Spin class and paddles picture

I went to my first ever spin class today.
I was doing my bike workout at the gym two weeks ago and one guy walked up to me and invited me to try his wife's class because he thought I might enjoy it because it is a hard class. Hard? Sweat? Bike? Sign me up!

And I did enjoy it, it was great, I loved it. It was hard. I wonder whether I will be sore tomorrow.
We did a lot of climbing and sprints and I just went loose!
I let my HR go to 191 and the average was around 163-165. 191 on a bike is smoking high. It is probably very close to my bike max. I think that maybe if someone was really pushing me than maybe I can get it to mid-190s and that would be my max but probably not higher. But who knows?

After the class the instructor told me that I did great. Well, of course what kind of am athlete would I be?
And it was kinda embarrassing when she told everyone to watch my legs on sprints- how fast, high cadence and smooth I went...It was a nice compliment of course but then everyone was watching me and I did not like that:)

I hope I go back! Next week there is no class because of a sprint break but the week after?

No ITB problem although I felt tension building up when I was trying to spin acids out.

Then I rolled a lot and did few strength exercises for ITB and then I stretched a lot. As I was stretching one lady told me that she has never saw anyone stretch so much and that it is great for me. She said she was a PT and she constantly has to remind people to stretch. Well, I am not that great stretcher but I was reading a very interesting article about definition of planets (Is Pluto a planet or not? Big question...) in Discover magazine and it was pretty long, so my stretching was long:)

And here are few pictures of my paddles. People are apparently supposed to go faster with paddles, but I go slower. I think that it might be because they are X-large size and my arms are not strong enough to move such huge area through water. Or? I wonder how large other people's (those people who are faster with paddles) paddles are.

I hope I am hypochondriac, seriously

I had a great swim today. No fast intervals to hit, but steady longish intervals at 1:40 pace and I felt GREAT! I checked my pace every 100yards and I was right on it (except for the last 300 pull, I kind of lost focus during the middle 100 and swam it at around 1:48 but then I refocused and got immediately to 1:40 for the last 100m)!
I felt powerful and really enjoyed it! It was the same feeling as when I was runnig mile repeats at 10kish pace with 1min rest. Not too hard to make me hurt but rather feeling strong and confident. Love it!

The highlight was that I was supposed to do 500yards with pull buoy, paddles and band. I was not sure whether I should try to hit 1:40ish pace, which I knew would never be possible. Michelle asked me whether I am already at the point when I swim faster with paddles. WHAT?!? I am supposed to get to the point when I swim faster with paddles? Is that even possible?!? Ok, it kinda makes sense because paddles increase you arm/hand area and thus more power to pull you through water but paddles also make it harder because you have to have enough arm strength to actually pull through water with larger area. And paddle work is sooo hard for me.
So I chuckled at the thought of going faster with paddles and decided to do my best aka try to keep 2min pace. But I did it, I did that 500 at 1:42 pace! My arms completely fell off in the last 75yards though. I felt great until around 425 yards and then my arms dies:) But I never thought that I would be able to pull with paddles and bands around my ankles as fast as I can go just swimming. And then still have enough strength to do 2 more intervals @ 1:40- not with paddles though.
It seems that I am really getting some arms! Awesome.
I also found a pretty good and efficient way to enter the water with paddles and that made it easier.

If only my running were as great as my swimming:(
I did another run today (5x2min run, 1min walk) and ITB did not feel 100% neither during nor afterwards. It did not hurt, I just felt tension building up. But that was not anything that icing and rolling would not take care off. And then during the swim when I was pushing off the wall I think that I sometimes felt it when I was concentrating on it (when I was concentrating on a swim I was not aware of it so it was probably, HOPEFULLY, only my sensitivity and being little hypochondriac about it at this moment.
I am going to take a day off running tomorrow.

