Swimming and swimming

I've been in the water a lot this week.  I spent a lot of time doing the poolside drills and kickboard drills as my coach has instructed me.  For the first few weeks, every swim workout left me with really tired outer legs and a frowny face of tired abs. But now the abs feel better and I'm starting to feel my body position in the water. I think my shoulders are loosening up a bit. Or my arms are getting stronger. One of those. 

My fastest time for a length thus far has been 54 seconds... Faster than my previous time, that's for sure! 

In other news, I am still working on the dairy thing. On Sunday, I haplessly stumbled into some hidden dairy in a veggie burger. Curse you, veggie burgers! It was Wednesday before I was feeling normal.  

Today I accidentally got some Parmesan in a dish of otherwise delicious spinach. (The chef didnt realize that Parmesan was on the verboten list for me, poor lady!). It seems to be a mild reaction,but here comes the heartburn and the stuffy nose.  Yeah, stuffy.  Noses seems to be part of the reaction for me.  So now we are trying to figure out if this is a lactose intolerance or a casein intolerance. That means it could be milk sugars or the milk proteins triggering me.  On one hand, the casein intolerance means a lot more restrictions for me, long term.  But I'm a little frustrated by how easily I am being triggered right now.  

Tomorrow is a big bike ride!

Rest Day and Picnic Day

I've been having a sad few days: my beloved Beetle/Bikemobile is in the shop.  Its timing belt broke.  This damaged my pistons.  Now it is getting fixed.  On one hand, HUGE repair.  On the other hand, still cheaper than buying a new car.  Poor Beetle.  

In other news, I found myself REALLY tired this week.  It was a build week, but by Saturday, I was so beat that I took an extra rest day and a giant nap.  Saturday and Sunday I did nothing but walking.  Happily, I'm just two pounds away from my first goal weight, which means I am well on track to hit my "racing weight" by next month.  

This is week Three of the Strict-Dairy-Free Fast.  I was SO GOOD and SO SAD at Pentecost at church yesterday: we get this lovely, sugary, delicious cake to celebrate.  And I turned down every bite because I couldn't know if it was dairy free or not.  Good for my waistline, yes, but damn, I wanted that cake!  I weep so much for the lost cake. 

Then we went to a youth picnic.  I look forward to this picnic, and we were having it at a new venue- instead of at church, at the Wayne Morris Farm.  I thought it was delightful- fire pit, counters, space for a grill, so all in all, fairly easy to use.  Huge field to play in.  

My colleague, in charge of smores, got special gourmet dairy free chocolate so I could have a smore too!  And my other colleague brought several varieties of potato chip, including one that he read the label for to be sure it was dairy free.  And I brought fake vegan cheese (jury is still out on how it tasted...) and gluten-free, dairy-free, soy-free rolls, and veggie burgers.  

This is me in the morning, feeling responsible.  I posted this to Facebook in case anyone saw my facebook page without having seen me at church.  

Alas, I did not read the veggie burger labels.  They were VEGGIE BURGERS FOR PETE'S SAKE! Who'da thunk that VEGGIE BURGERS had dairy in them?  

That's right.  

Most of them do.  Shortly after eating what I THOUGHT was my delicious dairy-free meal, I became aware that something was going wrong.  By the time M and I were driving home, my poor tummy was in full blown cramps and turmoil.  Two doses of alka seltzer and a night's rest later, I feel a bit like I have a hangover, and I am much, much more educated.  

I gotta read ALL those labels. Like this.  

Oh, look, there it is.  CURSES!  CURSES, I tell you!

This was the week I was supposed to start reintroducing dairy products to see how I do, so I am going to count that as Attempt #1 and file it under GIANT FAIL, subcategory, Dry Milk Powder.  I'll try some goat later this week, and see what happens.  

McKenzie View Bike and Biking to Work

Yesterday we met up with LifeCycle for another Wednesday ride.  This one followed a totally new-to-me route- riding McKenzie View from the other side!  I've ridden a lot of these roads, but never in this order, so it was really fun to go backwards.

