My hump

I've been swimming a lot at the Y lately. Yesterday I did 2000 yards, which is about a mile and a quarter. Impressive huh? I loved it so much that I didn't want to get out but I knew if I didn't my arms would be like noodles shortly after, so I got out. I decided to get myself a new swim suit so I don't have to wear the mom-cut flowered suit that I got for 10 dollars at K-mart last summer.

I went to a sporting goods shop and got a super cute practice suit. I was debating about the size and I decided on a size bigger than I wore in high school. That should work, right? Sure. I got it home and tried it on. I had to check the tag to make sure of the size when it got stuck at mid thigh. The size was right, it must just be a little snug. Right..... I got it all the way up and looked in the mirror. My back looked like a ham under the cross-straps, and my butt was so very very compressed that the design on the suit was stretched to the point of turning a little white-ish. I have decidedly more junk in my trunk, as they say, than I did when I was 17. Who knew? (shut up, Mitch)

I was so disgusted with myself that I returned it today and bought a new purse instead. My ass will never be too big for a new purse.

To all my bitches at the Y: You're just going to have to keep getting your asses kicked by me in my mom-cut suit, and if a boob falls out, too bad.

NOW I get why there's a skirt on those suits!

Mental Picture of the Day

Today Mitch and I were talking and he asked me, "In your shower room at the Y, where are your soap dishes?"

"On the wall, almost at shoulder height. Why?" I replied.

He said, "So are ours, and today I saw a man rest his foot on a soap dish while he was washing. And he wasn't a very tall man."

There's your mental picture of the day. Enjoy!

Super Athlete*

When I was in high school I was the captain of the swim team. Technically I was a tri-captain because there were three of us. We were the only three seniors on the team and I always thought it was weird that during the team vote, all three of the eligible captains got the exact same number of votes. I never saw the actual ballots, but that's what our coach, Mr Reed, said. I have a feeling one of us got hardly any votes but he didn't want to have only two captains because then the loser would feel bad and it would be bad for the team, right? No, I'm sure we all got the exact same number of votes.

The choice for captain was totally based on popularity, which was good because if it was based on skill and accomplishment, I would have obviously been the odd man out. I don't think I ever won a race unless it was in a huge meet and the swimmers were organized into different heats based on their previous times. I won some heats, but I was usually racing against people that weighed 300 pounds or people missing some limbs. (It kind of upset me when I won my heat against the amputee and everyone cheered for her when she finished (last), but totally ignored me. So what if you finished a 500 yard race with only one and a half arms? I won! [the heat])

People used to try to comfort me by telling me that I was a late bloomer and it didn't make me feel any better. But now I know what they were talking about! I have been racing at the Y and I have yet to lose. Nobody even comes close. I've really come into my own! Finally!

Today, when I first got to the pool, there was only one woman ready to race, but she wasn't much of a competitor. She was ancient, and was swimming a breast-stroke/dog paddle so as not to get her hair wet. I have to say I admire how high she can hold her body out of the water to avoid having her hairdo mussed. I don't think the water ever got above her armpits. That must be hard all on its own, but that's not my style. I'm all about the speed. So I just practiced for a while until some real competitors came.

I looked up "1989 International Falls Broncos Girls Swim Team" on Google images. They didn't have anything, so I put this up instead.
Close enough.

Eventually I raced and beat a man in the lane next to me in a hard-won two hundred yard race. There was a woman in the lane on my other side, but she was out of contention early on I think partly because of the weird shorts she was wearing over her suit, and partly because she didn't seem to be able to swim a lap without apparently getting a LOT of water in her nose and had to stop at the wall after every length and blow it out (gross, and forfeit.) The man and I, however, had a good race. I applaud him for his skill and sportsmanship, (although he didn't congratulate me for winning.) Sure, he was about 65 years old, about 75 pounds overweight, didn't once kick his legs, and didn't know he was racing me, but so what? I knew we were racing and more importantly, I won.

.....................................................

*props to Kady and her blog called Super Athlete

YMCA

We got a family membership to the YMCA for Christmas. What a great gift. It never occurred to me to get a membership.

The whole family went the other night together for a few hours. Kira swam the whole time, and when I went to check on her (yeah, I can just leave her there! Isn't that great! You gotta love lifeguards.) she had made friends with a girl and they were making huge bubbles of their suits together. Sam did about 10 minutes on the treadmill and then a little on the elliptical machine, and toured the weight room and everything else with Mitch.

Today Mitch and I went back together while the kids were at school. I started things on the elliptical machine, telling myself I would do 15 minutes on that, 15 minutes on the treadmill and then swim laps the rest of the time. About one minute into the elliptical machine I had a series of small heart attacks. The reason why is because I was on a machine between two really skinny, marathoner-type men and I was unconsciously keeping pace with them. I slowed down to a reasonable pace for someone who gets sore from playing video games, and watched their form. One guy was in a sitting position the entire time so it was like he was doing one long squat forever. I looked at his time and he'd been on for almost an hour. How could he do that? I tried it and I don't think I could do it for more than a minute or two. The other guy was going super fast. I looked at his calorie burner and it was ticking off a calorie about every second. Mine was ticking off a calorie about every thirty seconds. I did manage to stay on for 15 whole minutes, and then I did the treadmill which is no prob unless you lose your balance and get shot into the windows behind you going 4.2 miles per hour. That would be embarrassing! Then I did laps in the pool and had a secret race with the woman in the lane next to me. I kicked her ass!

Now I just have to get a little more efficient about what to pack and what not to pack, and get used to the public showering thing. Other than that, I love it! Those Village People, they really knew what they were talking about!

I'm back in the groove...

...And it's a good place to be. I worked today for the first time since before the break, subbing in a fourth grade room at my favorite school. I have some work to do in my life to get things back to pre-holiday status, for example, the pants I put on this morning (*work* pants) were a little snug. And when I say *a little snug*, I mean so tight that my back started to cramp up. It seems Chex mix does have calories after all. Crap.

I also noticed that my muscles are sore from playing Wii. Turns out playing video games is taxing physical labor for my holiday-atrophied carcass. My bowling leg is sore. How sad, huh? And my shoulders are a little sore too, I think from Wii tennis, but maybe from folding the ten loads of clothes I washed yesterday. Yes, folding clothes makes me sore. Time to start exercising. The family is going to the YMCA tomorrow to start our new membership. I plan on swimming laps for a few hours every day after the kids go to school. (stop laughing.... oh, that was me laughing). I might sign up for a few exercise classes too. Sam is going to bulk up by lifting weights so his hands and elbow joints aren't the widest things on his arms, and Kira is dying to swim. Mitch is really looking forward to shirtless, sweaty games of basketball like in the movie Teen Wolf. (That wolf was an awesome basketball player, for a werewolf.)



I've also returned to eating food that isn't factory molded to look like some other food. You know, like actual fruit instead of fruit snacks, and vegetables instead of vegetable flavored Chicken in a Biscuit crackers. Tomatoes really taste good after weeks and weeks of garbage.

So I'm working, I'm eating better, and I'm (thinking about) exercising. Good for me. Tomorrow is time to look at the bank account (shudder). Do you have a lot of post-holiday damage control to do?