"Try-Athletes": day 4 - "The Plateau of Exhaustion"

'My name is Terri, and I have a kicking problem...'

'Welcome, Terri.'

'My problem is that there are a lot of things to do simultaneously when you are swimming, and I am trying to figure them all out and put them all together. And I'm not very swift at it.'

...

So, I think we have reached this little thing we are calling The Plateau of Exhaustion and we are basically running on hopes and dreams, now. But they are big hopes and dreams coupled with all the success of ACHIEVING OUR VERY FIRST WEEK OF WORKOUTS! We are actually going to do the 'bonus' weekend workouts, too, which is something we had not intended intitally, because we need the practice.

And then we are going to sleep for the rest of the weekend.

Meanwhile, I have slept through 3 alarms this week. I am now making multiple alarms because nothing is getting through my head. I am in a state of fog all the time. I'm sure this will work itself out, eventually. This guy at the Tri Club Social Event tonight said he still gets tired... we blocked out his words because that is something we don't need to hear. It is going to get easier, our arses/vaginas will look forward to going on the busters and eventually our legs will want to go running, we just know it, by the love of the living, dancing, flying potatoes, because we need to!

So off we go to swimming IN A RAGING BLIZZARD SNOWSTORM BECAUSE WE ARE THAT COMMITTED TO THE TRI CLUB. Yeah, the RCMP has warned people off the roads (apparently). Does that faze us? No. We discussed it, then said, "Hell no, we are going to Tri Club. We're in it to win it!" We're not really winning anything, but the lingo sounds good. Jenny calls her little blue car 'The Blueberry' (it's a little blue circle-shaped kind of car) and so in the little blueberry on studded tires, we zoom away into the blizzard, like a frozen dessert on wheels.

Alanna, our NEW instructor, texts and tells us she is waiting in the swim office. We are excited, as usual. You can't beat us on enthusiasm!!

We hop into the pool and Jenny shows her stuff - Alanna tells her she is great! Yay! Jenny is not as special as we originally were told - she is working on her breathing, though. I am not a strong swimmer; I am very special. Alanna needs to have patience with me. She says she is being patient. Sweet Lord. I say she has to be as patient as I was with them with Shakespeare; she says she hated Shakespeare. I say, at that moment, I hate him, too.

She tells me to pretend I have to blow my nose underwater. This is unhygenic, and makes me feel just wonderful considering all of the water that I am sure I am unintentionally drinking since I have been swimming. I want to beat my head against the side of the pool.

Anyway, we practice breathing techniques. It's hard to breathe underwater, isn't it?? I wasn't born a fish. But Alanna has unlocked the secrets of the underwater universe for Jenny and me: you breathe out through your nose underwater and in through your mouth above water... this may not sound difficult to you, Dear Reader, but why don't you go hop in a pool and try breathing out through your mouth underwater, then go above water and breathe in through mouth, repeatedly - that gets tiring and it doesn't work every well. If it works for you, fantastic, I really hope you don't drown. But it wasn't working for me or Jenny.

Once this routine was established, we began to practice. It's still difficult, and much more practice is needed, especially for me. I essentially need to move in with SpongeBob and become his best friend. If there was a way to swim to work, I would probably consider it. This lack of swimming proficiency needs to be fixed. I know, I know, you are probably sitting on your couch, eating Doritos, or better yet, plain wavy Lays, and thinking, 'C'mon Terri, it's frigging water in a frigging swimming pool. Get in and flail around a little bit. Stop being lazy.' Yeah, well. Stop being an arsehole. I'm in there, and I'm not just flailing - I'm swimming... well, I'm trying to swim - I'm going back and forth, doing laps, and usually I make it about 20 metres or so and then I get tired and have to take a break, but I'll get better. It's a 25m lane. On Sun, it'll be 50m. So yeah, stop being lazy.

Alanna made me laugh every time I would look at her when I was trying to swim. Eventually she would not look at me when I was breathing. It looks funny to write that. "Don't look at me, I'm breathing!"

My new mantra, from Alanna: "Pepsi, Cola, Seven Up"... where you do the front crawl for 3 strokes and breathe on the 'Up'... I was practicing this and we were showing Jenny when I realized I forgot to breathe :D so I popped up out of the water and said, "I was doing good until I panicked!" which sent us all into hysterics. On her way over to get Jenny, Alanna scared her half to death and almost made her drown. I almost drowned myself a few times. It's all good.

I realized that the reason I have trouble getting the breathing right is because I often hold my breath everywhere, all the time. That's weird, but I have to fix it. Check it out - do you do it, too? Various illnesses can be associated with it - I checked it out - MIGRAINES (my problem!) top the list, no sh!t....
( http://breathing.com/articles/breath-holding.htm ) it also includes anxiety, so when you are just doing something quietly, take notice to your breathing - do you hold your breath? Might wanna work on that before someone throws your a$$ into a pool or something, or a friend calls you fat and decides you need to train for a triathlon that you will never do. Just sayin'.

AND Swim Coach Soldier came over to tell Alanna to tell me to kick my legs so my arse wasn't too far down in the water. Like, Mr Buddy, thank you for your concern, but my legs are givin'er all they can right now. I've been working out for 4 days straight, which feels like 85,000 hours, so I'm lucky I'm not just floating around in this here bowl of watery snot. I would like to just lean back and have a little nap with all this beautiful water lapping all around like a comforting blanket of love.

But noooo, the Swim Coach Soldier comes over to the special lane and orders us around over there, too. And we were doing good!!! I would like to have put enough of those little floaty boards together to make a colourful floating bed of foam, and then drape my towel over top of me and just sail on down the special lane with my swim cap and foggy goggles on, not a care in the world... but does he see me doing that? No, my a$$ is in the water, literally. And my legs are kicking.

I have a kicking problem... so I have to get my breathing under control while building endurance while building muscle while remembering to kick while I am breathing properly... apparently I stop kicking when I come up to breathe... good thing there are no sharks after me, I guess.

Alanna was awesome. We plan to see her again on Tue. I plan to swim in the bathtub everyday from now until then, and in the pool on Sun. I will have waterlogged face on Mon.

At the Social Event, Jenny orders a salad. I order nachos (hello: chicken, cheese, veggies) and wings (oven baked, thai chili sauce - nothing breaded). Jenny shared my nachos and wings. Love it. She offered to share her salad but I couldn't be bothered to move my arms that far.

Meanwhile, coming back to the ranch, The Blueberry almost gets stuck coming through the snow filled road to my house... snow filled because so many trucks pass through on the turns and nothing is ever plowed... it's like a roller coaster of fun! Scary and we nearly pee our pants laughing. hahaha

We figure our arses will be just calming down from some of the soreness when it will be time to get back on the busters on Mon.

Running (HAHA... walking, maybe a lap of running) on Sat.
D A Y O F F T O M O R R O W !! = Sleep time.

Pepsi, Cola, Seven Up!
Annnnnnnddddd... scene!