Open-Water Swim

Well, sort of.

I've been at my family's cabin on Lake Superior for the past few days.  Due to global warming and whatnot, the usually-frigid lake water is, if not bathtub-warm, at least tolerable.  I'm not usually much of a swimmer; I'm plenty bouyant (fat floats, you know), and since I'm already bobbing around like a little cork it doesn't take too much work to propel myself in a given direction.  But actual swimming strokes are, for the most part, just not happening. I dislike water on my face, up my nose, or in my ears, and I have an almost phobic inability to exhale when my face is in water--I always freak out and try to inhale instead.  So really, the only swimming stroke I can do with any facsimile of appropriate technique is the side-stroke, which doesn't tend to get me very far very fast but does a nice job of allowing me to keep my face out of the water.  As does the dog-paddle, which I've also been known to use.

So anyway, I began my open-water efforts by swimming to the rock pictured below--the rock is, naturally, know to my family as "The SwimOut Rock."  In my pre-global-warming frigid-water youth, we swam out to the SwimOut Rock (a process known, in the family vernacular, as "hitting The Rock") only after a nice hot sauna.  Now, though, people hit The Rock willy-nilly, and it's rare for a warm sunny day to pass without a cousin or two ending up on the rock.

Last weekend the Rock got a particularly strenuous workout, because we had a family reunion (known as BWAC, "Before We All Croak") at the cabin.  This was the second BWAC, and the first, two years ago, had featured the setting of the first -ever "SwimOut Rock Record"--25 people on the rock.  Naturally, we had to try to best the record this year.

The first attempt fell a bit short--like 17 people short.  Here I am, officially Person Number 3, emerging from the water in most ungraceful fashion (and yes, there are a few even less-flattering photos of the process...I wish I could remember who I lent my camera to for this photo-documentation...)

Later that evening, we did manage to shatter the old record--31 people on the rock, from a life-jacket-clad 7-year-old to my 78-year-old uncle. 



The day after the Record on the Rock, a bunch of us went swimming again.  We started at the SwimOut Rock, then headed to the Underwater Rock, which is just visible in the photo below and which I had finally, for the first time in my 48 years, swum to the previous night.  (My cousins assure me that I'm the last of us 10 to achieve this milestone, and am only 35 years or so behind the rest of them).

See it there, just barely visible above and to the right of the SwimOut Rock?  It's even harder to find when you're in the water.

Emboldened by my success at once again achieving the Underwater Rock, I followed the other swimmers about 200 yards down the shore to another rock that (bolder than I am) people jump off of.  I side-stroked and dog-paddled my way down the shore, pausing to rest at another underwater rock at the mid-point.  Watching the others jump off the Channel Rock was a nice rest break, and then we swam back to the SwimOut Rock and, finally, to shore.  About 400 yards of swimming, at least four times as far as I've swum at any one time since my fourth grade swimming test. 

Swimming is a weird workout.  Your arms--and to a lesser extent your legs--get tired before you're really breathing very hard, but you're also afraid to breathe very hard because you know that any breath could include just enough water to ensure that it might be your last.  Slightly wavy lake-water heightens this risk, which does not make for a terribly focused or high-effort workout.  So while the swimming was fun and I was happy to have finally achieved the underwater rock, don't look for me to be switching from long track speedskating to triathlons any time soon. 

Besides, I'll take a skinsuit over a swimsuit any day.

We Couldn't Be More Proud...

(Note: I'm a bit sick of discussing the many ways in which my skating currently sucks--and yes, it still does; well, other than one brief shining moment of "40.05-second-lap-time" at Wednesday's Summer Inline Series Race. So I'm not going to discuss my skating suckitude, at least not today.  Today, I will celebrate the achievement of another member of the LongTrackLife family...)


The Hubster and I do not have children.  It's not that we don't like kids (the well-behaved ones, anyway).  It's just that after we got married we were having so much fun skating and dirt biking and broomballing and what not that we never really got around to it.  And now I'm 48, so the days of "getting around to it" are pretty much a distant memory.  So we don't have kids.  But we have a dog.

