Letting some things go

Well, the price we pay for a three day weekend is a Tuesday that feels like a Monday.  I don’t know about yours, but mine felt rushed…all.day.long!  And it just felt like “one of those days.”  I felt “blah” all day.  No particular reason, just feeling “blah.”

I had another no swim day.  But I again did my stretch cords and 45 minutes of abs.  45 minutes of abs may sound like a lot…but it went by REALLY fast-mostly because I was laughing so hard 90% of the time.  I think I have the funniest dog on the planet (either that or I am the most easily amused person on the planet).  While I am doing abs on the living room floor, Dixie-pup first kept bringing her tennis ball over and dropping it on various parts of me-on my stomach when I was doing bridges, on my feet when I was doing flutter kicks.  Then when I was doing v-ups (when you lift your arms and feet at the same time making a “v” shape) she kept walking over my arms and feet (in a circle) like she was trying to dodge the rise and fall of my limbs.  Then, and this was one of the funniest things, she kept standing on my pant leg when I was doing leg raises, as if to say “okay that’s enough of that PLAY with me now!”  So needless to say, I am fairly certain my ab workout had double the effect with all the laughing I was doing.  As is usually the case..that silly dog pulled me out of my “blah” mood.

Today I am also dealing with a realization I have to accept every now and then….that I can’t do EVERYTHING I want to.  This has been an ongoing issue with me since I was about 10.  And for most of high school and college I adapted to my desire to do everything by becoming an exceptional multi-tasker and very good at time management.  However, every now and then, I have to let something go.  This year I had some pretty ambitious goals athletically; including 1) complete my first marathon, 2) complete my first half ironman, 3) compete in three smaller triathlons, and 4) become the first person to swim lake Chelan.  Well, I can cross the marathon off the list, and obviously I’m working towards the Lake.  But I am afraid some of the smaller triathlons are going to get ex’d off the list.  I was planning on competing in one of my favorite races back in Washington next weekend (an Olympic distance triathlon in Moses Lake)…but I just have NOT gotten enough time in on the bike.  So I think I have decided that I will still go to Washington that weekend, but I won’t compete in the race, instead, I will go up to Lake Chelan and do some swim research.  I’m still going to keep the other two smaller triathlons and the ½ ironman on the calendar and we’ll see how that goes.

So I will leave you all with a task…please figure out a way to add about 4 extra hours to each day (without cutting into my sleep time)…and get back to me on that!  : )

Good night!

~Em

Ready for an EASY week!

Oh what a lazy day!  The only thing really productive that I did was mow my lawn (but only the front part) and go grocery shopping.  I am so happy it’s a recovery week!  Today my workout was simply stretch cords (internal and external shoulder rotations for injury prevention) and a nice 30-minute ab workout.  I played a little “chuck it” with Dixie-pup and spent most of the rest of the day just lounging around.

So…my three day weekend was not super monumental, however I did get my house clean and I got caught up on sleep.  I think that a pretty close second to swimming on my list of favorite things to do is sleeping.  I am an 8 hour a night sleeper….but this weekend, after three weeks of fairly hard workouts I got three nights of ten plus hours of sleep.  In my experience adequate sleep is very important in regards to athletic performance.

Since I have less workouts to get in this week….I am going to try and get a hold of a few more people I’d like to be on my support crew (I have a list of my support crew “Dream Team” but I haven’t had a chance to talk to each of them yet).  The people on my boat crew are going to need to fit into one of three categories 1) super motivating, 2) able to hop in and swim with me and/or 3) have the ability to drive the boat or administer first aid if necessary.  A few people I intend on asking will fit the “tri-fecta” of crew members and fit all of those criteria, but I hope to have a good mix of the above characteristics of folks aboard my support boat.   I also still need to get a boat (or two) secured for the dates of the swim.  Ideally, I will have two boats and my crew will be on shifts.  I would like a crew of between 8 and 12 rotating through what I estimate will be an approximately 26-28 hour swim.  Next week I will have my first of several test sets to estimate where I am with my training and how much faster I need to get to hit my goal pace for the swim.  My test sets will be hour long continuous swims seeing how much yardage I can get in during that period.  My goal in August will be 2.5 miles an hour which would mean a little over 4,000 yards in an hour.  I don’t think I am quite there yet, but I think it is surely attainable.

