since I was relegated to an air cast and had to totally stop running in order to heal a stress fracture. Luckily, I went to the doctor early and the diagnosis was good so I am just counting the days until I can try to run again. Meanwhile, I have been doing some cycling classes at my local gym. The problem being,however, that there are no classes for early birds like me. Solution: I stumbled on a site called IAmplify and can download cycling workouts on my Ipod. The instructor is Matthew Reyes, apparantly well know in the Brentwood, California area where he teaches “a star-studded clientele”-wow, think of it. Me, a West Virginia born gal being trained by the same man who works with “star-studded clientele”-hee,hee!
Anyway, his workouts have kept me going and I am still steadily plugging away at it, trying not to lose too much ground while I wait for the okay to run again.
Today I was feeling a bit adventurous and decided to try my hand at swimming laps at the gym. It wasn’t like I had never swam before; I took the mandatory lessons as a kid (even though my father is deathly afraid of the water and we almost never went swimming) and worked my way up to the “advanced” class. Hmm-how many years ago was that? I started out with a 30 minute cycle ride with Matthew (he took time away from Brentwood just for me!) and then headed to the shower, changed to my suit and off I go-dove right in, I did! Yikes-the words “heated pool” obviously mean something entirely different to the staff at my American Family than it does to me. The chill caught me off guard and it took me a little while to make up my mind to follow it through. “How far should I swim?” I pondered, looking down the lane. I had no idea how far one length of the pool was so I decided that ten laps sounded like a good number. Donning my newly purchased goggles, I pushed off and set out for my first official lap in I don’t know how many years. I made it down once and touched the wall, stopped to choke and gasp for breath, adjust my goggles and look around. Nobody saw that-good stuff. Maybe I will just run back to the other wall and see how that goes. So I did; walk a lap, choke and swim a lap, walk a lap, choke and swim a lap. Meanwhile, an older woman climbs into the lane beside me and glides effortlessly past, making it looks like child’s play. BITCH! But I stuck with it-run, swim and choke, walk, swim and choke.
As I hauled myself out of the pool at the end of the 10th lap I began to doubt my sanity. What drives me to do this? Will I be fool enough to try again?
Keeping it Real-Even When You Don't Want To 