Keira is a 5-year-old American Staghound.  The Staghound, a cross between a Greyhound and a Scottish Deerhound, perhaps with a dash of Irish Wolfhound thrown in for good measure, could perhaps be one of the first "designer" breeds (or in other words, a "mutt on purpose.").  Staghounds predate the currently-fashionable Doodles and Puggles and Schnoodles by a couple hundred years (and have a much less silly name).  Teddy Roosevelt reportedly hunted with a Staghound--for that is what Staghounds are bred for: hunting.  Specifically, hunting coyotes.

Keira, while a physically beautiful specimen of Staghound-dom, is a big fail in the "hunting coyotes" department.  Consequently, she was abandoned at the pound by her undoubtedly-unfeeling hunter owner, and eventually found her way into her current lap of luxury in the LongTrack household.

Here's Keira, channeling her inner hunter in a pose we call "Noble Staghound:"

Quite the case of Deceptive Packaging.  Here she is, expressing her true personality:

At any rate, she's sweet and funny and we love her, even if she does sleep most of the time.  However, there's always been one tiny area where the Hubster, at least, felt she could improve.

Greyhounds (we discovered when googling our new pet four years ago) like to sleep in a position referred to by their doting owners as "roaching" (short, apparently, for "Dead Cockroaching.")  Roaching is a flat-on-the-back, legs-sprawled-inelegantly, head-twisted-tongue-lolling event.  If you ever are feeling down and need a good laugh, search Google Images for "greyhound roaching." I dare you not to laugh.

At any rate, Keira, much to the Hubster's dismay, displayed neither a propensity for nor an interest in roaching.  For some reason, Hubster felt that Keira was not truly living up to her Greyhound ancestry if she didn't roach, and he frequently lamented the fact that her many amusing and endearing sleep positions did not include the iconic Greyhound Roach.

This spring, though, after several roachless years, there were glimmers of hope.  One day, the Hubster reported excitedly that Keira had assumed a half-way-on-her-back position--which the Hubster, with his unique way with words, dubbed "The Demi-Roach."

Here's the Demi-Roach:

Partly on her back, but no leg sprawl and only a partial head-twist...she still has a ways to go.

Then finally, at school one day during the last week or so before summer break, I received the following email:

"Full Roach finally achieved.  Photo attached."  And the following photo:

So all you parents, you can celebrate your child's 4.0 or selection to the travelling soccer team or whatever.  We've got one up on you.

Our dog learned to roach.


And we couldn't be more proud.

I Don't Think It's Working Yet...

...the raised dose of Synthroid, I mean.  Friday's intervals were a bit better than I expected, but I cut the workout down a fair amount--it was supposed to be 3x 200/200 rest-400/400 rest--600/600 rest--800/8 min rest.  I cut it down by skipping two of the 800's, so it ended up to be quite a short workout.  But it went sort of OK--I actually had a couple of 42-second laps, which is faster than I've skated in a while.  I thought that maybe things were looking up.  But then I did a trail skate on Sunday with the Hubster and my sister Energizer Bunny and her husband Sherpa Boy (the guys biked while we skated).  It was only 10 miles, and I went super slow--Energizer Bunny blew by me again about one mile into the skate and I was trudging along on my own after that--but I was still totally wiped afterwards.  As in "drive home, get out of the car, walk upstairs into the bedroom, lie down on the bed and sleep for two-and-a-half-hours" wiped.

This is really getting old.  (Or maybe I am).

Anyway, along with the "tired" comes the "cranky" and the "I really don't care if my skinsuit doesn't fit, I'm crabby and I want another cookie, dammit." (And a cupcake.  And a PopTart.  Or two.)  Add to that the fact that the lab results that my doctor's assistant assured me on Thursday  (after telling me a week previously that she would do it , and then not doing it) that she had "just copied and dropped in the mail" have not yet arrived.  (Yes, that's horribly incomprehensible sentence structure.  I really don't care.  I'm cranky. (See what the Hubster and the dog have to put up with?)  Not that the lab results are critical for me to have, but I do like to know the numbers, and I've been waiting almost three weeks now...

So tomorrow is supposed to be a 4x6k workout.  The heatwave has broken and the weather looks nice, but I have a suspicion that it won't matter...I'm afraid there's a whole lot of "sucky" headed my way tomorrow morning.  I'll probably modify the workout to 4x4k, but if recent workouts have been anything of a predictor, I'll have trouble skating more than 3 laps in a row without standing up to rest my back; 4k is 10 laps, 6 is 15.  15 is not happening.  10 is looking iffy, as well.