The other thing I need to do this week is make the arrangements for receiving donations.  Last year most o the donations came in after the swim and I had several friends helping me track those and deal with deposits (of which there were quite a few).  I also made a point last year to send thank you postcards to everyone who had a return address on their letters/donations.  I intend to do the same this year as well…so if you send me a letter, you will get a response from me!

Well, I’m going to go and get some reading in before bed…I am currently reading the book “Endurance” by Alfred Lansing.  My friend Blane recommended this book to me and it is about Ernest Shackleton who in 1914 embarked on an expedition attempting to cross on foot the last uncharted continent (Antarctica)…I’m only a few chapters into the book so far….but I can tell you right now that what Mr. Shackleton attempted was MUCH crazier than trying to swim a 55-mile lake…I’m just saying.

Anyway…have a great evening!

~Emily 

First Outside Swim of the Year!

Yay! Today I was finally able to get an outside swim in! I knew it wouldn’t be a long swim, so I did swim inside about 3,000 yards before heading to Foys Lake with my friend Katie and our labs (who LOVE swimming). When I first took off to swim, both dogs abandoned their toys and swam after me like “where are you going?” Katie had to hold them until I was far enough away that they couldn’t see me.



I swam about 1000 yards-it was pretty cold-probably in the 60s, but I had my neoprene shirt on under my sleeveless wetsuit. It was kind of constricting, but I was pretty warm. I also had a neoprene cap on, but it has this goofy chinstrap that drives me nuts…so I kind of tucked that to the back of the cap so I didn’t a) look ridiculous or b) feel like I was choking!

I LOVED being out in the middle of the lake. There were a few fishermen out but other than that I had the entire lake to myself. About when I was out in the middle, the sun cleared from the clouds which was pretty cool.

Then I swam back to shore and played a little “fetch race” with the labs. Katie throws their toy in the water and I try and race them out to it…they are getting better at the game. Below is a photo of our “team effort” to bring the toy back in!

So I am happy to report that I got in 25,000 yards this week and I am about to begin a MUCH deserved recovery week. During my recovery week I will cut down the yardage significantly and will shift focus to an abundance of core exercises and injury prevention stretch cord exercises---oh and my massage!

And I just got home from Fro Yo…and they had Peanut Butter-my FAVORITE! All in all-a good day! Hope yours was too!

~Emily

Rainy days are great for long swims!

Yaaaaaawwwwwnnnn! I am sleepy! It was a VERY productive Saturday for me. I took yesterday off, which I hadn’t planned on doing. But when I woke up Friday morning, my hip-flexor was SO tight that I thought I should take a rest day (I think this was due to my bike workout yesterday that was little more than a footnote in my workout summary, however apparently was a little tougher than I thought). I don’t think the tightness of my hip-flexor was alleviated at all by the fact that I had to wear heels all day Friday. Despite what the makers of the Barbie doll would have us all believe, wearing high heels is not natural and probably not good to do daily (even if heels do make our calves look nice).

But regardless, after resting Friday and getting to sleep in this morning, my hip-flexor felt much better. It was raining pretty much all day today, but it did force me to get some things done like getting my studded tires off my car (well actually the guys at Les Schwab did that). Then I went to Home Depot and creatively constructed a pole for my underwater camera (for my stroke clinic next week) – which cost me less than $10 to do myself when essentially the same set up online runs for like $80! I was quite impressed with myself!

Then I went to the bookstore and got a few new books. I love reading right before I go to sleep because it helps me feel tired, although most times I end up staying up later because I get totally engrossed in a book. I have recently discovered the author Nathaniel Philbrick, who writes really great historical accounts.

