Victory At Sea

Ocean swimming is like a box of chocolates. You never know what you're gonna get.


This morning we took another go at the full double roughwater course. Last time we did it (like 4-5 weeks ago?) it wasn't even planned... it just happened to be such a beautiful perfectly calm day and we were enjoying the warm clear water swim so much that we made the last minute decision to go all the way to the turn-around buoy. That ended up being quite a hard swim, even on such a perfect day. Today, based on the conditions, we figured we were in for it right from the start, but it was fine. We were ready. We wanted it. Bring it on. Come on, ocean! Whattya GOT???

Lol.

The ocean was angry that day, my friends...

I don't quite know how to describe it in words, but it was epic. There were big swells. I mean, big swells. Generated by the 35 mph gusts of wind. And the whole way out they were going with us. I swear, half the time I felt like I was body surfing. The water would just come pick us up and push us forward and then slam us down the other side. It was tough to find a rhythm with my stroke. At times I just left one hand out front and pulled with only one arm while kicking madly to try to catch and use the wave's energy. It was actually quite fun, as long as I kept the right attitude. I remember thinking that it was awesome and bad ass that we were out there, and that we were not afraid. These were the kind of ocean conditions that many people would be genuinely afraid of. Rightfully so I suppose. Maybe I'm just an idiot for not being afraid, but really, we were fine. (There were 3 of us swimming and we had 2 kayakers with us so that probably helped reduce the Fear Factor.)

Did you know that while the swell can be going with you, the current can be fiercely against you? I knew that, but I'd never experienced it to this degree. At one hour, when we should have been at the buoy, we stopped to assess the situation. And while we could see the big red buoy, well, we weren't exactly close to it. OK, so this was going to be a longer swim than we originally anticipated. I tried to keep the negative thoughts out. Stay relentlessly positive, Michelle.

So I put my head down and did my best to keep swimming. Problem with keeping my head down in todays crystal clear water is that I could see all the jellyfish we were swimming right over! They were everywhere. I got brushed by a couple but no serious stings. I don't think I've ever seen so many though. Try that sometime... swimming for over an hour in ocean water so deep that even though its crystal clear you can't see the bottom and knowing you were still probably 20 minutes from your turn around and the swells are throwing you all around and your arms have been numb for the last 15 minutes because the water isn't so warm today and then you see all the jellyfish right underneath you... Stay relentlessly positive, Michelle.

We got to the turn around buoy in 1:21. Our kayakers gave us our GUs. I brought vanilla bean b/c I like that one and know what to expect with it. Nalani gets a bunch of free ones b/c she is sponsored by GU but lots of hers come in unmarked packaging... just silver packages that say 'new flavor'. It's always a wild guess at which one you'll get if you play GU Roulette like that. I laughed so hard while Nalani was trying to eat her silver mystery GU and she got slammed by a big wind swell wave just as she was swallowing. She came back up and said, "Mmmmmm. Gingerbread." Maybe you had to be there. But it was quite funny at the time.

Heading back we couldn't even hardly swim. All the big swells that carried us forward on the way out were now against us and it was just a ridiculous endeavor to try to swim through them. But somehow we did it. Nalani's dad (one of our kayakers) was having an even harder time than we were going back into the wind. For much of the way back, in fact, he was behind us because he couldn't get the kayak to go straight into the wind and swells. The good news (I mean, really good news) was that the current was very strongly with us coming back. So even though the chop on top made swimming very hard, if I could look and see the bottom of the ocean (at times I could) I saw that we were mooovin'! Man, how I wished that I didn't have to breathe and could just dive under and dolphin kick my way back. That would have been awesome. But as it was, we still made it back in 41 minutes! You do the math and figure out the strength of the current when it took twice as long to get out as it did to get back!?! Nutso, man.

We were all so pleased though getting out of the water today. So so so different than last time. My swimming endurance is just heads and tails above where it was last time we attempted this because I didn't even feel that tired at the end. Jennifer said it best when she said, "Well, THAT was a confidence building swim." No kidding. I think we all managed to stay relentlessly positive, we all felt strong at the end, and we all know that no mater what the ocean conditions are, we will be ready for the Double RoughWater Swim! 3 weeks! :)

Dancing Queen

Random posts can be good, no? I hope so. Here's a bullet point one on Thanksgiving Eve...