MILEAGE debate (and simulated drowning)

There has been a debate over at Keri's blog about running mileage. How much is enough to run a decent HM/marathon or 5k/10k? Keri ran 3:29ish marathon running around 20-45miles a week, which is pretty impressive. But it makes sense, those miles were mostly quality mileage, no junk mileage. I believe that the Americans are obsessed with mileage and very often quantity outweighs quantity. And I had hard time adapting to it. That's also a reason why I have never run to my potential in college (good thing that I did not go to school on running scholarship, I would have been shipped home on the first flight direction Europe). My college best was something like 40sec slower than my best HS time for 1500m. My college running was a complete disaster. I did not understand why should a 800m/miler run 60miles a week if I was able to run decent times with one third of that mileage! I was used to doing 4-5 workouts a week and ZERO junk mileage. So I never adapted to American style.
But eventually the mileage obsessiveness have kinda penetrated my thick skull (but only after I was out of college) and I have been kinda obsessed since.
I started to believe that one need to run at least 60 miles/week to run decent long distance times (by decent for me I mean sub-18 for 5k, 36ish for 10).
I am still kind of bumped that I cannot run more than 40ish miles/week but I am starting to realize again that mileage is not the ONLY secret formula. I am starting to believe again that it is more about quality and a correct COMBINATION with quantity.
Although of course, I do not think that one can qualify for Olympic marathon trials running 30miles a week, but that is already past my definition of a decent time and in different spheres.

I talked to a guy back home who just ran a marathon on Sunday. He has been trying to break 3 hours for past 3 years. And he finally did it on Sunday, he ran 2:59.20. He told me that it is because he changed his training completely. His emphasis was on quality rather than quantity. Before he used to run around 60miles a week and only 2 workout per week. Now he did lower mileage (max 46miles/week, with average around 43miles) and he did 2 interval workouts a week and 2 tempos/farthleks a week and 2 other days easy runs. That 4 quality runs and 2 easy quantity runs. That's what I used to do in HS and that's what I still love doing.
Ok, he surely won't be able to run 2:40 with that but still. How many American males can say that they have run sub-3 marathon on less than 45miles a week? I bet not many.
So COMBINATION of quantity and quality with a very strong emphasis (over 60%) on quality.

Not sure where I am trying to get with this. Probably just express my personal opinion and preferences.
I am going to trust my coach although she does not have me do track workouts 4x/week and I am going to do whatever she wants me to do because what's the point of having a coach if one has doubts about the training? I know that she knows what she is doing because she got me from running 11min 3000m followed by few pathetic months (including 2 months of non-running) into sub-19min 5k shape in just little over 2 months. We might be very close to finding that optimal combination for me (combination that however is little constrained by my ITB, so it might not be a truly perfect combination). Does it make sense?


Now onto simulated drowning. Actually I said simulated running but the person heard me say simulated drowning and honestly, it is probably a better expression to use for my aquajogging.

I did ladder intervals. I did not do it on time, but rather on distance because I cannot see clock properly from longer distance.
I warmed up for few minutes (I did not need a long warm-up because I did bike workout right before that) and then did ladder intervals.
One length is around 8-9m (and it takes me around 30s to jog when I am rested) and I did 5lengths, 6, 7, 7, 6, 5 with 2 lengths easy jog between.

I felt way better than on Sunday. Maybe water was colder or maybe I just did not work as hard as I did on Sunday. I also brought water with me today so that helped as well. Then I cooled down for around 15min until I got kicked out. I was talking to a lifeguard about my Master's thesis (geez what a geek, both of us) while cooling down (so it was not a very quality cool-down) and then the other lifeguard came over saying that it is already 5 min past their closing time. So I did not even have time to dry my hair, I had to get out asap.

I just ran a full...

...MILE ish!!! Of course, not continuously, in 10 1min increments with 2min walk inbetween but whatever.

No pain, no discomfort, no nothing!!! I am totally thrilled (more than anyone should be about running a mile with 9 walking breaks...).

I am hoping to continue walk/jog this week but slowly building it up while continuing aqua running workouts and then next week build it even more with longer continuous runs and then try a workout week afterwards.
Well, at least that's the plan. But I am pretty confident that it is doable.