At around 3pm, I finally made it to the pool for my workout. Today was a BIG yardage day…that I kept pushing later and later into the day. I ended up doing 8,000 yards today! The last 2000 was a little rough, but I finished the whole workout in under two and a half hours, which I was pretty happy about. I have one more day of “hard week” workouts to get through and then I get a much needed recovery week. And with recovery week means a massage! I had to switch my massage therapist because the lady I was going to in Whitefish moved to CA…so this next appointment is with a new guy, but supposedly he is really good for deep tissue (and actually cheaper than the other one I was going to!).

After my workout I spent the rest of the evening curled up on the couch with my puppy and my new book. A nice cozy way to end this rainy Saturday!

I hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend-I’m off to bed nice and early!


~Emily

Fishing in the dark?

So a lot of people ask me what I think about when I swim, particularly when I am swimming for LONG LONG distances. Most people imagine swimming that long and assume it would be boring, just staring at a black line for hours on end. It’s hard to explain to a non-swimmer, but after a while you don’t really notice the line. So most of the time there is like a CNN ticker going on in the background of my thoughts with my lap count, but then my mind just wanders while I swim. It’s the one time during the day when my thoughts are not interrupted my phone calls, emails or people in general. Swimming is my thinking time. Swimming is my therapy, how I work through things.

Today I swam 3,000 yards (I had done an hour of biking before swimming) and most of my swim I was thinking about what a stupid rule it is that you have to shower before entering the pool. Before I got in I was told (“lectured”) about how I need to be setting an example and showering before getting in the pool. Now, my dad has always called me stubborn (but on a side note there I bet EVERY long distance athlete has been called stubborn at least once or twice)….but I just couldn’t let it go while I swam. I mean seriously, just the sheer amount of time I spend in chlorine…I am probably the cleanest person that uses that pool. I would also argue that the showering that they require at pools really doesn’t make that much of a difference to the cleanliness level of the pool, proper pool maintenance and monitoring of chlorine levels does that. So…most of my swim today I was trying to come up with a constitutional argument as to why I should not be required to shower before swimming.

Then my thoughts tonight wandered to how nice it would be to have dinner cooked for me when I get home from practice. Then I reminded myself that I live with a dog and a cat, that thus far have not demonstrated the ability to cook. So I decided that a guy that cooks is the top qualification on my ideal boyfriend traits. : ) While swimming I also decided that another particularly good trait for my ideal boyfriend at this time would be one that enjoys fishing in the dark….mostly because I need to do some swimming in the dark and if I had a boyfriend who enjoyed fishing in the dark it would be a good match cause I’d have a spotter and he could catch fish….I suppose he could also enjoy kayaking in the dark…but there isn’t a catchy song with that title…so we’ll go with fishing in the dark. Then my reoccurring knot under my shoulder blade presented itself again and I added a third trait for my ideal boyfriend as one that gives good back massages. So there you have it…I am now accepting applications based upon those three standards (in addition to the normal things like no criminal record, not being psychotic, and a minimal amount of baggage).

So that, my friends, is an example of what I think about when I swim. My most productive practices are those where I am slightly irritated about something because I usually swim harder to take out frustration and the workout goes by faster because I am focused on the irritation.

In other news…and speaking of news. KAJ will be doing a follow up story on me next weekend. They did a wonderful job covering my swim of Flathead Lake last year and I also spoke with them about possibly sending their finished story to their affiliate stations in Washington to start the buzz about Lake Chelan over there.

Okay well-I’m tired…but remember send any guys who enjoy fishing in the dark my way! ; )

Goodnight!

~Emily

A little bit stronger...

Each practice I am feeling it…my body is gearing up for an intense summer of training, but I’m not dreading it, I can’t wait for it. When I am away from the pool, the effects of my last practice are usually with me. I’m sore. I’m tired. I’m hungry (all the time). But as soon as I jump in the pool all those things melt away. With each stroke I take I am closer to August 31st and I can feel myself getting stronger. I can feel all the strength training work I put in during the winter months on the VASA trainer.

