Drowning Prevention and my Three-legged Doggie Paddle

Day 2


I am not what you'd call a swimmer. I've never been one much for being in a pool. Perhaps it's my life-long experience of being a big girl and having an aversion to being seen publicly in a swimsuit. It may just be that I am somewhat horrible at swimming. I've never learned proper form and have managed to stay above water due to what I refer to as my three-legged doggie paddle. It's not beautiful, graceful, or elegant, but it does qualify as drowning prevention. When George Costanza referred to Elaine's dancing as a full body dry heave, it's only because he'd never seen me try to swim. Fortunately my natural buoyancy does help me in my swimming endeavors, but it's never what I'd call a pleasant experience. So guess what I did this morning? Dragged my darling husband out of bed so he can teach me proper swimming form. I had to promise him coffee and breakfast afterwards, but it was totally worth it!

We get into the water and it's about 9:15ish in the morning and it's getting hotter by the minute. Rob reviewed some of the finer points of the free style stroke. Rob was a swimmer in high school and while he's not been in a swim meet in quite a few years, he's still quite good. We warm up with a few laps, in a community pool, not an Olympic pool, so I actually have hope for finishing one length of the pool. Not much of a hope, but still I'll take what I can get. We do some "drills" on kicking form and then some other drills that I don't even know how to refer to properly. We've been at it for 25 or so minutes and I am exhausted. Gasping for air, legs burning, shoulders on fire spent. So I turn to Rob and ask him,

"How much longer do you want to keep going?" hoping to high heaven that all he says are five more minutes. He turned to me and says,

 "Well it looks like breakfast is 10 laps away."

 "Ok!" I promise you I thought he was kidding otherwise ok was not what I would have said. Fortunately for me it was each length that he was counting, so it was a full five round trip laps he was counting. And bless his heart, he was swimming them all with me, and he was swimming the butterfly stroke the whole 10 lengths. I was tempted to think he was showing off, but he wanted to challenge himself as much as I was challenging myself and my heart may have melted into puddle because of that. So I swam it. And it hurt. It's still hurting and I have a feeling that tomorrow may hurt a little more. But I did it, and my three legged doggie paddle is resembling more of a freestyle stroke. Also I have a feeling that our creepy neighbor may have been taking a video of us on his phone, so let me know if you find us on youtube or something. I really hope not, but he was super duper Creeps MaGee. See! This is why big girls don't go to public pools!


WOD

45 minutes of swimming, including a much harder last 15 minutes.

Nutrition

Breakfast was Paleo coconut pancakes, two slices of bacon, and coffee with half and half and Splenda.

Lunch was rotisserie chicken and steamed broccoli. I did have one sample of Tri tip roast at Costco, but I assure you that was it.

Dinner is going to be either shrimp scampi with tomato salad and guacamole or salmon burgers with tomato salad and guacamole. I may have a later snack or sweet treat because we are picking up friends from the airport pretty late, I'll let you know tomorrow if I did though.

Lastly I met with a lovely friend this afternoon who is a Certified Health Coach, Kellie McGarry. She is wonderful and supportive and is offering her services in the Phoenix area. I said yesterday that I am not the person to look to for advice, but she absolutely is. If you don't know where to start and need a supportive and loving kick in the pants she's the one to help you out. http://www.nourishedandnew.com/ Check her site out. She has been through a lot in her own quest for health and wellness and has dedicated herself to help others who are looking for their own answers.

Tomorrow is my first rest day, but I will post nutrition information and any other juicy tidbits that I find amusing. I kind of hesitate in raising your expectations all the way to juicy tidbits in case all I find is how much lint can accumulate in my dryer, but I want to raise the bar here. How is your weekend shaping up? anything fun going on? Leave me notes in the comments, I think I fixed it so you don't have to sign in anymore. See you all tomorrow!

xo

Kendra