Yes, I know there are a lot bigger problems out there than being slow, tired, fat, and cranky.  And I really shouldn't complain; at least I'm tired and cranky when I'm off for the summer instead of during the school year.

Still, I'm mighty sick of this.

Hi-Ho, Hypo, My Thyroid Levels are Low...

(sing it with me!)
"I'll get more drugs,
Not be a slug,
Hi-Ho, hypo, hypo, hypo..."

Yes, that's right...I finally got my lab results back, and I am, indeed, hypo again.  Well, I guess I technically have a diagnosis of "hypothyroid" all the time, but you know what I mean.  One of my thyroid hormone levels (Free T4, to be specific) is once again below range.  And it may sound strange, but I was actually quite happy to hear that.  Partly, of course, in that "See?  I knew I was low again!" sort of way, but mostly because the Devil you know is usually better than the Devil you don't know.  I knew something was wrong, as evidenced by my fatigue and my skating suckiness (suckyness? suckitude?), and I guess I'd rather have it be a return of low thyroid levels than a new, fun problem.

So now I've got a new prescription for a (slightly) higher level of Synthroid.  I'm a little concerned about the "slightly" part, because I ended up having to up my prescription pretty significantly last summer before things got back to normal, and every med adjustment takes a month (raise meds, wait a month, blood test, then go from there).  So last year took 2 raises, and hence 2 months, to get back to normal.  Two months is sounding like a long time, if this first med change doesn't do it...

In the meantime, I'm not quite sure what to do about my workouts.  In the past I've pretty much just put my head down and slogged dutifully through whatever workouts I had planned, regardless of how poorly they went.  I'm not sure I'm up for that again this year, though, and I'm not sure it's the best plan in terms of helping my body get to where it needs to be, thyroid-wise. (And having a month or two (more) of really lackluster workouts does not do much in terms of getting my head where it needs to be, either!)  I'm soliciting opinions from my chiropractor (who recommended easing up a bit on the workouts until the thyroid is behaving again), from Google (who really doesn't have much to say on the subject), and from Coach TieGuy (who I haven't called yet).  If any of you have experiences/suggestions, I'd love to hear them!  For now, tomorrow's workout will be an easy "make it up as you go along" type thing (which is somewhat stressful in itself for a control freak like me!), and then I guess I'll start planning the rest of July after that.

So I'm still a slug, and I don't know for how much longer I'll be a slug, but at least now I know why I'm a slug...

Waiting, Waiting...

(To get the most from the title, you have to sing it like the song by the Minnesota band from the '80's, "The Suburbs."  Memories from my (hardly!) misspent youth...)

Anyway, I'm waiting--waiting for the results of my blood tests from a week and a half ago.  I finally called my doctor's office on Friday, since it had been over a week since I had the blood drawn and I typically get the results in the mail within a week (note to anyone who has or suspects they have thyroid issues--always get a written copy of the results! ).  They told me that the doctor had been on vacation all week--bummer.  I'm hoping for the results early next week.  In the meantime, my workouts continue to be epically sucky.  Wednesday's races went somewhat OK--a bit faster than the previous races, anyway--probably because I changed the spacing of one of my thyroid meds and took more of it before the race than I usually do.  I did the same thing for the Thursday morning workout, though, and it was another suckfest; I quit after 2 of the prescribed 5 sets.  Saturday's "recovery skate" was similarly awful; Energizer Bunny (who usually is content to draft off of me) couldn't take my snail-pace and after about a mile she blew by me and disappeared down the trail, never to be seen again (well, not until I finally wobbled back to our starting point, anyway).  I'm also tired more, sleeping more, and napping more (good thing I'm off for the summer!).

So I'll be very surprised if I'm not hypo again--surprised and a bit dismayed, because then I'm not sure what's going on.  My chiropractor wants to look into adrenal issues and to give me some advice on supporting thyroid and adrenal function, so I'll be doing that.  I wish I knew how to address the workout issue in the meantime, though.  It's July, which means I need to figure out my July workouts, but I hesitate to do that without knowing what my thyroid levels are.  I suspect that just trying to push through the regular hard workouts is probably not the best plan.  I think my best course of action is to throw in an easy week next week (even though I'm not quite due for one yet) and then make my July workout plan after I know what's going on with the thyriod levels.

In the meantime, I'm waiting...