And maybe, just maybe I will not have to adjust my very ambitious (and at this point little overachieving) goal of running 40min for 10k on May 28. (But that's probably only endorphines talking right now)

But let's not jump ahead of ourselves. Maybe the ITB will start screaming at me tonight, afterall, only 5 min have passed since I finished the run. Whatever, I am happy.

I am off to the pool now. I have a looooong descending workout 3x600yards and description says something like this: "you should feel like puking by the middle of the last interval and then you push harder" (gulp). Okkkkk. I will try but I am not paying a pool cleaning fee!
I will be back to let everyone know how it went.

I did not puke, aparently my arms fall off before I have a chance to puke. I have mixed feeling about the workout, I tried to go hard but I have never done anything that long so I did not know how fast I can go to make it and I think I went too slow. I would prefer my coach giving me pace to hit. Although I would get really nervous about it and would be dreading the workout, I would at least work harder. I think.

Running workout of the day

I did only one running workout today but nevertheless it should be awarded the title. Because it kicked my a-double-s.

Maybe it was not actually the workout that kicked my a-double-s, maybe chlorine fumes and the fact that I could not expand my chest properly to breath have something to do with it as well.

I warmed-up for 20min or so and then did 8x3min hard with 90sec jog and then 20min cool-down.

I actually had to take a longer break half-way through because I was on a verge of drowning. It helped but then again the last one was horrible. Running in water is hard. It does not hurt as much as real running but it hurts. But maybe I just did not do it hard enough, maybe it is supposed to hurt like real running. But it was pretty hard anyway, so I take it.

I did ITB strengthening afterwards. It feels good so I will try run/walk shuffle tomorrow and I will be smart about it.

Cold classification

+ 64 People in Hawaii are sleeping under multiple layers of sheets
+ 50 People in Helsinki are turning heating off, the Russians grow flowers
+ 35 Italian cars are not running
+ 32 Distilled water freezes
+ 30 You can see your breath, the Russians are eating ice cream and drinking beer
+ 25 Your dog is trying to sneak into your bed
+ 10 French cars are not running
+ 7 Politicians are starting to talk about homeless people
+ 5 American cars are not running
+ 1 People in Helsinki are turning heating on, people in Hawaii have already frozen
- 4 You can hear your breath
- 11 German cars are not running
- 29 You dog is trying to sneak into your PJs, Japanese cars are not running
- 22 No cars, including Russian cars, are running
- 39 Heated debates in Congress have frozen, the Russian are buttoning their shirts all the way to their necks
- 58 Your car is trying to sneak into your bed
-76 People in Helsinki have frozen, polar bears are migrating south
- 94 Hell just froze, the Russians are organizing cross-country races
- 98 The lawyers are putting their hands into their own pockets
- 103 Santa Clause is leaving the Polar Circle
- 184 Alcohol freezes, the Russians are pissed off
- 452 Helium liquefies
- 459.67 Absolute zero. Nothing moves. The Russians are licking vodka popsicles and are admitting that it is kinda chilly

I am right there with those Russians (the only difference is that I have been licking Gatorade popsicle). Otherwise these is no way I would do a 3-hour bike ride in freezing temperatures. It was around 30 degrees when I was leaving my place today. But there was no way I was going to do that ride on a trainer. Trainer hurts.
Running in cold is ok, you move and you get warm and faster you move warmer you get. Biking is different, faster you go colder you get. You just sit there and freezing wind gets you.

But I have prepared myself well: I put on 2 pairs of socks (one warm one and one warmer one), thermal pants, regular spandex, thermal shirt, arm warmers (that I kept over hands and wrists so no chilly wind gets to my skin through sleeve holes), long-sleeved shirt, short-sleeved shirt, wind jacket. I finished with ear warmers under my helmet, ski gloves and winter boots (advantage of using clip-less pedals, I can wear whatever shoes I want!).
And it was perfect! For the first hour...No, seriously, perfect. Although my fingers and toes started to get really cold towards the end of the ride. Next time I am wearing one more pair of socks and thin gloves under ski gloves. And maybe scarf.
I did not take scarf because I thought that I might get too warm but since my throat was freezing, next time I take a scarf. And maybe something for my forehead.

