Hurts So Good
Thursday, April 19, 2007

This week, I had what could potentially be the best massage of my entire life (which is, albeit, a really short list).

I was formerly of the opinion that all massages -- or masseuses -- were created equal. That a massage was sort of like pizza in the sense that even if it's bad it's still pretty good.

That was before I met Gregory.

He started off with my back, kneading and pressing his fingers under my shoulder blades, holding pressure points until, at one point, I felt my arm start to go numb. I reasoned, though, that it was my back, and my back is perpetually hurting me. There are a lot of problem areas to work with back there. A lot of tender spots to work out.

But then he moved onto my arms, and it honestly felt like he was massing down into my bone, and not in a feel-good, deep-massage type way. He let go and moved around the table. "Just one more arm to go," I told myself, not realizing what I was in for when he got to my legs.

As Gregory seemed to be trying to separate my shin and glute muscles from the bone, I clenched the table with both hands. I wondered if involuntarily contracting the muscles not being worked on and not being able to un-curl my toes out of discomfort was counter-productive to the idea of a massage in the first place.

Finally, mercifully, it was over. Gregory told me that my back actually opened up nicely, although my legs were a bit of a mess. "I'll really get into your calves next time and work them harder," he told me.

I gulped. And then I considered not making another appointment. Or possibly sedating myself for the next one. Because, for the love of all that is holy, I don't know that I've ever signed up for that kind of pain when it wasn't a medically-necessary procedure (Well, other than the Ironman itself. But since that's still a ways off in the future, this tops the list for now).

I walked out of my appointment feeling all wet-noodle-ish and sore. And that night at swimming, I found a little thumb-sized bruise on my thigh. I had been massaged to the point of bruising! That made me smile. I definitely got my money's worth, and the way I've felt since, my body is the better for it.

Posted by Erin 12:09 PM 0 comments

In the YMCA Locker Room
Wednesday, April 11, 2007

Ours is a culture that idealizes thinness. From movie stars to magazine models to constant advice from morning television programs and women's magazines about how to loose weight, keep weight off, or not gain weight in the first place, it's all but impossible to escape the thin credo.

Consider these statistics:

• Most fashion models are thinner than 98% of American women. Twenty years ago, the average model weighed 8 percent less than the average woman; today’s models weigh 23 percent less.
• 69 percent of Playboy models and 69 percent of Miss America contestants weighed 15 percent or more below the expected weight for their age and height category. Fifteen percent below one's expected weight is part of the criteria for an anorexia diagnosis.
• A woman with Barbie-doll proportions would have a back too weak to support the weight of her upper body, and her body cavity would be too narrow to contain more than half a liver and a few centimeters of bowel.
• 42 percent of elementary school girls between the 1st and 3rd grades want to be thinner. That number jumps to 76 percent by age 17, and and 86 percent for adult women.
• 45 percent of medically-underweight women think they're fat.
• It is estimated that the diet industry alone is worth $100 billion a year.
• Plastic surgery is the fastest-growing, and one of the largest, medical specialties.
• It's been estimated that young women today see more images of beautiful women in one day than their mothers saw through their entire adolescence, and that viewing pictures of television/movie stars and magazine models has a direct correlation with body dissatisfaction.

Sound overblown? Guys, just have a direct conversation with the women in your life -- mothers, sisters, girlfriends, wives -- and ask them if they're happy with the way they look. Some of us will answer honestly -- that, yes, we want to be thinner. Skinny, even, if there are wishes being granted. Others will couch it as wanting to be in better shape, or that we'd just like to or need to eat better. But beneath that, the large majority of women in this country have an overall dissatisfaction with their bodies.

I am no stranger to this. I first tired dieting when I was 11. At 5'2" and less than 120 lbs., I spent my high school years dreading having to don a skin-tight GS suit for ski races or breeches for horse shows, and my college years in fear of gaining the dreaded "Freshman 15." These days, I wish that, in most pictures, my face was just a little less round, my thighs a little less full, my legs a little less short. And don't even get me started on pictures of me in a swimsuit.

I know that I am "fine" -- that I'm not overweight, that I'm at least average if not slightly below (depending on what criteria you're using), that my fears are largely unfounded.

But I also know that I am not alone.

Get any group of women together, hang around long enough, and you'll hear phrases like, "I just need to loose another 10 pounds," or, "I feel fat," or the go-to standard, "Do I look fat in this?" Listen to any woman describe another woman, and the first descriptor will almost always be related to the fact that she's either thin or not thin (guilty as charged). There are exceptions, sure. But even with groups of women who are exceptions -- there are often exceptions to those exceptions (follow?).

