Swimming Hard and the Wii Tournament

By the end of last week I was pretty whipped. Between the energy-draining office heat, computer-toting treks to the coffeehouse and long nights working on personal and academic projects, I pretty spent no matter how many Greens Plus chocolate energy bars I ate.

Thursday, however, was a pleasant day for a swim. I’ve mentioned before that I’m in the world’s top three biggest wimps when it comes to jumping in the pool. I go through a painful process of toe-dabbling, self-splashing and slow-lowering to get into the pool when I know very well that it’s far less painful to jump just right in. In fact, when I swim with Melissa, I’m so jealous of her ability to just hop in with abandon as it takes me five minutes to get settled.

And it doesn’t help that the water was perfectly freezing for the pretty hot Thursday. As per usual, I went into the water thinking I would only swim 500 yards before sputtering out. Lucky for me, however, I start to really like swimming again (I tend to sway between like and dislike with most things that require a warm-up period) after about 200 yards.

Thursday’s swim was 1,400 yards, including:

• 500 yards free
• 300 yards one-arm butterfly
• 600 yards IM

The IM was by far most challenging because my left knee doesn’t dig breaststroke kick anymore. So, I’ve taken to swimming breaststroke with aggressive arms and a butterfly kick. The motion doesn’t really lend itself to butterfly kick, so it’s an intense arm and shoulder workout that I can still feel a bit when I roll my shoulders. I’ll have to work that into my regiment a little more—without hurting myself, of course.

By Friday I was pretty whipped. I skipped lunch to work on my personal Web site and read for my thesis work at Susan’s, and then came home with the intent to run after Neil and I hit Mariachi’s for some Mexican food. We walked to Rico Latte, where I had one of the better chilled chai drinks yet and we settled in to hang out for a bit. But before long, we became victims of the Wii.

Have you played with a Wii? I hadn’t even seen a Wii before Friday, but it was fascinating. Our Super Nintendo-grade gaming knowledge made for a struggle to get things rolling, but as genuine computer geeks, Neil and I were able to get the Rico Latte Wii tournament rolling.

Neil kicked my butt in a fairly intense game of tennis (I only smacked a nearby table 3-4 times with the controller); let’s just say I rocked the golf course and the bowling alley (I think my golf score was +4 and his was +24); but then we really beat me up in the boxing ring. Apparently I’m not so good with my fists despite all my claims to the contrary.

We must have played for over an hour, and were pretty winded by the time more people filtered into the coffeehouse. It’s good to know that kids are finally being encourages to get up and play games.

It ended up being a late night, so I got off to a bit of a late start on Saturday. I walked my brisk 2-mile warm up and then ran at a healthy 9:00/mile pace for a measly 2.75 miles for a total of 4.75 miles and a 12:00/mile overall pace. It had started getting muggy, and I had promised myself I would go for a longer run in the evening. Which I didn’t.

Sunday was kind of a bust on the running front as well (if it’s any consolation to my guilt, it was a rather yoga-full weekend). I have a 4-mile race on Saturday, so I have to get back on track this week and hope that my sciatic doesn’t have the nerve to bug me again (insert courteous laugh here).