~I went to pick up Moana from daycare today and when I walked in the door found the usual scene... Moana dressed up in some sort of princess outfit... of course wearing her pink sparkly 'dancing shoes' (the ones she insists on sleeping in now) and dancing around the living room floor. She was laughing and singing and just completely hamming it up. She's got some good moves, especially when you tell her to "shake it!" She insisted that another little girl there put on a dancing skirt too (even though Serena clearly was not interested). It actually was quite heartwarming when I asked Moana if she was ready to go and without even considering it she said, "No!" She just kept dancing.

~I asked Kirsten (day care lady) if she does this all day and she said, "Yep. Moana arrives every morning and first thing says, "Dress up, please?!?" And then she dances all day. Not a bad life, eh?

~Yesterday morning I was out running and trying to hit a tempo pace that should not have been hard. But it was hard. And my legs just felt sore. So weird- that my quads would actually be sore. From what?? I have not had a truly hard run workout in a very long time, so there was no reason for sore muscles like that. I tried to figure it out but came up with nothing. I finally just chalked it up to having an off day, quit the tempo early and jogged home. Well, it hit me about 15 minutes after I walked in the door. The flu. The kind that comes in like a lion and knocks you on your ass for the rest of the day. It was awful. I seriously went right back to bed and stayed there all day and night. The thought of food made me feel like I would puke. My head hurt and every muscle in my body ached horribly. I had a fever and chills... hot then shivering... It was one of the worst flus I've ever had. In good news, I had a gut feeling that it was only going to be a 24 hour thing. You know, when a virus comes on that fast and that violently, it usually goes away just as fast. Sure enough, this morning, about 10:00, I just felt it lift. Ahh. Achiness all gone. Phew. In bad news, I've felt pretty weak all day. Not surprising given that I didn't fuel myself at all yesterday. I did drink 2 bottles of Amino Vital (love that stuff) and took several e21 pills (love that stuff too). Though I guess as much as I love those products, they are not meant for sole survival, so today I paid the price.

~In good news, I did have a near normal appetite today so hopefully tomorrow I'll be back to normal. There's a 10+ mile Turkey Trot run tomorrow morning that I'm planning on doing. It's a cool concept- no one is allowed to wear a watch or pacing device of any kind. The winner is the person who comes closest to finishing in his/her predicted time. How well do you know pacing?? That's the name of the game tomorrow! Normally I would think I'd be pretty good at this, but given my lack of run training as of late, well, I may completely miss the mark! I've heard the course is 10.38 miles, and I'm thinking 'comfortably hard' should be like 8:10 pace... so that's what I'm going to shoot for (I think). We'll see how it goes. I'm thinking I want to run it at MP effort so it'll be interesting to see how fast that actually is right now. I don't feel like my calf is my limiter at all right now. It's the lack of training because of the calf set-back. And then the stupid virus I had yesterday. Grrr. So really, pulling off 8:10's tomorrow might be a small miracle.

~In other good news, I don't have to cook a turkey tomorrow. But we still get to eat one! We are going to Nalani's for the good dinner part tomorrow afternoon. Should be fun. I think Thanksgiving dinner should be with a good size group of people so we always look for people to join... Families in Hawaii are really good about that because there are so many people here who don't have any extended family at all. Friends become your extended family. It's cool. And Moana just loves going to Auntie's house.

Ok, that was enough randomness for now. I can hear Moana protesting bedtime pretty fiercely tonight so I'm gonna go help a hubby out. Happy Thanksgiving!!

Running Running Running!

YAY!! OK, so I am feeling *super* happy right now... just finished another run and have no pain or tightness in my calf or achilles. I feel like doing a happy dance!

Yesterday I ran 10 miles with Nalani. We didn't push the pace at all... just ran and talked and it was all quite therapeutic. I've missed our long runs and the talks we have while running them. In the end, I was happy that I wasn't feeling any pain in my calf, but I was definitely feeling the distance and felt like my HR/effort was just way too high for the pace we were running. Felt like I was experiencing that HR decoupling effect that some coaches talk about when you're not really aerobically fit. That just sucks though. I mean, really? I'm not aerobically fit?? Give me a break! Even while I've been injured and not running much, I've been biking and swimming and doing specific strength stuff so I can't believe for a second that I should have been so winded at the end of that run yesterday. BUT, it is what it is and I'll take a winded 10 miler over no 10 miler any day.

And then it was the weirdest thing- for the rest of the day my calf just started feeling better and better. Those eccentric calf dips really work. And I've been stretching a ton and using the Trigger Point calf roller thing every night. So doing all the right stuff and four weeks later looks like I'm back in the game.