So, what to do about these body woes? Stop shopping for clothes? Stop watching TV or movies? Stop reading Shape, or Cosmo, or (gasp!) US Weekly? Perhaps that would be a start. Because all of the knowledge in the world that every one of those pics has been airbrushed does not make you feel better after viewing page upon page of 6-foot, 115 lb., six-pack-ab-having models. But I really, really, really enjoy my weekly dose of "Stars -- They're Just Like Us!" and brain candy.

Since starting a master's swim program, though, I think I've found the answer.

First of all, I've found that the better shape I'm in, the better I feel. And regardless if the scale has moved at all -- in either direction -- the less I care about how I look or how much I weigh. I don't work out because I want to loose weight. I work out to feel strong, because it takes the guilt out of eating, and because it lets me escape from constantly caring about an unattainable image and number on a scale.

And second, I've discovered that a trip to the YMCA women's locker room after the Master's swim team practice can clear up all sorts of misgivings that there's any such thing as a perfect body. The bodies range from stick thin to past obese. There are heavier women with tight, toned muscles and attractive breasts. There are skinny women with cellulite and boobs that hang under each arm. And there's an entire range that falls in between. But not one single one of them even comes close to the ideal purported by today's media. Nudity seems the great equalizer, and damn is it ever refreshing!

I never feel better -- for both the first and second reasons cited -- than I do after Master's swimming. So good, in fact, that it's an experience I wish for all women I know...and those I don't. If everyone had a similar opportunity -- a place they could go to see that without makeup and designer clothes and airbrushing, none of us look like the girls in the pictures or those walking the red carpet -- I have a feeling that body-image issues would quickly become a thing of the past.

And wouldn't that be a wonderful world.

Posted by Erin 12:01 PM 2 comments

Massages are for Winners!
Wednesday, April 04, 2007

That's what my "Chief of Stuff" told me yesterday when I said that I'd always thought massages were indulgences for special occasions, the rich, or wusses -- that when it comes to sports and athletics, the tough get chiropractic work done, or none at all. (Where do I get these ideas???)

After yesterday, I couldn't agree more.

I am not usually one for papering. I don't have the patience (or raw material to work with, being an ex-nail biter) for manicures. I do the yearly pedicure solely out of a belief that one has the responsibility to get one's toes presentable for sandal weather and nothing more, often encouraging the pedicurist to skip the froufrou foot/leg massage and lotions. I haven't gotten my hair cut/colored since December -- not because I've made the conscious choice to grow it out (although now at this point, I might as well), but because I just don't want to spend the time -- or have the time to spend -- on doing that right now (One thing that training three to five hours a day for an Ironman will do is make you evaluate must-do, should-do, and can-do items on your to-do list -- the last two categories often just get dropped altogether).

Naturally, I lumped massages into the papering category. All the candles, soothing music, scented oils. I had only had a massage two other times -- one this past winter at a place that is truly heaven on earth (seriously, if you live near Madison, try it. Even if you don't, fly in and try it...you won't regret it for a second), and the other in grad school because a friend of a friend of a friend was a new masseuse (read: not all that good) and in trying to establish a clientele, was offering massages for $25.

The day before yesterday (Monday) I had an intense soreness in my back that started below my shoulder blades and radiated up to the base of my skull. It was sort of like my back needed to crack but was stuck. As one might imagine, four hours on a bike that night didn't help matters at all, and by the time I crawled into bed, I was in serious pain. Sleep came in spurts, as the only position where I didn't hurt was lying on my back and I can never, ever sleep like that.

Enter Kate, the masseuse. After 30 minutes of Kate kneading and stretching my upper back and neck I was -- although not completely healed -- markedly improved. I could turn my neck without also turning my whole body, my headache was gone, and I was able to get my bike, run, and swim workouts in after work last night virtually pain-free.

I am now a true believer. And I'm going back for more. As often as my bank account will allow.

In "Beautiful Girls," one of the main characters, Paul, says, "A beautiful girl can make you dizzy, like you've been drinking Jack and Coke all morning. She can make you feel high full of the single greatest commodity known to man - promise. Promise of a better day. Promise of a greater hope. Promise of a new tomorrow. This particular aura can be found in the gait of a beautiful girl. In her smile, in her soul, the way she makes every rotten little thing about life seem like it's going to be okay. The supermodels, Willy? That's all they are. Bottled promise. Scenes from a brand new day. Hope dancing in stiletto heels." (gawd I love that movie!)

After yesterday, that's how I feel about massages -- promise of a better day, a greater hope. They are nothing short of miraculous, and I'm now an addict, plain and simple. Paul can take his models . . . I'll take my massages. Each to his own.

Posted by Erin 7:38 AM 0 comments

Move to the Music
Thursday, March 29, 2007

With my computer now in working order (thanks, Dean!), and after a nearly eight-month hiatus, I'm ready to update my Ipod -- especially my running mixes. And I know that oftentimes, a song you like while driving in the car doesn't necessarily translate into a good running song, or vice versa (Example? An elite marathoner in Runner's World recently said that his secret go-to song was Michael Jackson's "Don't Stop Till You Get Enough.") So, I'm looking for suggestions on good running songs -- your all-time favorites -- so I can steal them.

