Sunday, September 21, 2014

Melted Crayons & The Bunny Swim

So ya maybe we live in 'Paradise' but it's not all awesome all the time. This summer has been one of the hottest summers I can remember in my 10 years here. Usually we have a nice Tradewind flow keeping our temps and humidity level reasonable. It sounds all great to be less windy but hot damn this place becomes an inferno when you remove the wind.

This sort of sums up how swimming has gone recently.
So you can imagine how the running has been going... Yesterday I had a longish run that included 4x10' hard. I started at 7AM which was too early for my body but not early enough to avoid the heat and am too embarrassed to admit how many times I sat down in the shade during that run. Ok not really too embarrassed- 3x. Hi my name is Michelle and I sat down in the shade 3x during a 10 mile run. That was in addition to the 2x I stood directly under a cold shower at a beach park (fully clothed- shoes too yes- but I should have removed my ipod). Just trying to survive.

I then got home and wrote the following in my Training Peaks notes: (This is what Marilyn has to endure from me. I don't think I pay her enough.)

"I am *creaky* in the mornings (ankles, mostly) these days but it's so f'ing HOT that there's no other time to attempt a run like this. did some eccentric calf dips and banded ankle mobility stuff before I left and that helped a ton. Drove 3/4 mile down the hill to the pool to start this so I wouldn't have to run/walk up the hill to my house at the end (so lazy?! But given how I felt at the end was a great call) Felt awful to start and Did not feel ready to start going harder after 20'... plus had to go to the bathroom (again) so extended the w/u until I got to a beach park where there were bathrooms. So started the faster pieces at 28' (it's obvious on the graph/file where I did those). Felt better than I anticipated on the 10' pieces and managed to run 8:15-8:20 pace for the most part (not quite flat but sections weren't really hilly until #4 which was slower than the others but every bit as hard). Wore HR separately so it's not on this graph/file but it was mostly upper 160's for these 10' pieces up to 171 I think at the end of each. I took longer than 2' recovery after each (except the first one) b/c I ended #2 and #3 at the beach park and just went and stood under the cold shower for a minute or two trying to cool off. I'm having a hard time getting my brain to be anything but pissy in this weather- like all I think the whole time I'm running is "it's so fucking hot it's so fucking stupid hot..." My 'cool down' was a pathetic walk/jog/slog up the hill to my car and then I laid down in the shade on the sidewalk and made a sweat angel on the concrete. I drank 2 bottles before I started (1 water, 1 osmo pre-load) then 1 bottle osmo + 2 bottles water during the run. Stomach actually felt sloshy toward the end like that was too much fluid but I still lost a pound during this run so thinking it's prob just impossible to get the fluid balance right when I sweat like I do (a TON) and it's this humid."

Then of course I started to wonder if I'm just being a whiny loser for complaining about the heat so much?? You know maybe if I just get over myself and ignore it I'd be able to still pull off some decent training sessions? Then Moana brought me her crayons and I decided that I wasn't just imagining it.

So what to do when winds still aren't back the following day? Take advantage of some abnormally calm ocean water and organize an epic swim, of course! It was Marcy's idea, actually, but once she put it out there I latched on and gathered the troops... texts flying all day yesterday... Most of us had never swam out to Rabbit Island before. It's officially named something else but apparently at one time it was inhabited by a couple of rabbits, who multiplied as rabbits are known to do, and the population exploded... they proceeded to eat everything green on the island until it was no longer green and then they all died off. Anyway, we call it Rabbit Island and Moana is sure that the Easer Bunny lives there. So if course she was stoked to go too!

We had a group of 8 cool swimmers plus Scott escorting on a paddle board, Nalani in a kayak, and Ted on his SUP. Then we also had Marcy's husband Bo driving an escort boat (Moana rode the boat!) just in case we ran into sharks or whatever and all had to immediately flee to safety. I guess that's the issue with this water more so than some other places we frequently swim... Everyone says it's 'sharky'. Mark brought his Shark Shield though which is this electronic thing that apparently emits some sort of signal that makes us uninteresting to sharks so Scott dragged that along behind his board as some insurance or something. It worked!


Anyway, was an awesome swim/paddle/boat ride out to the island (not allowed to land on it as it's been designated a sanctuary- birds and monk seals- we saw both from the water!) The whole way out I was just so happy and thinking This is why I train... so I can go do awesome stuff like this on the weekends... at the drop of a hat... wanna go swim to that island? Why yes I would thank you... This, to me, is living.

Feet up!


 Our kids watch us...

Mark had swam this area once before and said the cliffs off to the side were worth swimming around to see, so we did that... and indeed... so cool. We hung out here for quite some time just treading water and talking and smiling and just generally enjoying our surroundings.

Then the best thing happened... Moana was yelling to me from the boat MOMMY CAN I JUMP IN?? Um YES of course I thought the fact that she wanted to was just awesome... so she fearlessly cannon-balled her way into this deep blue water and hung with us all and I was just so proud. And it made me realize once again that our kids are just products of their surroundings. They watch us and they see what we do and they adopt our values. Moana has grown up watching her daddy surf big waves and her mommy swim long distances and I'm sure she sensed the jovial mood of our gang in the water so if we are not afraid, why should she be afraid?

So anyway, this swim today made up for the run yesterday. Hawaii really is paradise, even when our crayons are melting.

4 comments:

rr said...

I did that on my run (melted, walking, beach park showers - mostly along Kalaheo) AND I have the creaky ankles - used to, anyway. Found two things that help: celebrex daily (sucky long-term solution but works well) or for me, zero processed food (but I think you already eat that way.)
Wasn't the water in front of the island insane? We swam there last month.

Unknown said...

You swam to Rabbit Island! That's so cool! To this day I live in Waimanalo and always wanted to swim there. How was the current?

Anonymous said...

Didn't you live in Arizona? Melted things in the car surprise you? And that swim looks AMAZING!!

Unknown said...

You are so friggin funny Michelle! Love your blog and entertaining posts - thanks for keeping it real! :-)