio: is that also Matsa in China? and I heard they had a typhoon holiday in Taiwan) but it's the rainy season. I've been using my cap for several days now and it's getting unsightly watermarks from the pool water. The silver color now appears dull.

Anyway, after checking-in the car to TAI last week, I bought a silicone swimcap I've been wanting to get for its so cool colors. It's the one on the left. Dig those dazzling neon colors! It was on sale at Festival Chris Sports at 10% off - Php180. Something weird though was that the shop next to it, StoreShop, was retailing it for Php240. Yup, it's the same brand, same material, same size, same dazzling neon colors. Neat huh. Guess somebody's not monitoring their own prices. Ah well, I'll just alternate these two and have the Speedo as backup.

Surprisingly, the pool today was clean and clear! I could only guess that: 1) with the rains, hardly anybody went to swim on the weekend. 2) pool staff is more diligent in cleaning the pool. Speaking of staff, Dante is going on vacation and is training another guy, Leo to take over. Hope he's as kind and hardworking as Dante.

Visualization exercises can take some time. I realized I started swimming late at 7:40am. I guess the trick now is to lessen the rests in between laps if I'm to do Double Easy regularly. I want to do this workout coz it makes me feel I've accomplish so much. I came to the office today with my back wet with sweat! And a good workout always seem to clear my breathing.

Double Easy !!!

Double Easy: A milestone! I did today a double easy with no rest at 25m for all strokes! So the workout went this way: free, tread, free, elem, free, paddle, free, tread, free, elem, free, paddle - and all for 50m. The mental imagery really worked. There's plenty of articles by Craig Townsend on Mind Training for Swimmers. Just click here. I almost thought I wouldn't swim today. It was raining cats and dogs this morning due to the tailend of typhoon Gorio. But at the junction, the clouds just cleared a little. That's what I do, just before I reach the tollgate, I scan the sky left and right like some looney predicting whether the sun will come out of the clouds. Hope I don't figure into some vehicular accident by doing that.

But today was awesome. There were even a few earthworms in the pool! Guess the rains flush them out from somewhere. Before, I'd probably be grossed out already. But not today. I can't be bothered by that. One was maybe 8 inches long and was alive crawling at the pool floor. But nope, I can't be bothered by that. Even if it was a foot long, nopes I wouldn't be bothered by that. My focus today to do the 50m was just more intense than usual. Now if those vermin looked like that alien creature in Predator showing their fangs and ready to swallow me whole... I'd be bothered by that.

In one of the frees today I gulped some water but I just couldn't be bothered by it, and so I told myself: "Self, relax and move on". And self did just that. I started at 7:20 and ended at 8:14 for this workout and it felt absolutely great afterwards. So self, great job and congratulations.

Time for Medz

Another Easy day: I think it'll be this way for a few more days. The pain in the right knee is still there 'tho not as painful as last week. Two strokes in the Hard session will really stress it and these are the whipping kick in the sidestroke and the backstream flutter kick. So I'm avoiding those for now. Even the pushoff now is more "suwabe" (read: really slow) than before. I went to the company doc yesterday for my knee pain. He prescribed Dyclofenac and Mobic. I'm on the Dyclo for now and we'll see if the pain eases up. He suspects inflammation which may not necessarily have been caused by trauma.

I think it's time that I start to build serious mileage. I mean, it's been over a year now and apart from the past milestones, which have been great by the way, there's isn't much improvement in the mileage department. Am I just running out of air? Do I just need more aero? I do know that compared to the past, I recover much faster in like 10 to 20 secs. Could I just force the turns? Like quit thinking about 25 and do 50m out of EVERYTHING (all strokes)? Leave the recovery problems after each 50m lap?

Tomorrow, I'll try doing a Double Easy. With no mid rests (after 25m), that means the laps are faster and will allow me to double the Easy workout. A mental imagery I have now to force the turns is to imagine that there.. is.. no.. pool bottom at the end of the 25m. There is no ledge or bottom to stand on to. You just hold on to the gutter and GO BACK. There is no other way but to TURN AND GO BACK. Use Self-Talk here. There is no 25meters, only 50meters. Focus... Focus... Mental Toughness... Let's DO it.

Tweaking the Kick

Easy: Today I advanced the Php1,500 fee to renew my yearly membership. I'm surprised that they hadn't raised the annual fee. When I started this swimming exercise program last year, I wasn't sure where it'll lead me. I knew it was something that I had to do then, because of my back and hypertension and was thinking that maybe I could do it long term. But with other priorities in life, you'd never know what'll suddently butt in and disrupt all that. Well, after a year, am still in it and just renewed my membership! It makes me wonder if I truly found a niche as far as regular fitness is concerned. I hope so.

I still feel the pain in the right knee and today, I don't pushoff as strong from the wall. I also modified the freestyle kick so that the leg movement comes solely from the hips. It felt like I was dragging the legs and wasn't churning enough water. But I wonder if this helps me to be more streamline coz the knees don't bend much. So far the tweaking works coz I still manage to balance the body with the kicks. Heck we've read about disabled people ABLE to swim (and keep fit) by merely tweaking their stroke technique to suit their circumstances. These folks to me, are admirable, compared to couch potatoes.

I got this tip from Andres Muro from the rec.sport.swimming forum. To float/ raise your legs more and keep your body horizontal, arch your lower back and point your toes back. Makes sense. He gave this advise to a guy who compares swimming with fins and without for a long (1.5k) swim. Andres sez the fins puts the legs on the surface of the water. To which I agree.

No Car

Haven't gone swimming for a couple of days now. We had to bring the car to the TAI shop for its 80K service checkup, rustproofing (or undercoating as they call it), engine detailing and a whistling sound we've been complaining about for eons. And for this I had to commute (again). Well, commuting by jeepney isn't so bad after you realize you can get around without doing the driving yourself. Feels good to be a passenger again. It's just that suddenly the ride just seem so bumpy (ooooh, my lower back!).

Yah, I've gotten pretty much used to private transpo. We do have a shuttle bus at the company and I used to ride it before. But unlike officemates who ride their cars just for the convenience (and porma), I essentially justify the DAILY use of the car for two things:

1. To swim and keep fit EVERYDAY. At my age, keeping fit is a huge priority. Unfortunately the pool I go to is out of the way on my way to work. Public transpo is time-consuming and cumbersome just to get there and then be at the office in time.
   
2. It's a business tool of sorts. When a potential tenant who meets my requirements asks to see the unit, I can just zoom to the site anytime ON A WEEKDAY to show the unit. Applicants usually call/ text from the site and want to see the unit pronto. This doesn't happen everyday, but it eliminates much of the hassle going there and I'm always ready.

Like others, there's the multitude of tasks that can be conveniently done with the car like when buying/ loading a sack of rice, attending to some emergency at the apartment, paying water bills, helping buy groceries in bulk, yadda yadda yadda, but it's the above two reasons that really justifies my need.

Hokay, let's get that out of the way. Anyway, after a rather long wait (2 days+) and reading all of TAI's newspapers, I got the car today all finished. When I saw the work on the engine detailing under the hood, all I could say was "is this my car?" It was so clean and shiny you could eat a pizza off of it. And the ride... It seemed to run so smoothly on the highway! Or is it just all psychological? After all, I'm now poorer by a whopping Php17,000!