Waterblogged

Well, in Australia Phelps has won his sixth gold, the USA women are world champions in water polo, and American Kate Ziegler has claimed the distance freestyle double. Here, we're just working on getting through a 500 and a 1,000 straight on a Saturday morning. Warm up with 200 free followed by 2x50 choice. repeat 3 times ~ *5x100 on comfy interval but swim at threshold pace *500 at threshold pace *100 easy *1,000 straight at threshold pace *100 easy *3x100 "quality" on very comfy interval (2 minutes for Lane 2) Happy Weekend!

We're printing a calendar. How could we not? These should take care of January February March and April. That leaves 8 months we need to fill. Please submit your photos for consideration ASAP. Props, such as towels and shrimp, are encouraged. Extra points if you go out and get your hair frosted and bangs curled like you are about to attend your high school prom. I look forward to seeing your submissions!

the workout today was: *200, 150, 100, 50 free each followed by 25 flutter kick on back and 25 flutter kick on front ~ *3x100 free pacing, 500 free race pace, 3x50 backstroke active recovery *3x50 free pacing, 200 free race pace, 3x50 backstroke active recovery *4x25 free pacing, 100 free race pace, 3x50 backstroke active recovery ~ *50 kick, 4x25 free with first 5 strokes strong, 50 easy, 50 sprint repeat two times

Today's workout report will be teed up by Rebecca's daily shower craft talk, which was seasonally appropriately centered on egg dying. Yes, can you believe it? Easter (and Passover) are almost here. As we were luxuriating in warm water after the bitter wind outside, she mentioned that candle wax is a fabulous addition to those $.99 dye kits from Walgreens. What she recommends is this: 1. drip some wax on an egg 2. dye the egg 3. drip some more wax on the egg 4. dye it another color 5. repeat as many times as you like 6. at some point hold egg over flame to remelt the wax and peel it off 7. have a gorgeous egg that is shiny, multi-colored and patterned, and harder to break that those which have not been "waxed" I have not tried this, but I'm home with two sick kids today. We're Jewish but I think we'll do this activity just for the Jesus-lovin' heck of it. Rebecca also mentioned that dying dry macaroni is fun. I think I'll get some of the small cur...

In totally unrelated to swimming news, here's a photo of my kids up on the pedestrian overpass in Saratoga overlooking Hwy 85 yesterday. There aren't any of these in MP and I didn't know before yesterday that crossing one of these would be as fun for them as shaking Mickey Mouse's hand at Disneyland. We waved from the overpass and drivers waved or honked back. "They know me now!" my son screamed, empowered and clearly feeling Godlike, which was partly true since just by our presence and interaction with the high speed drivers we were likely were skyrocketing the percentage chance of a fatal accident by the second. To my 4 year old, it seemed as if the cars were emerging from a highway of anonymity and their unsuspecting passengers were being crowned with the glory of knowing us as soon as they passed under our feet. Ah, to be four. Anyway, there's a little weekend activity suggestion for you. And here's another one. I hope you're all ready to take ...

Thanks to Tim for plugging the blog in the MM newsletter yesterday. No thanks to Tim for calling me "Wild Sarah". I'm not offended, and the descriptor fits, but I've always wanted a nickname and this isn't it. I believe that if it's going to involve my name it should at least rhyme or be alliterative. I'm leaning towards Super Sarah, or maybe just BadAss, neither of which are inventive at all . My Goddaughter calls me SaSa. That's cute, but hardly tough enough, so I'm sort of left hanging on this one. Speaking of being left hanging, I think I deeply offended Tim when I didn't mentally record my time for the fourth 500 during workout this morning. Note to noon swimmers: Tim will become very annoyed (and possibly will simply walk away) if you do not note your fourth 500 time. I had no idea we were self-recording so I didn't even look. Felt like a moron when he gave me that "How could you not check your time?" blank stare. How, indee...