Today I went out and ran again- only an hour today but I threw in a little 20 minute tempo section where I ran MP-10. In good news, I can still nail pacing! In fact, I felt so good I thought briefly about extending the length of the tempo section... but then remembered that getting greedy is always what gets me trouble. So I was like, "Take your 20 minutes of tempo and go home uninjured, Michelle..." So that's what I did. It's amazing how I really have to fight that desire to do MORE FASTER HARDER. I won the battle with myself today though so score one for me for being smart.

Now I'm feeling a lot more confident about running the marathon. It's 3 weeks from today. So ideally, my big long weekend run would have been today... but I'm not living in an ideal world right now so I'm going to deal with the cards I've got, and that puts me doing my last (okay, only) long run next weekend. 2 weeks out. I think that's fine. I mean, it's not like I've been breaking myself down with 20 milers every weekend of this training block and need a full 3 week taper. I'm going to do a tempo 10 miler on Thanksgiving morning (Turkey Trot where I'll shoot for MP+10) and then hopefully an easy/aerobic 18-20 miler next Sunday. IF I get both of those runs in and feel no pain, I'm definitely IN for the marathon. That would make me super happy! I'll still have to reconsider my pacing goals for the marathon, but la la la I'm not thinking about that right now... I'll worry about that in a couple of weeks when the gun goes off.

In other good news, looks like tomorrow night is the big night! Michelle's Prime Time TV Appearance! Lol. The Fake Koko Crater Classic Triathlon is going to be on Hawaii Five-0 tomorrow night. I'm wearing a lime green top on the bike, which is likely the only place I might actually be on for a brief second, if at all. But I think I was the only one wearing green during the shooting, so if you see a lime green flash riding by, its definitely me. :)

Where Everybody Knows Your Name

Phew. Maui Wowie... I just spent the last two days working on Maui. I used to travel all the time for work (pre-family and pre-responsibility, lol) and enjoyed the heck out of it. It's been a while since I've had a chance to do something like this, so while I know it was hard for Scott to be a single dad for a day/night, secretly, I kind of enjoyed my little time away. Shhhhh.

It was a good trip and I was pleased with how successful I was on the work front. A couple of my best sales days for sure and well worth it to go over there.

Anyway, of course (like a good little triathlete) I did a bit of research before I went to find pool times and contact numbers for masters swim coaches, etc. Midday Thursday I placed a call to a guy who was listed as a masters coach there to get the scoop on swimming opportunities for last night and this morning. Our conversation started with something like this:

Me:  "Hi Malcom, My name is Michelle Simmons..."

Coach: "Oh hi, Michelle Simmons. You're from Kaneohe. I know your name."

Me: "What??"

I'm not actually that famous. Turns out this coach is also the USMS Coordinator or whatever for the state of Hawaii and just that morning he had been asked by the race director of the Double Roughwater Swim to confirm my USMS membership for 2010 to make sure I was eligible for the swim race next month. And apparently he has a good memory.

Anyway, he told me about a masters workout he was coaching last night upcountry. I was game for that so I told him I'd see him there.

Can I just tell you that it's COOOOOLD upcountry Maui at night! I was not planning on staying up there when I packed so I did not bring a sweatshirt or coat or anything warm at all. The pool was only up at about 1500 ft, but there was a gorgeous view as the sun went down over the ocean. That made up for the frigid temperatures (sort of), but it did not make up for the lack of oxygen I felt as I was doing flip turn after flip turn in this 25yd pool. I haven't swam in a scy pool in quite some time... it was just flip flip flip flip... I thought of Kerrie and others who live and train at altitude. No wonder Kerrie hates swimming. You can't breathe when you swim above sea level. My lungs were just completely burning... very different than sea level swimming. And I know I know. 1500ft is NOT that high. But it was still a problem.

Anyway, it was funny for me to swim with a new masters coach who did not know me. The main set was 900 yards. I was like, "Can I do that twice?" Ha! Part of the main set was 2 x 200's neg split. Malcom asked me, "Do you know what negative split means?" Again... ha! I was good though and just politely said, yes, I know what negative split means. He was really nice though and gave me some good stroke correction which I appreciated. Same stuff I've heard before, but he said it in a different way and took a little video on his iphone so I could see and it was quite helpful. He knew what he was talking about.

Toward the end of the workout he asked me who I swam with here on Oahu. When I told him that Brett Phillips was one of my training partners, he totally cracked up and told me that he grew up swimming with Brett. Small world. Such a crazy small world. Seems like everybody knows Brett. Of course then I posted on Brett's FB wall that I just swam with Malcom and Brett responded by telling me that Malcom was one of his favorite people. Nice.