Overall, I felt really well fueled.  In the midafternoon, I started raging for a snack.  Of course, with the strict lactose-free diet at the moment, I am eating mostly at home, or sticking to strict vegan when out to avoid lactose entirely.  (One more week...)  Imagine my delight when I found out that Full City (my favorite coffee shop) has vegan snacks!  One of the baristas was even vegan herself, so she guided me to the vegan products.  I ended up having a big blueberry-nut muffin.  I wondered if that was why I felt so supercharged all afternoon!

The ride didn't feel particularly grueling.  It was a nice easy 40 miles.  I think the ride up the back half of McKenzie (going towards Coburg) is easier than the climb in the other direction.  I didn't realize it til I was on Coburg again, but I'd spent the whole day in my big ring.  So really, nice lovely easy ride.  I felt really good after getting off the bike.

M was about ready to eat anything that stayed still long enough for him to sink his teeth in.  Even after two gels, he was begging for gummy bears.  So we stopped by Chipotle, and then by the grocery to get me more Vitamin B12 and him some gummy bears.  I'm trying to figure out if sublingual B12 or a regular B-complex is the right set of vitamins for me.  We shall see!

Today, we biked to work.  I am still waiting for my Beetle to be fixed.  M wanted to get out of the house for a while.  So we rode to my workplace where I took care of Thursday afternoon things and waiting for them to call me about my Beetle.  (Nothing yet!) I got worried that I would be too hungry to bike home, so I made myself eat a sandwich.

Unfortunately, something in the sandwich didn't agree with me.  I did not check to see if the bread was dairy-free, and ended up with some of the lactose-related problems.  (Upset tummy, headache, acid reflux).  I guess I'll have to be super careful about stuff like that for a while yet.  Either that, or riding home in full rain gear was a little bit of overkill (the rain stopped as we headed out, so it was not a rainy ride after all) and I overheated.  One of those two!

Just enough time now to relax, make dinner, and prepare to watch the finale of The Office!

Working on my Swim Kick

All we did yesterday was go to the pool and work on our kicks.  Back and forth and back and forth.  On the kickboard.  Kicking away.  

My legs continue to be sore this afternoon.  Because, wow, that is a lot of kicking that happens there.  Eeek.  

And my abs... my side abs and my upper abs are creating a frowny face of unhappiness with me, and yet I courageously continue to sit upright.  

That's right.  Booyah.  

But in other news, the pool has an awesome playground, so I got to play on some playground equipment.  How many activity points do I get for all that upper body work?  

Now in exciting news, I think I get to go to REI and buy a toy.  M has said that I can use the dividend this year for me because he got to use it last year for him.  So I'm deciding what else I should get!  I used part of it to get a pouch that attaches to my running belt to hold things like gels and my phone and my keys.  Stuffing that stuff into my socks or under the leg bands of my shorts just wasn't working for me.  

So what else should I get?  Decision, decisions!

Staggering through the hills

So my long day at work didn't quite go as planned.

I thought I'd be able to slip out inbetween services and events and get a swim done.

Instead the to-do list blew up, and in the end, I decided to stay for just a little bit of the event, then slip out early and tackle the rest of the weekend to-do list.

My Beetle remains in the shop.  We pray for its little sick Beetle soul.

So since I didn't get my swim in today (booooo!) I went instead for a run in the hills.

OK, so it was more of a staggering through the hills.  I called it "hill intervals" on my GPS tracker.  That means that I run uphill until I can't, then I turn around and walk downhill until I recover a tiny bit, and then I re-run the section again.  It is miserable.

But it really helps.

And then I did two stretching routines.

And M made seasoned rice and this amazing curry dish.  It was delicious and there was tofu.

So it was not the workout I wanted, but I am content with the workout I got.

Nice Long Run, After Which I Get Wild At Keystone Cafe

Today we both got a jumpstart on the day. And in dairy-free news- my tummy feels awesome, and even my chronic workout rhinitis seems remarkably reduced. I haven't had a tummy/intestine attack since Tuesday (when the strict dairy-free thing started) and I can't recall feeling this good for this many days at once. Let's hope this continues!

After an early out-of-the-house call, I started from the Trader Joe's shop on Coburg and ran back to downtown Eugene via the bike path. The first mile (right off Coburg) was highly sketchy thanks to the large population of tramps and bridge people. Perhaps I'm a prude, but isn't 9AM too early to be smoking your pot? The cat-calling is uncomfortable to run by, as well.