Special kudos to Kathleen for coming to my par- tay last night and even sitting in the front row for the screening, as you can see. I roped her into committing to the event yesterday morning after a great swim workout, when she was feeling most accomplished and optimistic about wanting to leave the house later that evening, from 7-9PM. Whoooohoooo ! Thanks for representing the MM hood last night Kathleen. You rock, and not just in the pool.

Come drink some wine with me and get fired up about fighting for a more family friendly America tonight at Lucie Stern, at 7PM. Just go here and sign up and RSVP . I have to get up and speak and I'm going to do it in my shiny red swimsuit. No. I'm not. That's ridiculous and would be embarrassing for you and me both. I won't do that to you. So come on down, there will be no semi-nudity but there will be alcohol, cupcakes and a great, inspiring film...almost as inspiring as the workout this morning. Ah, free pulling. *100 free followed by a strong 75 repeated 4 times add pulling gear for: *200, 150, 100 followed by 3 strong 50's (on 50's the 40s for Lane 2), all free (there is a G-d), repeated 3 times (first round, 200 is strong, second round, 150 is strong, third round, 100 is strong) take gear off for: *4x150: first 150 emphasize first 50, second 150 emphasize second 50, third 150 emphasize third 50, fourth 150 all strong

No, this is not what we did this morning (thank G-d). But I have to give kudos where kudos are due, to Frances and Peter (and if there was someone else someone please enlighten me) for doing a mile of butterfly at the Rinconada meet on Saturday. Rebecca Pinto likes to call this meet the Rinky Dink Meet but, as I'm sure she would agree, there's nothing dinky about 1650 yards of butterfly. Frances and Peter both completed the event in less than 30 minutes. That's about 4 days and 23.5 hours less than swimming a mile of fly would take me. I'm in awe. Here's what we did this morning: *300 free followed by 2x25 kick *300 free followed by 2x50 quick free ~ All free, all broken in half for 2-5 seconds to check time and try to match split on second half. (Interval for Lane 2, on 1:30 base): *1x400 *2x300 *3x200 *4x100 ~ *3x100 on the 1:35, 1:25, 1:20, trying to match pace for all three *3x100 on the 1:35, 1:25, 1:20, trying to match pace for all three ~ *4x25 fast free with...

Perhaps Kermit the frog said it best. These days we'd all like to be a bit more earth friendly and carcinogen avoiding. Let's face it, we're all pissing bishpenol A at levels that just ain't right. But the going green effort isn't as easy as buying your shampoo at Whole Foods. Well, it can be. That's about the best I can do on a personal level (Look, buying all new everything and changing your entire lifestyle isn't that easy but at least I'm not rubbing the carcinogens into my kids' scalps). But of course this is more like going orange, or something. I'm trying, on the personal front. And I'm nuts about green businesses . Baby steps. Anyway, one thing I do is buy JASON natural swimmers shampoo (for my otherwise green-from-chlorine blond hair) at Whole Foods. It's great. Smells good, makes me feel like I'm saving the world, and apparently gets the chlorine out. Speaking of chlorine, I can't wait to get back in the pool tomorrow...

I don't usually get to swim on Wednesdays so today was a special bonus (which I took before my husband could change his mind and say no...before he woke up) given to me because said husband is about to leave for a business trip (sigh, I'll be absent from the pool for a few days, but I'll be soaking up the sun. Hello, can you believe this weather ?). By the way, this is a totally random photo of a swimmer I found on the web so don't waste your time trying to figure out who this is. However, that gives me an idea: I think I'll take bare toe photos of team members and see if anyone can guess whose they are. Or maybe hands or knees. Elbows are fun. You just never know with me. Ladies, be sure to keep mani and pedicured at all times so that I don't catch you unaware. (Right, as if any of us get manicures. What's up with the immediate nail demolishing by chlorine? Have they not engineered a chemical that will allow us to swim and stay coiffed at the same time? App...