The title of this blog is a line from one of my favorite songs right now. Sara Evans, “A little bit Stronger.” When it first came out I played it on repeat over and over and over and over. Most of the time in the car, with the radio turned up a little too loud as I belted out the song with Sara. Well….this has apparently affected my dog. She now sings to this, and only this song. I have to share the video…she fights it a little at first….but then she is just howling right along. :)



Anyhow…I appear to have at least a tiny following of readers at this point. So I am sure a few of you noticed I didn’t write yesterday….it was an unplanned day off. Every now and then I take them. I believe flexibility in training is VERY important, especially when trying to accomplish a long distance goal. So yesterday my body told me I needed a day off…and I listened.

Today I worked my normal 8-5, but we had quite a few people gone from the office today for vacations/illness…so being a little short staffed I felt like I was in Court all day covering stuff. The upside to this was that I was not forced to sit behind my desk in my windowless office all day-which is VERY hard to do when I am training hard as I fight the urge all day long to curl up under my desk and take a nap… :)

So after work, I coached my triathlon class until 7:30…then I finally got to my workout. Today I was supposed to do 5,000 yards, but I cut it down by 1,000 because by 9:00 pm I was starving. So now, as I have rambled on its ten and time for bed…goodnight!

~Em

Ouch!

I am pretty sore today...yesterday's 6,000 yard workout didn't appear to even phase me at all yesterday, but when I attempted to get up this morning for my morning swim, I was SOOOOOOOOOOOO tired and my shoulders were very sore. Since I didn't want to be Ms. Grouchy-Pants at work today, I allowed myself the extra 2.5 hours of sleep and didn't swim this morning. Which meant I had to get my workout in after work.

I was still feeling pretty sore after work, but I made myself go to the pool. I got through another 6,000 yard practice, but it didn't go by nearly as fast as yesterday's seemed to go. The pool was semi-busy for a stretch in the middle of the workout, but luckily that was the portion of the workout that had butterfly in it, and that scared other lap swimmers away from getting in my lane. :) I'm kind of a lane princess...I don't enjoy sharing my lane...particularly with people who cannot stay on their own side.

One of my co-workers told me today that a neighbor of hers is willing to let me come out to her lake house on Lake Blaine to do some lake swims and the two of them would spot for me! I can't wait to start outdoor swimming again!

Well everyone, have a good night!

~Emily

Weekly total: 21,400 yards

What a nice weekend! I took Saturday off from working out (since I gave blood Friday) and it was a pretty lazy day for the most part. I did get a fair amount of cleaning done at home. I also attended Kupcakes for Kancer-the silent auction fundraiser for Katelyn. I was able to meet little Katelyn (and most all of her family). She is adorable. When on stage with the announcers at the auction she kept thanking people for coming to "her party." There were so many people that came out to support the family, it was really heart warming and moving how caring the community here in the Flathead Valley is.

One of the things I purchased at the Auction was a book called "Gloria's Miracle." It is about a little girls' battle with cancer and it is written by a writer at the Seattle Times who followed that family's story in 2007. It was a really good book (yes, I just bought it yesterday and I already finished it...I couldn't put it down).

After my reading time this morning, I went to the Summit and completed a 6,000 yard workout! It was a tough one, but it went by really quickly. And to reward myself afterwards I got a Wheat Montana giant cinnamon roll! I LOVE Wheat Montana!

I also started my letter writing for sponsorship for the swim. Oh-and yesterday I confirmed my the first member of my crew: Kim Olson! She was my very first swim coach and she really shaped me as an athlete. I am so exited she will be on my support boat during the swim!

Weekly yardage total was 21,400 yards! Anyway, 4:30 am is going to come really quickly if I don't get to bed soon! Good night!

~Emily

Early to rise

So this post is a day late...but that's because I was exhausted yesterday due to the fact that I FINALLY got up when the 4:30 alarm went off rather than hitting snooze for two hours! I made it to the pool and swam 4,000 yards before 6:30 am! There were very few people at the pool and the workout went by very quickly.