Malcom also put me in touch with another big Maui swimmer who trains in the ocean all the time. I called her and we planned a 3.2 mile one way ocean swim for this morning. I was completely stoked to do this swim! What a great way to start my Friday!! Unfortunately it dumped rain all night last night so she cancelled at 5:45 this morning, saying that the run off from the rain would make the water all murky. Since the place we were gonna swim was known to be kinda sharky (Malcom told me about a 12 ft tiger they saw 2 weeks ago- it swam right under them!) she said it wasn't such a good idea to swim after rain like that. Bummer. But I made up for it by showing up at another pool that was open at 6:30AM and did my planned Friday workout by myself.

After I was done swimming this morning, the lifeguard approached me and we started chatting... I told him that I had been planning to swim with Janet in the ocean but we skipped it b/c of the rain... then he told me that Janet was one of his swimming partners and then went on to tell me about the 12 foot tiger they saw 2 weeks ago! I was like, "I know! Malcom told me about it last night!" Guess it's kind of a cool story after the fact. And given that it all turned out okay, I kinda wish I would have been there, because I love cool stories like that. Anyway, I just thought it was funny what a small world it is and how swimmers just know swimmers and there's this amazing common bond we have when you can just call up someone you don't even know and immediately be connected into the swimming hub of the island. Living in a small community where everybody knows everybody has its advantages for sure.

What To Do?

So my calf has been getting better and I've been increasing my running a bit. YAY! On Sunday I went to the gym to run on the treadmill (the treadmill and the track are the only flat run options I've got). I wasn't sure how far I would get, but I placed an upper limit of 7 miles on myself and promised myself I would stop at the first sign of calf tightness.

I started easy for the first mile, then upped the pace a bit each mile. NO tightness. Awesome. Ended with the 7th mile at 8:00 pace just to see if I could run MP without tightness (a week ago I felt tightness after about 3 minutes at 8:13 pace so I stopped) and turns out I could! YAY!!!! I finished that run all sweaty and as happy as I'd felt in weeks. There's just something about a good run (especially when you haven't had one for a while) that leaves you with a satisfaction that is hard to otherwise match.

So I gave myself a day off from running yesterday and then hit it again this morning with Nalani. I went into it with a bit more confidence than I had on Sunday, though I still promised myself I would back off if I felt any pain or tightness in my calf. We went 9 miles this morning, with 2 x 2 miles at MP in the middle. The first 2 mile segment went just fine... easy jog for 5 minutes then hit it again. I made the second set, but I swear it was WAY harder than the first. WAY harder than MP pace should be less than 4 weeks out from the marathon. Of course that is not surprising given that I hadn't done any real training for 3 weeks...

Running home I was feeling such a mixture of emotions. On one hand, I was thrilled that I had just run a key workout like that. I started thinking that the marathon is back ON! But then I started thinking about my goals and about how hard it was to run MP for just 2 miles in the middle of a run that was only about 1/3 of the distance of the race... how would I possibly run the marathon I want without doing all the necessary training? I am not a natural runner who can just pop out miracles for 26 miles like some of you can... I believe I have it in me to run a good marathon, but I need to actually do the pre-requisite training to make it possible. But the thing is, I can't just jump right back into my previous MP plan because that would surely be a recipe for injury for my calf again... so what to do? What to do? I've only got a couple of weeks left...

Well obviously I can only do what my calf will allow me to do. So I have to be smart. After that run this morning my calf felt fatigued. I didn't re-injure it or anything, but it felt different than my left calf... So moving forward I have to listen to my body and obviously I have to proceed with more caution than I had previously. In all honesty, I am still not sure that I will be running the marathon. I just don't want to do it if I don't think I can run a good one. And 'good' at this point has been altered to 3:45ish instead of 3:30 given that I have missed such an important block of training... Anyway, I think my plan at this point is to do as much training as I safely can and see where that leaves me in a couple weeks. While I would like to run the marathon, I absolutely will not if I think I can't do it wihtout re-injuring myself. My goal of starting 2011 healthy is bigger to me than my goal of running the marathon on Dec 12. Though seriously, can't I do both? I hope so! But we will see.

e21 Triathlon Team!

Arcadian Nutraceuticals is the Australian company that produces Recovery e21 and the accompanying Joint Health product that I have been taking. Both are all natural products made up primarily out of micro-algae (e21) and green lipped mussel (Joint Health) and both have produced notable improvements in how I feel lately!