I did 9 times a 5-mile loop with a decent hill in the middle. Total 76k. It was a good workout and I loved every minute of it. Although my bottom parts are still not used to this bike and my neck muscles are killing me.

Although I loved it the last thing I wanted to do when I got home is to hop on a bike again (on my other bike, but they are all the same, torture machines) and go to the Y for aquajogging.
Not that I did not want to aquajog, I wanted to, but the thought of riding a bike again was not very appealing. But I had to because I wanted to go to the library as well and they were closing so I had to get there fast. It was not that bad after all.

I aquajogged for around 40min, then they kicked me out because they were closing. Lifeguards hate me, I know it. I am ALWAYS the last one in the pool and as long as someone is in the pool they have to walk back and forth. If noone is in the pool, they can sit. So they always have to walk until they close when I am there. I feel bad about it.
I even did some intervals- 5x 8-9m fast with rest jojging back:) But 8m aquajogging in pool is looooong. It was kinda hard.
I feel pretty tired now. ITB feels ok although I still have some doubts.

I rented two seasons of MASH from the library so I am going to watch that. I like that show a lot. But Czech dubbing is much better than the original version. Much funnier! Oh, well, original version will have to do.

Run, run, run!!!!!!

I ran!
Ok, not really. I aquajogged!
I am such an idiot, why didn't I think about it before??? I could have been doing it almost every day.

I did a swim workout (pretty easy. It feels great knowing that pace that was my fast pace before is my steady pace now!!! By the way, I am still getting my preferential treatment from one of the lifeguards. I am actually usually the only one doing some kind of workouts, the others just do whatever. And whenever someone tries to join my lane, this lifeguard asks them whether they could use different lane and leave that one for me! Cool. Unfortunatelly this lifeguard works on only one of the days I usually have workouts. Other days no special treatment for me ) and then IT him me. I could aquajog! So I did that for around 20min until I finally got kicked out because the Y was closing. It was not very exciting since I did like 8 yards back and forth but better than nothing. I am definitelly getting back tomorrow!

Recovery test

Yeah, still sticking:) I wanted to got to spinning class to make up for missed run but I thought that it starts at 6:30 so I stayed little longer in work (I was trying to come up with some model on how to calculate value-added tax for my two business scenarios in Mexico and I was geting closer and closer. It is not perfect yet but it should be ok enough for my thesis, it is not like I am trying to have that thing published. But my head is pounding from all those numbers and percentages, ahhh) and when I got home I realized that it starts at 6 and it was 6 already so no spinning class.

Instead I stuffed my face with tuna sandwiches, half a cantaloupe, oatmeal and cereals and Luna bar and cheese.

Then I draged myself to the gym. It was 8pm already but we still had light!!! Love it.
I did legs exercises, pull ups and digs.
ITB has felt great the whole day until I did those legs exercises. It did not hurt but I felt tension building up in the area. I also tried bosu ball balancing but quit it immediatelly! ITB started protesting as soon as I stepped on it. I thought that it was supposed to help me but aparently not! Maybe that bosu is one of the reasons for this round of ITB troubles. I guess I am not doing it anymore.

And the recovery test? I realized this already last summer but was reminded this morning. Last summer I used to do around 50miles on bike after work on Wednesdays. I did not run that day. Next day while biking to work legs felt horrible, I had to bike in easier gears. On Sundays I used to do a long ride followed by run and legs felt allright on Mondays.
I did a bike workout yesterday and my ride to work this morning was pathetic. Easy gears and spinning the whole time.
I have 2 theories about this:
1, my bike ride to work is a pretty good indicator about how my legs have recovered from a day before.
2, easy run after a bike ride helps me to recover faster from bike. I am not sure whether it works the other way as well- bike helping me recovering from run. I have no way to test that one. People say it works. But how can I find out?