Then at lunchtime, I went and donated blood for the Redcross blood drive. That donation was my 11th donation since 2008 when I began donating (at the encouragement of my friend Julie). I think blood donation is such a great way to help others-they say each blood donation saves three lives, plus you get free juice and cookies afterwards! So donate blood (if you can). :)

I took Friday night off from working out (due to the blood donation) and was actually social for the first time in a while and went to a friend's BBQ.

I think I am going to take today off, as I am feeling a quart low after the blood donation and I worked really hard this week! I think tomorrow I may try my first outside swim of the year.

Enjoy the weekend!

~Emily

Did you earn your Friday?

Sometimes when a week seems to be going by SOOOOOOOO slow and Thursday finally roles around and I feel too tired to do anything...I remind myself that I have to earn my Friday. Well, today I surely earned my Friday! :)

I've been feeling a little guilty lately about not spending enough time with my puppy dog Dixie. During my marathon training earlier this year, my workouts were obviously heavily focused on running and little miss Dixie accompanied me on all of my training runs, which meant a lot of quality puppy time! Since I have started switching my focus back to swimming (and giving my poor legs a break from the marathon) Dixie hasn't gotten to participate in my training as much. Although Dixie loves to swim, she clearly cannot come to any indoor pools with me. But today, I decided to squeeze in a run with Dixie during my lunch break (which she LOVED).

I did have to return to the office after the lunch run and after I was done with my 8-5, I took my tri-group on the first Brick workout of the year (brick workouts are combining running and biking to get used to the feeling of running right after biking during a triathlon). Our practice finished up at about 7:30 and by the time I biked home it was about 8:00.

Once I got home, I did a short VASA workout (that my arms are still burning from!) and then I had a delicious dinner!

I'm pretty tired now...but I'd say I totally earned my Friday! :)

~Emily

Late night at the pool

Tonight I coached my tri-group's swim practice and then I got my swim in...which resulted in me not leaving the pool until after 9. I like the athletes in the tri class-they are hard workers who don't complain and have a sense of humor even during hard practices. During today's practice, as I was trying to encourage them through a particularly hard portion of practice I said, "My practices have never made any of my athletes throw up..." and the reply I got was "I find that hard to believe." :) I write tough practices...

So once I was done coaching and finished with the chit-chat that always occurs after practice, the pool was all mine. Not many people swim at the Summit late...in fact I think it is the ONLY time the pool is not crowded. I love having the pool to myself.

My practice tonight consisted of a nice stretched out 1,000 yard warm up, followed by a set of 9 x 200 (IM, swim, pull) and then a short cool down. Total was a nice 3,000 yards. I'm feeling really good in the water. I expected a little bit more protest from my body during this week of getting back in the habit of more consistent swiming, however my body has done the opposite of protest. I feel smooth and relaxed in the water, falling into a good pattern. I credit some of that to the fact that during the "off-season" I purchased a VASA trainer and I have been doing quite a bit of swim specific stretngth training.

The only thing I am having a little trouble with is how late it is before I am able to eat dinner. Getting my swim workouts done in the morning would really help out in that respect...but I really do enjoy sleeping in.... : )

Have a good night everyone!

~Emily

No Permit required!

So everything's a go as far as permission to swim Lake Chelan! I sent an email to Washington Parks and Recreation and recieved the following response:

Good morning Ms. von Jentzen,

I just spoke with the park manager at Lake Chelan State Park. He says there are no permits necessary for State Parks, but if you get the chance to stop by the park, he would like to meet you and shake your hand.

YAY! One obstacle out of the way!

Today I was reminded of the importance of flexibility in training. Today was supposed to be a run day, not a swim day, but I had a stressful afternoon/evening which made it necessary for me to switch today to a swim day. I went to the pool and began my 3,000 yard workout, when halfway through I was notified by a guard that the lap lanes were going to be occupied by lessons for the next halfhour. I hadn't yet blown off enough steam to have my workout be over, so I moved over to the open swim side of the pool and switched the next two sets to kick sets and for a 1/2 an hour dodged children playing marco polo, and other open swim obstacles. It reminded me of a period of time in college when I swam during open swim (I can't remember why, it may have been I had a class that conflicted with afternoon practices or something)-that period of time really taught me great focus while swimming, I'm pretty sure there could be an earthquake occuring around me and I could remain focused on my practice. :)

So with my 3,000 yards of venting frustration in the pool completed, time for a late dinner and bed!