The more, the better. This girl has a lot of workout hours to go until September 9th, so be a sport and help me out! And for anyone leaving comments, this is a no-judging zone -- running musical selections know no boundaries of taste (see Michael Jackson example above). If a song works, it works...and I think all of us recognize that running music is not always a true reflection of someone's actual musical taste.

And in the spirit of fair play, here are some of my standards:

Nelly -- Ride Whit Me, In My Life

Jagged Edge -- Where da Party At?

Green Day -- Minority, Holiday, BasketCase

Ja Rule -- anything

Sean Paul -- anything

Shakira -- Hips Don't Lie

RHCP -- Snow, Parallel Universe, Otherside

Black Eyed Peas -- Hey Mama

The Who -- Teenage Wasteland

Fall Out Boy -- Sugar We're Going Down

O.A.R. -- Love and Memories

Hole -- Celebrity Skin (album)

The Killers -- Mr. Brightside, Somebody Told Me, When You Were Young

Posted by Erin 2:42 PM 2 comments

When the Going Gets Tough
Tuesday, March 27, 2007

On Sunday I headed out for what I expected to be a really fun and enjoyable 12-miler. The sun was shining, and I was just back from a week-long tropical vacation where I did little else but sun myself, read, and drink. Even though I managed to fit a couple of workouts in during vacation, they were by no means strenuous and I was looking forward to doing my first long run of the year on fresh legs.

My 12-mile route -- from my condo, up East Washington, around the Capitol square, down West Wash, around the Arb, and back -- is also one of my favorites. I have fond memories associated with it ...one particular one was knocking off a comfortable, and fast, run after work and before going out for drinks on a Wednesday night about this time last year. I was looking forward to the same feeling on Sunday: cruising along on auto-pilot, no fatigue, easy-breezy.

My Sunday run was anything but. From the first hill to the last, I felt as though I could barely catch my breath. My legs wouldn't find a rhythm. I was struggling with a 9:30-10:00 pace...badly. And then -- then! -- I started to overheat. Goosebumps, chills, woozy-ness. Ugh. Double-ugh.

This was not supposed to happen. I had fresh legs. I was excited about this run. And for the love of all that is holy, how can you overheat in MARCH?!?

I've had trouble with the heat before. And if by "before" you're guessing my entire life, you'd be correct. I don't sweat as much as a normal person, and as a result, I seem to get a lot hotter a lot faster. From horse shows to road races to track meets, it's always been a bit of an Achilles heel for me. To this day, I have no idea how I survived -- much less finished (and finished in time) -- last year's Mad City Marathon.

So it shouldn't have been much of a surprise to me on Sunday when I started feeling overheated. But I just couldn't rectify the fact that it was still March with the fact that I was having trouble with the heat.

I kept apologizing to my two running compadres because, frankly, all I wanted to do was walk. All I could conceive of doing was walking. "It's not even that hot out," I kept saying. "I don't know what's wrong with me. It's not even that hot."

It was embarrassing, frustrating, and by the time we finished, miserable. I had a splitting headache, chills, and nausea.

As I lay on the floor of my condo, stretching and icing my knees -- and trying not to throw up -- I was vindicated, just a little, but the nightly news. Turns out that the high on Sunday was close to 80 degrees -- an all-time high for that day in Madison's weather history. I guess it was that hot.

Even so, the frustration lingers still. I've yet to have a feel-good long run this year. Maybe it's due to the gruelling Saturday workouts (usually a long -- 3 to 4 hour -- bike ride and swim) and Sunday-morning barn chores that leave my legs feeling like they're encased in concrete. Maybe it's because my long runs of 2006 never really felt as good as I remember them in hindsight. Maybe it's both.

So, I'm trying to adjust expectations. But it's both hard and scary. What if I'm not training enough? What if I'm overtraining? And fear of all fears -- the one that I've now started to have nightmares about -- what if I miss the cutoff times on September 9th? Gulp.

Panicking about my preparedness, I've decided, will get me nowhere, though. So I've been doing some (up to this point not-very-effective) self-talk: I'm a strong athlete. I'm working as hard as I can. I'm allowed to have off-days, and the fact that I do doesn't make me a wimp. And, my favorite -- I still have an entire five months to devote to training and preparing.

Stuart Smalley-esque? Perhaps a bit. But when the going gets tough, the tough get desperate. Here's to hoping self-affirmations do the trick...

Posted by Erin 10:17 AM 0 comments

My New Favorite Thing
Monday, March 12, 2007

This little gizmo is going to change my life.

No more suction-induced headaches that last for hours post-swim and result from ill-fitting goggles and having to tighten them so much that they cut off the blood supply to the orbits of my eyes.