The products are rather new (Joint Health is brand new) and they are targeting triathletes as a primary market of athletes who will likely benefit. To that end, they are sponsoring a Triathlon Team for 2011 in an effort to get the word out about their products! The idea of course is brand name recognition and getting athletes to try it and see for themselves if they indeed feel the benefit.

I have mentioned this before, but I'll say it again on here in case you missed it last time. e21 is a product made up of Duniella Salina (500mg/tab) which is a soft celled microalgae cultivated in salt ponds in Western Australia. This microalgae has been compared to spirulina as a 'superfood' and is packed with nutrients and a full spectrum of electrolytes. I take 2 before and after (and sometimes in the middle!) of key workouts and races and it has eliminated my cramping issues and allowed me to recovery faster from hard efforts. I've been lucky in that I've gotten myself associated with this company early on so I have not had to pay for the tabs, but I tell you what... if they disbanded my sponsorship tomorrow I would start buying them because I really do believe they make a significant difference.

The joint health is the new product and this is what I know about it so far: My shoulder doesn't hurt anymore since I started taking it! What else do I need to know?? ;) Well, having done a little research to figure out why, it appears that green lipped mussel (from NZ) works as a natural anti-inflammatory, and when combined with glucosamine, it allows for better absorption of the glucosamine (which means you actually don't have to take as much of the glucosamine for it to work on your joints). Whatever. My shoulder doesn't hurt anymore!


If you're still reading, good for you! Here's a cool opportunity for you for 2011... Fill out the application to be on the Recovery e21 Tri Team. The plan is that you'll get the supplements at no cost as well as a tri-kit, some cycling gear, and a cute e21 splish suit! In return, they'd appreciate you helping to spread the word about their products by talking to your friends and mentioning your experience on your blog and/or Facebook... The team will be selected in 2 weeks. What are you waiting for??

She Came. She Swam. She Kicked Our Asses.

So this morning we were hanging out under the coffee tent we set up at Ala Moana Beach Park... Chit chatting with friends and sipping on some excellent 100% Moloka'i (good thing it was so good and smooth and easy to drink that nobody even needed milk or sugar)... when Penny Palfrey walked up to say hello.

She came!

I was stoked to see her. How often do we get to race with super stars like her here?

The swim was hard. I forgot how hard it is to go all out for 30 minutes. Ouch! But it was good. The best part was giving Moana a high five as I ran up the beach to the timing mat! I ended up 13th OA, 6th female and 1st age group. My other swimmers who were there did amazing, really. Nalani was 4th female and 1st in her age group, and Jennifer was 7th female, also first in her age group (yep, she's 50... doesn't she look great? Healthy living will do that for you. Love that!)

And Andrew, who has just recently started swimming for real, showed major gains today coming out in 36 minutes, 4th in his age group! I was seriously impressed. He's come a long way in the last couple of months!

And, um, while I knew that Penny was obviously a good long distance swimmer, who knew she was also so fast?!? She crushed us all, coming out as the first female (at age 48) and beating all of the men save one. Yep, there was only one guy that didn't get chicked today. Love that! I was planning on gifting her a bag of coffee as a souvenir but didn't have to because she won a bag of our Maui as prize for her OA. Too bad I didn't have a bag of Kauai coffee for her. That's the one she probably wanted to take home as motivation to keep training and tackle that channel again...

After the swim the coffee went fast... people flocked to our tent and couldn't stop commenting on how good the coffee was. 6 gallons of the black gold disappeared within about an hour. Then the race director called Penny up for a little Q&A session regarding her Kauai Channel attempt while we were waiting for awards. The local swimmers were psyched to have the chance to fire questions at her.

I wanted to know how she trains for such long events. Seriously. What kind of training is involved in the preparation for a 72 mile channel swim? She said she does 60-80K/week, with a long swim of about 20K on the weekends. The ocean near where she lives isn't safe to really swim in (She said they've got 'crocs' in their water that they pretend aren't there, kinda like we do with sharks here... but apparently box jellyfish in Australia are more dangerous than box jellies here- they're serious down under and will kill you)  but she said they have a section of it shielded off somehow to make it safer so she does her long weekend ocean swims there. Yep. 20,000 meters, 6 hours, back and forth across a stretch of roped off ocean that is only 100 meters long. Every weekend. Can you even imagine? I thought I was doing a lot getting in 20K/week. She's doing that in a day. All of a sudden I feel so much less crazy.

Anyway, she did say that she will likely try the Kauai Channel again in March. Hopefully 3rd time is a charm for her. She was really cool. Very humble and didn't act like a celebrity even though we all treated her like one. And now Penny and I are like BFF's. Lol. OK, well were Facebook friends anyway.