I have received an email from a friend in France. She has spoken with some people and it seems that there should not be any problem for me doing 10k Champs of French Universities. Normally you have to race a qualifying race to run 10k but there is no qualifying standard. There are qualifying standards for other distances but not for 10k, simply finishing the qualifying race is enough. But since I am here obviously I cannot run qualifying race. But school can ask for exception if we certify that I had a good reason for not running. So we are going to do that and my friend was told that it should pass no problem. I believe that but I won't have a definite answer before the end of May. The race is on June 5 near New Orleans (French New Orleans obviously:)). It will be a tough call since I have triathlon on May 29 (one week before) and then I arrive in Paris on June 2 so I might be little jet-legged... But I really want to do the race, it should be fun.

I am sticking to my plan! I promise.

I sent email to my coach (actually to both of them) this morning letting her know that ITB did not feel that hot and that I am not going to run this week.
But in reality it does not feel that bad, actually it feels great right now...
But I am not going to run, not necessarily because my ITB hurts but because I have been going back and forth with this ITB thing for the whole week and I have kept changing my mind every single day and now that I made my decision not to run official I am sticking with it (at least until the weekend).
Somewhere deep inside I know that it is a right decision. But I still feel pretty down about it. Like a complete slacker. And I indeed am a slacker because I wanted to go to the gym to do pull ups but I did not. Too lazy to do that:( I have blamed not going on the weather though. It was nasty.

I woke up and went outside (in my PJ) and it was raining and sidewalks were icy. Great. I figured that walking to work would be less dangerous that biking. But by the time I got ready it stopped raining and as I was walking I realized that only sidewalks were icy, not roads. So I went back home, changed and took bike.
Unfortunately this "nice" weather did not last long. After work I got out of the building and the bike was covered with ice. It looked pretty amazing though. So I kept poking the seat with my keys to break the ice because I was not going to sit on it. Eventually I succeeded. The handlebar were covered with ice as well but they thaw eventually. Also breaks started to work, eventually. But at first I got scared big time because I was approaching the intersection and they would not break! Fortunately I managed to stop. By the time I got home I was covered with ice myself and my hands were totally frozen. Then no wonder I was not too keen on walking to the gym...

But I had a pretty hard bike workout that I did on a trainer, so I am not that huge of a slacker I guess. 1.5h with increasing effort each 30min. Last 30min were brutal, I cannot decide what hurted more: my butt or my legs. I think that butt wins. And I almost choke on water and gel. I was told to take a gel during the ride and let me tell you, those gels are nasty sweet things. I got few PowerBar gels last week (I would not buy it myself, I think that bananas are much better) and I tried apple flavor. Ok, it was quite yummy but disgustingly sweet.

My boss still ignores me (or is dead as I mentioned before) so I had the whole day to work on my thesis. I am at 35 pages now and it is coming along. I have hard time collecting data and then writing it without breaking any confidentiality rules but I think I am in a pretty good shape to have it done next week and then I will send it to my adviser for follow up if she still wants to work with me because I have never talked to her about my progress....

I do not know

I have no idea what the deal is. I am going back and forth with this ITB thing. It has felt great past two days and also today so I decided to run today.

By the way, we got a snow/ice/water storm and it was no fun biking in it from work. My face hurt from those small ice pieces hitting me, ouch. I got home and took a short break and then started to get dressed for a run. At that moment my wimpy part (or maybe it is my more reasonable part?) kicked in and I persuaded myself that biking in that weather to the track, running, biking to the Y for swim workout and biking back home would be a pure misery. I'm sure it was a good call.
So I just decided to run on a stretch of grass by my place, it is probably around 550-600m long. So I ran back and forth then walked for 3 min or so and ran again. I originally planned on doing it 5times but I started to have a weird feeling in the ITB area so I called it a day after 3 repetitions. So around 3.5k running. I do not know whether it was really ITB because it does not hurt at all now. Actually sometimes I feel a twitch there but it does not feel like ITB, it is more like where quad attaches to the knee above knee and to then side, just above my bothersome ITB.
I have no idea, I am totally confused and oversensitive.