Overall, (once past the Sketchy Gauntlet), the direct route was too short and direct so I actually ran toward Springfield a few miles before I crossed a footbridge and headed back to Eugene.

As I got into Alton Baker park, I noticed how many runners were out today. There sure were a lot of people out enjoying the sunshine. As in, a LOT.

Then I noticed a large number of those people were wearing capes. And most of them were running in the same direction as me. And I glanced over my shoulder, and saw many of them wearing race numbers.

And that was how I discovered I was inadvertently running bandit in a race!

As we approached the finish line, I jumped off the path and ran on the grass so I'd avoid the finish line time markers (I did pass under the START markers, but there was no way to run around the whole race set up by that point- it blocked the entire path and I didn't know any alternate route to get from where I was to where I was going).

I looped a few more loops while I waited for M to get out of his Bikram yoga class. Then we went to eat breakfast.

After that, we headed to Eugene Running Company where I met my next pair of shoes: Brooks PureFlow 2. They aren't zero drop (yet) but they are definitely more minimal than my current pair. I think the guy said they were 4%? As I've gotten stronger, I find I've wanted less and less shoe. I still want to "test drive" the Zoots tri-specific shoe, but I think the Brooks will be mine by this week. They were full of bouncy, good feeling fun. Yeah, I can't believe I just said that about a running shoe, either. Even though I can't have the cute purple ones- they ran narrow, so I have to get the special wider black ones. But those are just wide enough to give me space while still providing just a little bit of squeeze and support to my big floppy flipper feet.




If you are ever in Eugene: head thee to Keystone. It drives me crazy and is a hole in the wall, but it's also a special Eugene treasure- extreme people-watching, a HUGE vegan menu and arguably the best biscuits and gravy in town. I got super adventurous today, though. Instead of ordering my usual (the biscuits and gravy), I ordered a vegan Powerhouse! It was a bed of rice with baked tofu and veggies, all topped in nutritional yeast gravy.

Is YOUR Episcopal priest that wild? That's right, I didn't think so.

Best part of it (in addition to getting to eat a boatload of tofu, which is my favorite food!) was ordering off the HUGE vegan menu. I am being very faithful to the doctor's orders to avoid ALL dairy for three weeks, and it can be complicated. I find that ordering vegan at restaurants seems to be the safest.

A word about food issues: in general, I don't pitch a fit about food stuff. I eat mostly vegetarian, but I also eat what I am served. This last week, I was handed down strict dairy-free orders. And while my tummy has been blessedly better since Tuesday with no awful attacks, it's also been quite the week in learning to eliminate or sub out ingredients, and figuring out how to tell people that the dairy thing is not a preference, it's a rule. It feels different than saying "I normally eat vegetarian" because with that I know that I can 'cheat' and have the bacon if I want to, and it wouldn't make me sick. But right now, I literally can't have dairy or I will get quite sick. It feels like TMI or melodrama right now to say, "Oh, I have dairy issues".

I wonder how you folks with food intolerances handle them?

242 Attempt Aborted... So sad!!!

Oh woe is me. Woe resides within my house.

For we planned and anticipated with joy the Riding of Highway 242,
Currently closed to cars And open only to bikes.
Truly do I tell you, we planned, even unto the buying of Picky Bars and hearty breakfast.
Bikes were loaded with glee onto the racks on the roof
Of the Beetle which heretofore had never been sick a day in its life.

Such woe was to strike as has never been known in a Beetle before.
For still 32 miles from Sisters, our erstwhile starting point,
Where they do have delicious sandwiches,
As I drove down the highway, the red light shaped like a battery
Flashed before mine eyes.

It flashed, I tell you, it flashed, and as it flashed, I did utter,
"Uht oh, that's not normal" as my power steering cut out.
I didst pull over, and the engine ceased to run.
I calleth the tow truck, and after waiting for two hours
In the volcanic red dirt, where we considered the meaning of life
And drank our Gatorade,

We were towed home where we rode our bikes home to get the other car.

Why, cars, oh why must you die when I take such good care of you?
Even though I haven't washed you since the fall...
You still get regular oil changes and now old-age checkups.
Truly do I weep much, for my beloved Beetle is sick,

And the 242 highway and my dreamed-of summit at the Dee Wright observatory
Remains but a pipe dream, drifting away in a clouded Oregon sky.