Why Knot?

Seriously!  I have had the most painful knot in the side of my neck since Thursday night and my super long swim yesterday didn’t seem to help matters any!

I did not post at all last week due to work consuming pretty much every spare minute.  Other unnecessary drama included my car getting broken into-in my driveway.  I had a trial on Thursday and I didn’t have any days that I worked less than 10 hours last week, in fact two were 11 hour days!  Sheesh…no wonder I was tired!

My swims during the week were few and they were short.  I swam Tuesday (3200 yards) and Friday (3600 yards).  I did get my last long training swim in yesterday-which did get me meeting my weekly yardage goal.

Yesterday’s swim was from Woods Bay to Yellow Bay in Flathead Lake.  The map shows the distances between these two fishing access points to be roughly 11 miles, but given that it took me a little over 6.5 hours with my breaks I think the mileage actually swum had to be closer to 13-I really do.  But regardless, I would estimate yardage being between 21,000 and 24,000-but again its only an estimate-we didn’t have a GPS.  So my weekly total was between 28,000 and 31,000 yards)

A few things that didn’t go well yesterday. 

First, sunscreen.  I put on SPF 50, but it apparently washed off and the reapplication once wet may not be successful.  My face got pretty burnt.  Any sunscreen suggestions?

Second, nutrition error.  For Flathead Lake and for my other long training swims this year, my nutrition intake has been Cytomax at 30 minutes and food on the hour.  Those would be off of the “running total” clocks to ensure I was meeting my hourly caloric needs.  Yesterday my kayaker was keeping a watch of “swim time” stopping the watch while I was on “break” to eat.   At the time I didn’t see this as a big deal, however over the course of nearly 7 hours I had only met nutrition needs for 5 hours.  I was having some bicep cramps which is something that hasn’t happened before and by the time I got home I was just spent.

So with those two “tiny” errors I had a rather painful evening.  Although my shoulders felt great both last night and this morning, the knot in my neck did not!  I went to bed last night at about 6:30 and woke up in tears at 8:30 due to the pain from the knot.  I think what made this worse was that I was suffering from a mild case of heat exhaustion and the sunburn.  So I got up and drank a lot of water, put ice packs around my neck, took some ibuprofen and watched an hour of Grey’s Anatomy.  Feeling much better after that, I went back to sleep and didn’t wake up until 9 this morning (which is sleeping in for me!).

I’m feeling better today morning, but the knot is still tender…looking forward to my massage this week!  I’m glad to have learned these little lessons on a training swim rather than the real thing.  My taper starts today, so resting up is on the agenda for the next 10 days!

I should end with some positives, as despite those two errors, it was a good swim.  I used my brand new Blueseventy wetsuit, which felt great!  It was a beautiful day on the lake and I feel grateful that my friend Blane was willing to give up the better part of his Saturday to kayak alongside me [Erika-he had no problems keeping up and was a little less whiney than you, but he did not take any photos or video; you are better at multitasking- : )].  Boat traffic was not a problem.  Had a nice wind going with me for most of the swim-which created some waves, but “helpful” ones.  With the exception of the bicep cramping (which I think can be credited due to not enough fluids), I didn’t have any other issues during the swim that would make me question my ability to go further.  None of the items that I did consume (Cytomax, graham crackers, poptart, pb sandwich, animal crackers, licorice) caused me any stomach issues-which is a positive.

Last night I got about 13 hours of sleep and after waking up this morning and going to breakfast at IHOP…I took a 2 hour nap.  Taper week off to a good start I’d say!

I’ll be better about posting this week!

~Emily