1. They are long and usually consist of freestyle. 2. They fire us ladies up (a good hard swim and resultant adrenaline rush will do that) and the locker room is raucous after the workout. Today Rebecca told Lanshin, who is in her second trimester with boy*girl twins (yay Lanshin, more swimmers!), that her black spandex maternity pants would be much more classy if they were made out of velour and had "Hot Mama" printed in rhinestones across the butt. That's good locker talk. 3. They make for a fun game: seeing which lane mate will fight hardest to be last in line to capitalize on the draft. They also inspire discussions over whether the lane leader has counted correctly and over or undershot the 20 lap distance. Note to Lane two swimmers: my count is never off. Just follow me. 4. A group of them together (like today) makes for very little explanation time. Bad news: no chance to hear Tim's subtle sarcastic remarks. Good news: no chance for me to freeze up between swim...

These are my toes as they should be: bare and painted blue with double M's crafted out of rhinestones (for Menlo Masters of course). Notice there are no cleats in this picture. I will be hanging up my soccer cleats once again, after pulling both of my quad muscles after one full game (last week) and five minutes of a second game (yesterday). Let's just tally up the cost of those 95 soccer minutes, shall we? Team league fees: $80 New soccer cleats: $45 New shin guards: $15 New soccer shorts: $25 New soccer socks: $10 Double quad injury: Worthless And so of course, this morning's workout was kicking. Perfect. I only did part of it, so someone will have to fill in the rest: *500 free *3x100 free descending *2x50 fast free *4x50(repeat 4 times): first 50 kick underwater half length, then above water rest of 50 second 50 some sort of kick third 50 catchup fourth 50 fast free *** After this set I jumped in the warm pool and did the following on my own (I'm a rebel): *500 free...

We had a mini luau last night and this morning I spent an enjoyably hard set working off the meat stix my step-dad, Byron-the-Hawaiian, fired up. Breathing was difficult during the swim but it was worth it. This luau business started off as a request from my 4.5 year old but quickly became more significant than a an opportunity for me to eat Kalua Pig. A year ago last night Byron-the-Hawaiian went into the hospital with some unexplained malaise that had forced an extremely active guy nearly permanently into a BarcaLounger wrapped up in a blanket. After ten days in the hospital this malaise was recognized as Stage IV Large Cell B Lymphoma. The C word. And now, a year later, Byron is back on the barbee in perfect health. We are so lucky. So here's to health and hard sets: *600 free with 6 lengths of stroke done at any time ++ *100 easy free *100 IM *3x200 free descending (on 1:25 base for Lane 2) *50 fast free ~ *100 easy free *200 IM *3x150 free descending (on 1:25 base for Lane 2)...

Despite my constant urgings that swimming as a workout would eliminate the many injuries he suffers from basketball and soccer, my husband, whom I'll just call Superboy (because he's my personal hero in all things non-swimming), doesn't swim. Or he didn't, until yesterday. Last night I was just getting ready to go to bed when he said, "Do you have any extra goggles I can have?" I spun around in my chair and looked at him, mouth open. "Whatever for?" I asked. I've been arguing with him as if he were my child (something I've learned a lot about lately) about the benefits of swimming over injury prone sports, for years. "These things don't work," he said, handing me a pair of rubber foam goggles the likes of which I have not seen since sixth grade. "I could have told you that," I said. "But why do you need goggles?" "Got in the pool today," he said. "But these glasses things just kept filling wit...

I know it's going to be a good day when the morning opens with one of my muscled male teammates (fully clothed of course) opening his parka to me for warmth while listening to the warm up set. (Apparently he hadn't heard about this damning blog yet :). Things just got better (if that's possible) from there. The fact that the main set was done with paddles didn't lessen my excitement when I heard Tim say "Eight 300's." Whooohoooo! Freestyle junkie heaven. Little did I know this uber set would also be a chance for me to improve my swim-cabulary. After the first 300, Emmit (correct my spelling if need be) popped up during the rest period and said, "Okay. Someone buttered my buoy". Fabulous. I don't know if Emmit made this term up or if I've just been unfortunate enough thus far in my career not to hear it, but I love it. I immediately knew exactly what he meant. This whole buoy buttering is exactly why I never, ever, use a buoy. It drives me...

