I Met the Rock Star!!!!

I am so excited about this I have to write about it first instead of going in chronological order! The Swimming Pool Rock star was at the pool again yesterday and as the old folks pushed me out of their water aerobic area, I moved into the only lane with her and another girl. The other girl is not a very good swimmer and she was going to leave, but I told her -- "Don't go!" We will be good about this loop swimming -- we're all lovers here!" (It's a term I adopted from my Newfie neighbour years ago) So, none of us wanted to swim first, but the rock star told me she was kicking so I should go first. I jokingly said, "I wanted to suck off your draft!!" We had a nice merry swim the three of us -- all very pleasant to one another and it was great! After the rock star started to leave I made my move ...

I asked her if she could give me any tips about my swimming AT ALL -- she walked beside me as I swam -- another indication of how frigging strong she is!! LOL!! Then she spent the next 35 minutes showing me all types of things!!! YAY!!! The first thing she said to me was that my style was great and I am just locked in to swimming a certain speed -- NO WAY!! You know that is always how I felt!! So, she said to me, I have to break the muscle memory and start mentally working on picking up my speed. She gave all sorts of advice on this:

The colours of the lane ropes change from white to blue then white again -- she told me to swim easy until the rope changes blue then go like stink until it changes white, repeat 6 -10 times, then for the next set reverse it -- swim like stink into the wall and easy for the blue bit. She told me when I am swimming fast I shouldn't be able to see my hand start to curve. This is a huge bit of advice for me because I am always concentrating on my technique -- she told me that I was "too good" and now had to strengthen up to get faster!! YAY!!!!!

She showed me a number of exercises to do in the pool to strengthen my arms: Walking up and down a lane rolling my arms over the other, then reverse it for the way back -- you know how people dance, by spinning their fists over one another? I started to do it and she said, "That's it, now faster, faster!" Another thing to do is take a kick board and push it away from you and then pull it towards you while walking laps. Then she had me on the side of the pool kicking, and she said "Faster, faster!!" Now do deep scissor kicks, deep scissor kicks!" I had a frigging awesome coach -- I was brimming ear-to-ear!!!! LOL!!!

Her name is Charmaine (sp?) and I am pretty sure she is from South Africa. She told me in that wonderful accent she has -- "Your legs are lazy when you swim. You have long legs, use them." Rock on baby!!! YAY!!! I gave her a HUGE hug afterwards and then she told me that she swims all the mornings that I swim -- just earlier so I can see her whenever I wanted!! I have a new bud!!!!! :) :) Apparently she used to do triathlons but she broke both her kneecaps (I have got to get that story!) so now all she can do is swim.

She warned me that at first I will get slower and it will take a lot out of me -- but that is how triathlon is anyways. I am so excited to get beyond this plateau I have swam around in!! :) :)

Now for the weekend report: We bought a Murphy bed (bed that folds up into the wall to save space) some time ago and decided Friday was the day to start installing it. Apparently, aside from law-making, Mr. Murphy also makes beds. We paid $2000 for this thing and it didn't even come with a mattress -- 95% of the holes were not pre-drilled and the frigging instruction booklet was diametrically opposed to the online video instructions we had to watch to try and puzzle things out.

Next, I banged my head hard on the corner of this desk and got a huge goose egg -- there I sat on the floor crying while Mike brought me some ice. I thought it was all going downhill after that but we kept plugging away at things. I was feeling terrible and had a bike workout still to go -- I had eaten Smarties ice cream and felt like crap -- bloated, exhausted and sorry for myself. So -- time marched on and I thought of Susi commanding the gerbil, Kelsey forging ahead with her evening bike ride, Jenna socking away at her workouts, and Kelly making no excuses for her cold toes -- Time to suck it up. I REALLY didn't want to but like you all have said, I was so happy that I actually did do it.

Saturday was my rest day and then Sunday my dad came over and helped finish off the Murphy bed. Instead of a long run, I biked 3.5 hours and watched IM DVDs. My ankle is quickly getting better now -- there is no pain, but I am going to wait until Sunday before I do anything else!! (Thanks for the reminder of common sense, Keith!!)

The Murphy bed saga doesn't end here though -- we put all the springs on the arms so when you pull the bed down, if there isn't anything on it it slowly goes back up into the wall. We had put one comforter on it and that was least amount of weight it needed to stay down. But -- that mattress has been upended in the spare room for months and has become Peanut's personal playground. She gets her claws in it and runs up the side and then would attack you from high up. With the mattress on the bed now, she got all frisky with the change and started somersaulting and clawing around the bed. I was on the bike and Mike was playing with Peanut when he had to go check on something... He was gone for around 10 minutes -- when he was finished with what had distracted him, he realized that the bed might have gone up with the Nut on it. IT DID!!! He pulled the bed down and Peanut was just stuck on the mattress with her claws and rode the bed like a carnival ride. Once the bed was down, she just rolled over on her side and closed her eyes in that really cute cat way. She loved it!! HAHAHAAH!! Mind you this is also the cat that loves to follow me around as I vacuum and likes to pop balloons!! No fear for that NUT!!!

:) :) :) :) :)