The Smell of Accomplishment

Thanks again to all of you who are reading and following my blog. I'm really honored. I'm writing this blog with rubbery, shaky arms today. If you remember from the last time I wrote, my goal was to run three days this week and swim two days. Well, I did it! (training log here if you care) But boy am I tired today. I just finished swimming and I struggled. Big time. The struggle possibly came from working out five days this week and/or too many glasses of wine last night (and possibly the dirty martini). I also think I struggled because I did my laps in the deep end for the first time. I always swim in the lanes where I can touch and somehow that's easier, even though I really never touch down while doing the laps. Knowing I can though is a mental thing, I guess.  Swimming in the deep end adds another layer of not only exertion (I firmly believe it is physically harder to swim in the deep end) but also a layer of stress. When you're already struggling to swim well and you look down and the bottom is so far, far away a type of panic sets in and makes it much harder to swim. I did it though, and in style - I finally bought a swim cap! A hot pink one, in fact. As if I weren't already a spectacle. My dear, sweet husband told me that the swim cap will help my speed because it cuts down on the resistance. Yeah, that's my problem. My hair is slowing me way, way down. He's so cute.

One of my favorite things about swimming is the smell of chlorine. I know a lot of people don't like it, but I love that smell. I love driving home after a swim and the whole car smells like chlorine and when I get in the next time, I can still smell it faintly. I have this crazy theory...I have really bad eyesight and have since I was a little kid. So my theory is that all of my other senses are really acute because they are making up for my bad eyesight. Even though I wear contacts and glasses, I'm still always aware that if something happened to them, I would be seriously screwed because I can't see. So, because of that, I have extremely keen senses of smell and hearing. Crazy theory but I believe it. We all associate smells with feelings and memories. I smell onions cooking in butter and I'm right back in my childhood kitchen with my mom cooking. I can smell Spring coming on the first warm day. I can smell rain before it pours. And the smell of chlorine is equated in my mind as the sweet smell of accomplishment. The first thing I did to train for this triathlon was to start swimming again and that smell of chlorine is a reminder that you just have to start with one toe in the water and the next thing you know, you're swimming 700 meters. Maybe not a huge accomplishment to some people, but the Rocky theme is playing in my head.

It's hard not to worry about people judging you, though. I had a bad experience at a super-mega-sports store over the weekend. I went in looking for body glide and to see if there were any workout clothes on clearance because people are going to start handing me change pretty soon if I keep going out in the "workout" clothes I wear right now. The sales associate wouldn't ask me if I needed anything, even though she looked me dead in the eye as I was clearly looking around for the body glide that I couldn't manage to locate. In case you don't know, Body Glide is a magic potion that looks like deodorant that you put on places that chafe easily while working out to stop that from happening. I won't describe those places as I'm sure you can imagine. Anyway, once I finally asked her where the body glide was, she walked me over to the men's section and showed me the body glide for men. She then looked at me skeptically and told me in a doubtful tone that they also had body glide for woman if I was looking for me, which she surely believed wasn't the case. I wanted to snarkily tell her that I really needed that body glide this morning when I ran 3.13 miles but instead, I nodded and said, yes, it's for me and was feeling really shitty that I let this super-mega-sports store sales associate make me feel like I was in the wrong place. I'll mentally flip her off when I finish the triathlon on June 12.

So, on a positive note, my goal is to do the same workout this week: 3 days running, 2 days swimming and if it gets nice out and I can fit in a bike ride, I'll do that too, and I won't forget the body glide.

Have a great week!