OK, OK...I Surrender

I don't want to complain and sound like I'm whining. I know this blog is for my personal reflection but the truth is that other people do read it and I don't want to bum you all out. But I have to give up for a bit...

You see, IT is just not in me right now. I don't want to. Swimming is good - I'm still going to do the swim meet in December. But it's just going to have to be ok that I don't feel like doing anything else. It's dark. It's cold. I hasn't stopped raining/snowing/spitting for two whole weeks and I feel like a mushroom. Yes, I'm taking my meds. Maybe it will help that we'll all gain an hour this weekend. Whatever. I won't bore you, I just might have to write about other things for a bit.

Anyone else a fan of the Indigo Girls?
No matter what new music I come across, I always seem to return to Amy and Emily - year after year...I just don't really get tired of them. I just noticed they have a new album out called "Rarities"...it looks like it's not much new but a compilation of live covers as well as some songs they wrote for various movies.

I'm psyched because it has "I don't wanna talk about it" from the movie soundtrack of Philadelphia...very excellent song. I'd recommend picking up a copy as soon as you can! RUN!! NOW!!! I'm going to get one after work...







Ahhhh, da girls. So great. I think they'll be able to snap me out of this funk. Meanwhile, I think I'm going to see when open ice hockey is happening.

OH, does anyone know how to make the workouts in my sidebar have different spacing? I want to be able to have more space between weeks and less space between days. anyone? anyone? Bueller?

ps. If you haven't seen "Dodgeball: A True Underdog Story" with Vince Vaughn and Ben Stiller, I'd highly recommend it. It's totally asinine, 80's, adolescent hilarity and it got awful reviews but I laughed thru the whole thing. Jason Batemen's character as an ESPN 8 "THE OCHO" commentator is just about the funniest role I've ever seen him in. You gotta wait until after the credits roll at the end too - there's a classic but disgusting extra that makes even Weasel Boy cringe. Happy laughing!!

When Darkness Falls

So I don't usually spook easily. I've spent lots of time in the woods and lots of time in the dark - I used to lead nightwalks and have told kids over and over that the woods of VT are so much safer than the streets of Any City USA after dark. There's just not much to worry about and, aside from taking the usual precautions, it's quiet and safe.

But my runs lately have been mostly as dusk turns to downright DARK and during the transition, things have a way of transforming from everyday-ordinary to "what was that??!!" terrifying. Last night as I plodded along, I saw a big, burly, scary man walking toward me who ended up being a mailbox with two posts; several giant bears that were old cars covered with pine needles; I heard all kinds of spooky noises off in the woods that were probably deer or skunks but evoked images of vicious lurking animals. You get the idea. I guess if nothing else it made me run faster. Anyone have any good headlamp suggestions? Although I'm not so sure that the headlamp shadows wouldn't freak me out even more...

Third Run's a Charm...

It's always the third run after getting started again when I finally feel like a runner. Last week I had to slog through two sessions of complete misery - only half hour sessions mind you - but misery none the less. When you feel like you have cement blocks on your feet but you can't get your heartrate over 70% because all of the swimming you've done has you perfectly aerobically conditioned. But you just can't go any faster on land. Last night my feet felt much lighter and 40 minutes passed by much faster than the previous two runs of 30 minutes. Yup, it just takes a few runs to get back into it.

Still on my mission to recruit some more Masters Swimming competitors for the meet in December. We practiced diving off the starting blocks today (don't laugh, all you ex-competitive swimmers!) I think I've got Weasel Boy convinced that it'll be fun but I'm still signing up no matter who else wants to. Milkshake Girl would go but needs a donation of about $60 to make it happen (starving graduate student)...anyone want to donate? Still working on the two Ironmen - both are racing at IMFL 2005 and aren't convinced they'll want to compete. My sense is they'll be raring to go after facing down the Florida course and finding themselves with nothing on the horizon... we'll see.

And one last thing - Power Shopping and Endurance Basement cleaning ARE in fact very taxing workouts!! Later...