This is a seriously exciting find.

And where did I find it? Why, my new favorite place in Madison. I feel like I'm cheating a bit on my other favorite place, but really, Endurance House is just so darn cool...and has everything one would want triathlon-wise. I even got some great chlorine-be-gone shampoo and conditioner so I don't have to smell the pool on my hair for days afterwards.

The other day, I caught myself saying that, these days, I'm perfectly content to shop away at either of these two stores and others like them -- and that I have no desire to wander through Banana Republic or Ann Taylor or White House Black Market.

Those who know me well know the significance of that statement. If I can pay money for things like this or this that can either make the pain of Ironman training and racing either a) less severe or b) go by faster, then sign me up!

Posted by Erin 1:28 PM 1 comments

The Thing About Swimming (or, Hitting the Bonk)
Wednesday, March 07, 2007

An off-day of running for me consists of slogging along at a slower pace than normal, and is sometimes interspersed with shooting pains in my sides, as happened last weekend after a tough, second-to-last night of Mel-A-Palooza paloozaing.

The 12-miler I had scheduled for that past Saturday was anything but enjoyable, as I'm sure my running partner could attest to. I shuffled along like a 90-year-old without a walker, complaining the entire time about the sideaches that shuttled from one side of my abdomen to the other, the numbness in my feet, the cold, my frozen cliff bar and slushy Gatorade, the icy sidewalks that we had to pick our way over, and my general dissatisfaction with having to be out running, period. I was really tired, slightly hungover, and most likely a little dehydrated. But throughout the complaining, I kept slogging (slow+jogging=slogging), and I got it done. 12 whole, miserable miles.

And it's the same on the bike. If I'm tired, if I haven't eaten well enough -- or enough at all -- I reach a specific point where my legs turn to lead. Where I can't seem to get the pedal around with any sort of coordination. Where I can't imagine having to do two minutes more on the bike, much less two more hours.

That, my friends, is called bonking.

Anyone who has experienced it can attest that there is no worse feeling in a workout or race, save for a torn muscle. You know you can run/bike faster, and you know you should. But every single muscle in your body Just. Won't. Move. Like you've suddenly gained 200 lbs. Like you've been sitting sedentary on a couch for years and decided to do a 10k on a whim. It's frustrating and it's painful.

If you're doing a swim workout, it's downright dangerous.

I used to not be able to eat before I worked out. In high school, I'd sip on a water or have a bagel during lunch out of a healthy fear of that afternoon's track practice. In college and grad school, my ideal time of day to run was right around 3 p.m. -- far enough away from breakfast and close enough to dinner that I could eat right afterwards. It wasn't until I started trying to run father and faster that I discovered the joys of adequate nutritional fuel: GU and Cliff Bars -- and how just one little GU break could carry me through an extra five to eight miles that I didn't think I had in me.

And it wasn't until an incident last week that I discovered how essential it was to eat before a swim workout...old wives's tales to the contrary be damned.

Because, unlike running or biking where you just go slow down, if you hit the bonk swimming, you darn near drown.

In retrospect, I should've known better. But I got going late, Leonard took his sweet time on his morning walk, and by the time I got to the pool, I had just a little over 1.5 hours until I had to be at my first meeting of the morning.

The first five to ten minutes went well. I pulled, glided, and pulled in perfect rhythm. I swiveled my hips from side to side as if on a rail, just like all of the books say to do. I was one with the water. Any fish would've been jealous.

And then.

Without warning, I couldn't get my limbs to coordinate. It felt like there was a cement brick resting on my back. I started taking on water. I coughed and sputtered and sputtered and coughed my way through the last 25 meters in a pitiful breaststroke, and then held on to the end of the pool for dear life. I looked at the 50 meters stretched out before me, and for the first time that I could remember, felt scared of the water.

After catching my breath and reasoning with myself, I placed both feet against the pool wall and pushed off for another length. Not even a handful of strokes in, though, and the same problems resurfaced. It was like swimming with a dumbbell in each hand.

In the end, I conceded defeat. Not more than 20 minutes into the workout, and I climbed out of the pool and hit the showers.

Normally, in my training, I won't shy away from working out when I'm tired or feeling sub-par, because, I figure, come mile 100 of the bike on September 9th, or mile 20 of the run, I will surely learn a completely new definition of how tired really feels. I will learn what it truly means to "not feel well."

But there is a reason that the Ironman, and all triathlons, are ordered the way they are: swim first, then bike and run. It's because you can fight a lot of things -- exhaustion, hunger, pain, weather -- but you shouldn't ever try to fight water. If you do, in the end, every time, you'll lose.

Now, no matter what, I eat before I swim now. And lest I forget, there's a cliff bar that stays in my pool bag. Rookie mistake, and one I won't make again.

Posted by Erin 7:56 AM 0 comments