I'd be remiss if I didn't let my fellow swimmers know about a party that two of my favorite organizations (and me :) are throwing. In other words: FREE DRINKS. PARTY. READ ON. Check out Maya's Mom , a great social networking spot for parents that I'm addicted to (it's free), and MomsRising.org, a non-profit organization that is fighting across political party lines to create a more family-friendly America including quality childcare options. How does this relate to swimming? Well, if I didn't have good childcare I certainly couldn't swim. Okay, it's a stretch but I'll use it. On Tuesday March 20 at 7PM in Palo Alto some Maya's Mom folks and myself are throwing a party to screen the MomsRising movie, The Motherhood Manifesto. It's shortish and funny, and we'll be cocktailing throughout. All you need to do is sign up at Maya's Mom and RSVP to the blog invitation . I hope to see you there, and more importantly, I hope some of you are tu...

When the alarm went off this morning at 5:15 I could not motivate my sore muscles to move. After some aggressive bed stretching (okay nodding off), I managed to get up and get to the water by 6:15, just in time to jump into the main set, cold as ice. But no matter, because after this set was over, the fins came off and I got a lovely little boost in energy. David, a fellow Lane 2 swimmer, handed me his fins to put up on the deck because I was hanging on the wall and he was treading water. His fins safely on deck, I began to bend over to take off my own fins when David handed me something... more : a mass of soggy black spandex. He allowed me a good two seconds to think "JACKPOT" and begin to look down beneath the surface to see what he'd revealed before he said "Those are my socks." Ewwww. Talk about breaking the mood. But I refused to be broken immediately. I couldn't refrain from twirling the socks above my head and howling "Whooohoooo!" like a c...

This morning our backyard Magnolia tree is in spectacular bloom, and I'm nursing some seriously sore muscles after reviving myself from a 12 year soccer retirement. Swimming took over soccer long ago as the sport in my life, but yesterday I finally put those cleats back on and played a full game. 90 minutes has never felt so long. This morning swimming was my recovery. I love telling people I played soccer in college (it's a vanity/pride thing). When they probe further, I love telling them we were No. 2 in the nation and that I played against Brandi Chastain when she was at Santa Clara. This is all true. However, the more accurate claim would be that I rode the bench on a soccer team in college that was much too talented for me to find any game time, and that I watched Chastain work her magic from a few feet away (again, from the bench). Accurate, but not sexy. And still, it's the truth. I did get a few minutes of game time once, in-between injuries and breaks in my spiri...

Workout for Monday March 5, 2007 *7 x 100 with last 25 done as drill (fist or one arm) *3 rounds of 3 x 200 (first 200 moderate, second 200 moderate/hard, third 200 fast and broken for 5 seconds (first round broken 200 at the 25, second round at the 50, third round at the 100)) *200 done as 25 scull, 25 kick *200 distance per stroke *200 fast, match first and second 100 splits

No, this is not a Turkish men's sauna. This is our own "warm pool" (I don't care if it feels like a bath of urine, I like it) filled (okay sprinkled) with swimmers waiting to race. If only all swim meets, like the informal intramural one we had today, consisted mainly of a bunch of nice people luxuriating in 85 degree water, I believe I'd participate in more than one per year. Sure, I was able to clock a few substandard times in a couple of events, and I got a workout during the 6-7 timeframe, but today was much more rewarding than an average meet would be for me. Not only was the warm water a bonus, but this morning at the meet I actually met more of my teammates than I had in a few years. Usually at these things I spend my time shivering or swimming back and forth to avoid frostbite, but today I was able to engage in a conversation that was more than a brief wall chat like "Yah, you going? If not, let me. I'm freezing." It was actually fun. Honest...