Then I biked to the Y for swim. Just slow stuff, lot of paddle work which is still hard for me. I got a preferential treatment from a lifeguard today, he asked one of guys he knew to move to a different lane and share with other guy so I could have a whole lane for myself because he said I was fast:) Cool. I need to ask him what his name is next time I see him since he is so nice.

By the time I was done at around 10pm it started raining. Not fun riding home. Now I can hear ice falling against my windows. It will be a mess tomorrow morning if it starts freezing! I might have to walk to work.

Finalyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

No, unfortunately I am not talking about running. I have decided to give it one more day. Although I walked for over 2 hours from work. Normally it is only abut 1 hour walk but I had to go to the post office. Unfortunately post office is kind of in an opposite direction from my work. Maybe I could have waited till tomorrow and go there on bike but it is supposed to rain tomorrow, I have both run and swim tomorrow, I had nothing better to do today and the reason why I needed to go to the post office was that I am sending some vegetable seeds to my grandma (so she is not bored over summer:)) and I wanted to ship it asap because I knew she would be excited (it is a surprise) and it is already kind of late in the season. She already has all of her Slovak veggies growing.

So I was a weirdo walking on a road, sporting blue spandex, black/red sneakers and white socks while holding a huge pack of cookies and (of course) eating them. Whatever, nobody here knows me:) Now let's just hope I won't get thrown into a jail for trying to sabotage vegetation in Europe by planting American peppers and salad...
There is Borders right by the PO so I went there but they did not have anything that I liked so I ended up reading some stupid book about some wimpy middle-school kid. It was the only book I knew I can read in about an hour before it gets dark.

I had the time to do all this because my boss is either dead or ignoring me. He has promised me on Friday he would call me this morning and tell me what I was supposed to do this week since he is in Germany but he did not. And he did not respond to my emails neither. So I asked his secretary whether she has any news and apparently he called her in the morning. So it seems that he is not dead, he is just ignoring me. Because I had nothing to do so I left work earlier today.

Anyway, I have regressed little bit.
So Finalyyyyyyyyy. Not talking about running. I am talking about frozen cheese pizza. Last summer they had sometimes a promotion 10 for $10 for a pretty good frozen cheese pizza in a local grocery store.
And I have been hoping for the same promotion since I got here in February. And today the day finally came. And what a perfect timing! Because I was supposed to return the car this afternoon, I went to the store in the morning because Mondays are Banana days (Sundays are Eggs days and I totally forgot about it so I did not stock up on eggs, grrr). I got 7.4 pounds of bananas (stocking for few weeks, remember?) and then I saw it. 10 for $10 my favorite cheese pizza! I immediately bought 10 of them and now they are sitting in my freezer.
I do not like American pizza, it is disgusting, and I do not eat pizza very often, but frozen pizzas are pretty good, plus I usually put the whole bag of frozen veggies on top of it so it is not that bad. Although it is pretty small and has like 700 calories, but whatever. I do not eat it every day, although I might now:)

ITB felt great the whole day. So I am going to run tomorrow.

Oh geez

Did you know that you are not supposed to do any hard sport activity after you get massage? Well, I kind of suspected it but I was still hoping I would be able to run after the massage lady worked on me.
But no, she told me that I should not do anything till Tuesday:(
And I wanted to test the ITB today badly!

But maybe it is a good thing and another day of rest will do extra good to my ITB.
But it has been 4 days already since I went running last time and I feel that it is time to go. I did only 14 miles this week...I feel like a slacker.
I wish I could go biking at least.

Anyway, my legs feel great now. I got a deep tissue massage for my hips/ITB. It did not hurt that much but the masseuse told me that she was surprised I endured it since it was only my second massage ever. That foam rolling must be behind it.
My hits were very tight and she said that my left side (not the side that bothers me) is very tight. She also stretched me and my flexibility in left hip is better.
She mentioned that maybe because of tightness in my left side I am overcompensating by my right leg and that might add to right ITB issues.
Now I feel awesome, especially in my hips, as if I have found a whole new range of motion!