Something to Look Forward To

I'm FIRED up. Coach mentioned yesterday that the New England Masters Short Course Championship Meet is happening the first weekend in December, that she's going, and that anyone else that wants to go should get signed up. I threw it out there at the end of practice that we should get a group together and go...do some relays and a few individual events...got some mildly interested expressions but no one jumped on it. By the end of the day I think I had at least two people convinced that we should go and I'm not stopping until I have a 4 person relay team. But even if no one else is interested, I'll go with Coach and stay at my Mom's...I really need something to look forward to and this is just the thing...I was dreading having to wait until next spring for some kind of race - ANY kind of race. Perhaps there will be something else in the wintertime to train for - maybe a nordic ski marathon or something...and I'm planning on becoming a full fledged ice hockey player too so watch for news on that front. Got to mix it up a little, you know?

Also, along the thread of accountability, I've started posting workouts in the sidebar. Definitely check out the Masters Practice links to see how we're training to make our first competitive appearance to date. And GO SWIM!!

The Fish in Me

It must be some great coincidence that my last name is Fisher and that lots of folks along the way have called me (and my Dad and my brother) "Fish." In college it was not for swimming but rather for my talents of imbibing a bit more than several members of the football team were capable of...a feat I'm no longer very proud of! Whatever, it was fun at the time but is not something I ever aspire to again.

No, I've welcomed the fish-nomer back into my world, this time as a swimmer. I've been sick for a bit and got back into the pool yesterday. I expected to have lost my lead of the lane, which I had, but it was fine. Mostly it was fine because I was trailing the tweener-fishies...I wasn't leading but I was swimming with a few people who can hang with the fishies if they have to. This is good. I'm moving up in the world (ok, the pool)...and my times were actually pretty fast. Usually I can hold a sub 1:40 for 100 yards...we did 4 sets of 3x100 with some recovery in between and that would usually leave me dogging it on the last few with something around a 1:45...but yesterday I must've been well rested because I was averaging 1:35 and by the end was still holding sub 1:40. Nothing like being sick to give you an extended taper effect, eh? Pretty cool. I LOVE swimming.

So you might've noticed on my sidebar that it's Back To Basics time...but only for running and biking, not for swimming. I'm going to step up the swimming because I want to be really great at it. I'm going to add a core program and make my turns faster with stronger abs and I'm going to go from 2 days/week to three. And I'm GOING to get into the fishy lane.

So "Fish" it is. I'm glad the name is back... ;)

HOLY COW!!!

OK OK, I'm VERY sorry I've been gone so long. You see, LIFE has been getting in the way of my blog and I had to cut out some extraneous tasks and I figured that eating and sleeping took precedent.

I've decided that the second half of October will be spent getting back on track. Just to give you a glimpse of my life over the past two months...I've:

1.) bought a new house
2.) moved into said new house and begun renovations
3.) unexpectedly had to drive from Vermont to Boston to Baltimore and back for a family emergency and left a week's worth of work to catch up on - and an ongoing family challenge to help manage from afar
4.) been offered a new job
5.) resigned from my old job but still had to catch up on all the missed work
6.) got sick, had to cancel my half marathon (which was the cosmos looking out for me, yet again)
7.) caught up on all the missed work while juggling all the new work
8.) started new job yesterday and it's GREAT.
9.) finally caught my breath, took a nap and my cold is mostly gone - back in the pool this morning...

JOY! I've spent a lot of energy feeling very lame about not working out and getting down on myself about it...but Weasel Boy pointed out the other day that there's a lot going on in my life right now. So I'm learning to cut myself some slack...that doing that is different than being complacent or having the "I don't wanna" blues, that when I'm ready to resume my training, I'll know it and I'll be fired up.

And now that I'm at my new job, I feel so much less stress about life in general and I've got an itch. It's like a whole new slate to work on...I've got blank walls in my cube and a pile of magazines to go thru all choc full of photos of swimmers, bikers, runners, skiers – ATHLETES – and I want to be one of them again. It's ok that my winter clothes are a little tight because I've got this itch to get back to it...and when I go over to the gym to renew my winter pass, I'll welcome the tired muscles and sweaty gym bag. It's all good - I got thru all the crazy life stuff and can see out the other side. There is still a lot to juggle and I know the stress will return...but for now it's great to start anew.

More posting will ensue now that the resting has ended!!... stay tuned.