I can't just sit around

Everyone who knows me knows that I am a pretty active person and while I have my lazy tendencies, I can't just sit around and do nothing. So it shouldn't come as any shock that I hate laying in bed right now not doing anything. I'm pretty sure I have the flu but that didn't stop me from putting in 45 minutes on the bike last night or hitting the pool this morning. (Perhaps that should have stopped me because the small child that was sitting on my chest last night has morphed into a rather large elephant and I sound like I picked up a pack a day habit.) But, I will take this opportunity to do a little updating.

I went back to the pool today after taking about a three week holiday break. I swim with the Chicago Masters Swim Club at the University of Illinois at Chicago. My friend Melissa convinced me to join with her last year because she wanted to get back into swimming. She has since left me (COME BACK MELISSA!!!!!!) and on any given day, I am one of only a handful of women. Today we had five women and I think that is a record! I also am the youngest one there by at least ten years. But I still really enjoy it. It's a good group of men that I swim with. I've moved up to swimming on the fastest intervals but I still routinely get my ass kicked by men in their 60's. I hope that when I am that age, I am still that active and in such awesome shape. I try to swim on Tuesdays and Thursdays. As my training program progresses, I will add on one more day a week. They are all incredibly supportive and I can't think of a better group to train with through this process.

Today's practice was a little rough on me not only because I was sick but because I hadn't been in the water in a while. I actually got there early today too to get in additional warm up. The running joke is that even though I may get there at 5:40, I won't get in the water until "official" practice starts at 6. Today I shocked them all and was in the water by quarter till. Put in an easy 500 meters before we got going. Our warm up set was pretty good too...1200 meters. I made the intervals and it was a nice stretch out swim. Then Andy (our coach) decided he hated us today. The theme for the day was a broken 600 followed by a 50 sprint...3 times through. The first and third time through included a 400 IM. There are few things I loathe more than 400 IMs. But, I can't complain too much because I only made it through the first round before I absolutely couldn't breathe. So I did only 800 of the 1950 meter main set before I quit for the day. So I put in 2500 meters while sick...all in all, not too bad.

I made it in to the office this morning but as the minutes passed, I kept feeling crappier and crappier. So by 9:00, I had to leave and came home back to bed. Theraflu and Mucinex are pretty great though and I feel ok until they wear off. Let's just hope I can kick this quick and be back in the pool Thursday morning.