I Need A Shower

What a title for a blog entry, I know, but it's the truth--I really need a shower. However, I figured it'd been a couple of days since I last posted so I wanted to be sure to post (and doing it sooner than later is a sure way to guarantee I don't forget). I last posted on 7 Nov (a Tuesday). On the 8th, I took a day of rest for myself--I'm aiming to workout 5 days a week, with Wednesdays and Sundays as my rest days. Of course, that's subject to change, but I'm definitely hoping to keep the 5 days a week part.

Thursday I worked upper body with Brian. The workout was a bit unusual, as it was pushed back from a tentative start time of 5 to a real start time of 7. The 2 hour delay meant that before going to the gym, I needed to make sure I ate some dinner...dinner that wouldn't be too heavy, but something that would provide a bit of extra energy. I ended up going to Atlanta Bread Company and getting a turkey panini. Unfortunately, it wasn't as "light" as I'd hoped it would be, and the theme of the night became "keep dinner down." I ended up starting with 30 minutes on the elliptical, then Brian wanted to warm up my shoulders by having me work on a punching bag for a little while. I did some combination moves, and ended that part of the session with a 2 minute endurance drill. It was a tough workout, made more difficult by my dinner, and I was glad when I reached the end of it (without puking). After Thursday's workout, I really wasn't too jazzed to swim on Friday but I made a promise to myself so I went to the pool on Friday. I did a pretty good workout, totalling 3/4 of a mile, alternating kicking and swimming/pulling. In the end I did 750 swim/pull and 600 kick.

Bright and early Saturday morning, I was back in the gym, this time for a lower body workout. Brian had me do some work on a balance-ball-thing as well as wome serious core work. It was a beast of a workout, but it felt great. Tired and happy, I went to the Terps game to tailgate and enjoy the Terps 14-13 win over Miami, and came back dead tired. Sunday, I took a well-deserved rest day (in retrospect, tailgating--a bunch of standing up for awhile and then going to the game--a bunch of standing and walking up and down stadium stairs might NOT have been a wise choice of activities following a hard leg workout...).

Finally after work today I decided that even though I had no motivation, I'd hit the pool today. I had a pretty long day at work, and ended up staying there later than I expected to. I usually try to leave right at 4 on swimming days, because the later it gets, the more crowded the pool gets and the harder it is to get into a lap lane. I got lucky, as when I got there it wasn't too crowded and I was still able to get a good swim in. I only did 1050 today (slightly over 1/2 mile), but it was a quality 1050 (450 continuous swim, 150 kick, 150 free pull, 150 swim, 150 kick). I realized two things today while I was swimming:
1. I really need new swim paddles/gloves. One of mine has a hole in it now, and both have a tendency to unzip while I'm swimming which makes me compensate for it by altering my stroke in a weird way.
2. I tend to have only 1 or 2 songs stuck in my head while I was swimming. Today it was "The Wheels on the Bus" (don't ask why, it's a long story but it makes sense...) and some song by Keane, the title of which is escapting me at the moment.

So that's that. And now, I really do need to get the chlorine out of my hair, so I'm going to go work on that..