~Emily

Was not a morning person today...

So my alarm went off at 4:30 this morning and I re-set it until 6:45 (pretty much the latest I can sleep in and still make it to work on time!) Ughhh....the goal of getting in morning swims this week is not off to a great start.

Since I was too lazy to get to the pool this morning, I went after work. It was bit crowded when I got there, but it cleared out within 20 minutes. I got a nice 5,000 yard workout in, and it felt pretty good. I am trying to really focus on my technique and just having nice stretched out swims for the next few weeks while I ramp up the yardage.

I've started making some logistical decisions regarding the swim...and I have decided that I want to start the swim on August 31 in the afternoon, get the nightime swimming hammered out before I am to fatigued which would put be finishing sometime in the afternoon on September 1st. I kind of like the idea of starting in August and finishing in September. I emailed the State Park today to verify that I do not need a permit. I've also started approaching people about being on my support crew boat. Within the next week I also hope to start getting sponsorship requests out for things like a pontoon boat, a GPS, etc.

I'm getting pretty excited about planning all of this, as I feel like I am going into this with a boatload (pun intended) of knowledge that I didn't have last year. I learned a lot from Flathead Lake and I think I will be much better prepared this time around.

Anyway, I'm really tired and ready for bed!

~Emily

Why did I spell lakke with two k's?

Another year, another lake. As most of you know, last summer I became the first woman to swim Flathead Lake and I did the swim as a fundraiser for Karmyn Flanagan. Although I have always been very into fundraising, last year's swim was the biggest fundraising effort I have embarked on. Last year I was able to raise over $9,000 for Karmyn and her family. I am happy to report that Karmyn is doing well and I still keep in touch with her family.

This year I will be raising money for Katelyn Roker, whose nickname is KK (that's why I am spelling Lakke with two k's). Here is a little bit about Katelyn from a facebook page promoting a fundraiser for her:

In January 2010, 4 year old Katelyn Roker was diagnosed with Stage 4, High Risk, Neuroblastoma, cancer of the nervous system. She recently finished 16 months of intense treatment. Last October, there was No Evidence of Disease, and the family was elated. Unfortunately, in April 2011, after a series of scans and tests, the family was devestated to learn that she has relapsed and the cancer has once again returned. She now has 4 tumors, and cancer in her bone marrow. Because she relapsed so quickly, her chances to beat this disease have decreased from 50% to 10%. With continued support, hope, and prayers, the family is exploring their options, which could include travel to a Neuroblastoma specialist team at Memorial Sloan Kettering Hospital in New York City.

My swim that I will be attempting this year is a 55-mile swim of Lake Chelan in WA. I plan to complete the swim the last week of August, which gives me 15 weeks. I anticipate this swim will likely take me at least 24 hours to complete.

I took a nice extended off season following my swim last summer, and took additional time off from significant swim training by training for and completing the Nashville Marathon at the end of April. With my training having shifted from swimming to running for a few months, I am now eager to get back to long distance swim training. The sun was out and it was warm for the entire weekend (which was a first for the year in the Flathead Valley), so I anticipate the first lake practice of the year to be right around the corner.

Last week, I began easing back into a swim routine. I only swam three times, and the most I swam during any of those practices was 4,000 yards. I did some running and biking cross training in addition to a few VASA workouts. My goal this next week is to get my bootie out of bed for morning swims. I am now training at the Summit which is like 5 minutes away from my house, so as long as I can drag myself out of bed...there are no excuses about having to drive too far to swim! I could use a morning swimming buddy, so if you workout at the Summit and want to swim in the mornings...get in touch with me.

~Emily