She also worked on my shoulders a bit because she said that they were way too tight. Actually my whole body was tight but she said that other parts are not that acute so she would not work on them so she can concentrate on my ITB. But she could not leave my shoulders like that:)

I should definitely do this more often. Unfortunately without car I cannot visit this lady any time soon.
I also have two certificates to two different massage saloons but since I have no car I cannot get there. But I still have time to go there before I live.

This is a lame weekend. My boss told me to drive somewhere crazy (like for example visit my sister in Arkansas) so I can enjoy the car for the last time. But I rode a bike instead and then spent half a day grocery shopping - stacking food for 2 months:(

It is pretty cold

Too bad that the spring-like temperatures of 50+ degrees did not stick around longer and we were back to sub-40s in the morning today.
I decided to suck it up and went riding outside. I found another person nuts enough to go out with me but we waited till noon till it got relatively warmer. It was around 43 degrees when I left my place.

I was not that cold, but I still wished I had put on more cloths:(

I rode around 13miles to Stony Creek park, which took me almost an hour because I had to ride on sidewalks and it was a mess. Stony is perfect for riding, because there is nice 6 mile loop and not many cars therefore many bikers go there. The only problem was that it is around a lake and therefore it was even colder there! Plus we had some chili winds. Brrr.
I rode 2 loops with my new friend who called it quits after those two because she was too cold and she just got home from Japan on Tuesday so was dead tired. But it was still nice to have company and I hope we can ride together in the future.
I did another 2 loops alone and decided to try to ride in aerobars. I liked it and after couple kilometers I felt pretty confident in my ability to handle the bike using aerobars. (I also realized that I got less cold in aerobars than being straight up because less cold wind was getting to my torso. Hm, why did not I thing about it before, I did not have to freeze for past two laps!)
Then I rode back home and it was definitely warmer than when I was starting so I enjoyed that ride. Although some drivers are idiots. One lady tried to send me a message "you crazy cyclist, get off the road because road is MINE" by using her horn. It really pissed me off and I had to start breathing deep in order to calm myself and not knock on her window when she stopped at the red light and tell her how stupid she was using horn behind a cyclist because I could have got scared and jumped and fell right under her wheels. Some people just do not think!

I did total of 80.8 km and it took me 3.5 hours:( Not that great but considering that half of it was on sidewalks and I had to deal with frozen toes and fingers it was not that bad. I loved being outside.

(I was invited to another ride tomorrow but a guy who invited me must do it in the early morning and there is no way I am doing that! It will be too cold for a long ride. Too bad he cannot go later in the day, I would have joined him.)

After I defrosted myself I could not decide whether I should go running or not. I decided not to. Maybe I could have done some run/walk thing but I was not sure. I will do that tomorrow based on what the massage therapist tells me tomorrow.

The massage lady agreed to work on my ITB tomorrow morning because I told her that I would not have car afterwards and that I really wanted her to try to see what's going on in there. So that's a good news. I am really hoping that she would magically work it out! But I am not sure how that works so I might be being way too optimistic:(
I am really glad I am in the US - country that lives on debt- and I can use my credit cards to pay for everything right now. Otherwise I would starve to dead...But it will not be pretty when the time to pay them off comes:((

Meltdown

Believe me, it is not funny when you start crying in the middle of swim workout.

Normally I do not do it but today was just so bad that I had a complete meltdown during my 50s in pool.
Today was a bad day, everything that I held inside just burst. And I have noone to talk to so when I write it down somewhere I feel better. So I am sorry.

The final decision was made today and I have to return the car. I think that it was pretty bad because my boss sent me an official email telling me to return in so he has it on paper. But he also told me later that he would think about something else.
It is not that car that bothers me it is more like that I have already planned few things that I have been really looking forward to and I can not do them, unless I get another car or think about a different solution. You know that feeling when you look forward something and then suddenly you cannot do it?
I wanted to go to Chicago for example. And to hockey game in Detroit. And Montreal. And now I do not even have means to get to the train station.

