Out in the water

Hi there,
Today was my first swimming event and overall it was a good experience. It was a two mile swim out in a lake, my time was a little more than an hour, not sure exactly how long, the results haven't been posted yet. The water was very dark and murky, it was impossible to see a thing. The weather was pretty chilly out there, it was 57 degrees when the race started, but the water felt warm. It was very cloudy too. When the race started I felt OK because I could see people swimming around me, but as we got further out people started spreading out more and more, it was like I was there all by myself, it was a little scary. I had to break my stroke and look up out of the water every so often to make sure I wasn't way off course. The venue was pretty small, it will be exiting to do larger swimming events. I think Dave had a good time too. Everywhere we go he meets somebody new. He met the race director, the guy is interested in doing a military triathlon competition with all of the different branches of the military. He gave Dave his card so I am sure he will try to rally some people up to do that event. The next swimming event I want to do is called the La Jolla Rough Water Swim which is 3 miles. It is one of the top ten open water swims in the world. And the swim out to Alcatraz, that one is 1.5 miles, but the water is cold and very rough.
It is just three weeks away from my competition, not nervous yet. The nervousness will probably set in the night before the competition. I think it will be a lot of fun. My next competition after this one will be sometime in November. I want to do another one before the holidays so I don't have to skip any of the good holiday meals.
Well that is all for this week.
Good night

Disapointments and Surprises

Hi Everyone,
I know it has been a long time, but it has been a couple weeks full of disappointments and pleasant surprises. As you all know I have been trying to get into the Navy Reserves. It has been two months of waiting, waiting, checking in with the recruiter and waiting, then one day last weekend I heard some upsetting news. A friend of mine who is also thinking about the reserves tells me there are no more open spots for corpsman in the reserves. The next day I marched over to the recruiters office to see if it was true. Sure enough, all of the spots filled up in June and nobody bothered to tell me, I was so upset. Fed up with this bull crap I decided to throw in the towel. The next day I put in a call to see the Air Force Reserve recruiter. Yesterday I made the drive to Stockton and spoke with her. The visit went great and in a couple weeks she will let me know if I can get seen at MEPS for a physical. I have a really good feeling about this one, hopefully it works out. They say everything happens for a reason.
The other good news is Shannon is going to me my trainer full time, woohoo. She is taking over the personal training at NAS Lemoore. If anyone in Lemoore is looking for a personal trainer, Shannon is the best.
It will be another busy week. I have my swimming race this Saturday. I am feeling nervous about it because I have been pretty tired lately, probably because of my low carb diet. Usually during cardio events I would not be eating a low carb diet, but I have to because my competition is in just three weeks. I am not allowed to eat dairy, protien shakes, no carbs in the evening, no more than 100 grams of carbs, so it is pretty strict. Let's see how crabby I get my next week.

The Double D

Hi everyone,
This week was a special week. It was my husband's birthday. He had a very good birthday dinner. I created a sandwich that I decided to name after him, the Double D (one of his nicknames). It is a hamburger stuffed with three different cheeses and instead of using a bun the burger is put between two grilled cheese sandwiches. For dessert he got homemade cheesecake. My calorie estimate for that meal is probably around 3,000.
My diet was changed up this week. My diet cannot have more than 100 grams of carbs each day. That is harder than it sounds because everything has carbs in it, not just breads, pasta, rice etc. Even my protein powder has 5 grams of carbs a serving, an apple has 17 grams, so it adds up very fast. My competition is in five weeks so it will not be that bad. The news that I did not like was my trainer telling me that I cannot swim again until the competition is over. I agreed not to, but I am going to anyways, at least twice a week. I have a swim race at the end of July and I have to keep up my swimming. Following the rules is not a problem for me, but she is not going to take away my swimming. That is really the only place where I feel very athletic. I am not a fast swimmer, but I have good endurance. I could swim laps for hours and that makes me feel good.
My trainer is out of town for a couple of weeks so she brought in a replacement to train me while she is gone. Her name is Shannon and she is awesome, I wish she would stay and be my permanent trainer. I really like my trainer, but she is into tough love training and that is annoying to me. I don't like to be belittled to get motivated in the gym. I do just as good if I am talked to as an equal, that is just her style I guess. Only five more weeks, I hope I have fun. If it's fun then it is all worth it.