I do not have any friends. Sometimes I go days without saying a single word (that's the reason why I ramble so much here...). Almost all weekends are like that because I just have noone to talk to. I met some people this week and they were very nice. One lady invited me to come to have dinner with her and her kids that are of my age, but now I cannot go because I cannot get there. Another guy invited me to come to his house and do bike trainer session with him and his friends. And now I cannot do that neither.
So again, it will be just me alone because I cannot meet with anyone.
(Although I have a bike ride planned with one other girl tomorrow that I still can do but I will have to bike for almost an hour just to get to out meeting place:()

And I wanted to get that ITB massage and now I cannot because I cannot get there because it is in a different town.
The ITB has been bothering me. It felt great on Wednesday and the something happened and it is all bad again. I do not want it to hurt anymore! And I do not know what to do about it.

And the payroll problem did not get sorted out and I do not have enough money here to pay for my rent.

And I am stressed about the thesis. It is horrible, I do not want to do it, it is a waste of time. I am at a business school! Why do I have to do research?

And I have sent at least 50 job applications and nobody wants me.

I know that I will figure out everything, but I just want someone to share my thoughts and problems with. (And what's better that doing it on internet, don't you think?)

The one positive thing today is that I had surprisingly good swim workout. This workout also added to my overall stress because I knew that it was going to be hard to hit my paces and I was somehow fearing it the whole week.
But I hit all my hard paces and I am thrilled about it. It will be always a mystery to me how I was able to swim 200s <3:05 while tears pouring into my goggles. I do not know whether I did 8 or 9 50s because I was not concentrating at all and lost my count. But then I did some very hard 100s (4x100 <1:30 @ 1:45) and although I do not know how the first and second one went by because my mind was wandering all over the place, I knew I needed to start to concentrate on the 3rd and 4th to hit the pace. And I did!!!
I talked to the lifeguard today, he asked me what I was training for and such and he is very nice, he already knows me because I go there pretty often. Although he probably thinks that I am half deaf since he always says something and I do not know that he is talking to me and then I always ask him to repeat what he is saying...

1 day, 3 bikes, 0 runs

Am I cool or what? I rode a road bike to work and back, then I took a mountain bike to get to the Y and back and did a bike workout on a stationary bike!

It was nice and warm today so there was no way I was going to drive! Unfortunately I could not do bike workout outside because of traffic here.
Too bad it is supposed to get colder in next few days.

I wanted to do running workout today but the ITB had been bothering me the whole day! WTF?!? (Excuse my language)
So I skipped the run and was thinking about skipping the bike workout as well but then decided to see how that goes.
I did some longer harder intervals. I was dripping sweat all over the place, it was disgusting.
ITB did not feel great, I felt a constant tension but then on my last interval something happened: my ITB totally loosened up and felt great since. Weird!

I contacted the lady for ITB massage and should do it on Sunday. I hope it helps!

I have been reading news about Fukushima in Japan. I was 1.5 years old when Chernobyl in Ukraine exploded and of course I do not remember that but my parent were saying that that summer the mushrooms were as huge as footballs! (Mushrooms are great radioactivity catchers.) And of course we ate them. I ate them. As far as I can say, I am normal.

Today I listen to a voicemail message I left for someone and man, I have a weird accent! I cannot hear it when I talk but when I hear myself talking then I hear it. Poor people who must listen to me:) My sister has been in Arkansas for past 4 years and she pronounces some words differently than I do. For example "back" or "graduate", she says "a" as a pure "a" whereas I say it like "e".
When I first came to the US for college little over 5 years ago I really could not tell difference between people's accents, Slovak, American, German, Mexican, it all sounded the same to me. Only later I was able to distinguish them.
But I think that my English accent is better than my French accent. My French friends always made fun of me, especially when I said "service" when I was serving a ball at volleyball practice. That cracked them up.
But French people have horrible accent when they speak English. I do not know how to call it, (I have my own word for it, sleeky) it is disgusting, I cannot listen to it. Also some Russians have horrible accent. Ok, not Russians, but people from Belarus and Ukraine. I do not like their English accent.
Czechs have very funny accent, I can distinguish that one immediately.