Week 9: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 12
Total Swim: 7
Total Tennis: 5

I'm wrapping up a week ahead of schedule on my self-imposed exercise routine. I'm going to be too busy to work out next week. Overall, I'm feeling pretty good. I'm definitely in better shape. A little firmer. A few pounds lighter. Not much, but still. Clothes fit a little better again.

Let's do the math. I did a total of 24 jog/swim/tennis sessions. That's an average of 8 instead of 9 for the 9-week period. I can live with that.

Week 8: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 11
Total Swim: 6
Total Tennis: 5

Turns out that publicly declaring one’s intentions to work out a lot does change one’s behavior. If I’m on the fence about going for my jog/swim/tennis, knowing that I won’t lie to my Adoring Public is enough to make me go through with it. But apparently not enough to make me catch up on the swim/tennis. Hmmm.

Week 7: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 10
Total Swim: 6
Total Tennis: 4

Wow, I never thought I’d become such a jogger. However, it’s really helping my tennis, I guess, since my serve has really improved. The backhand has not. Beth and I don’t even keep score; we just have fun. It was a good workout this week! Did I mention I got my racquet from Freecycle? Love me some Freecycle. I requested 2 adult racquets and got 3 adult, 2 kid, and some of those fancy zippered racquet holders.

I also got a Wii EA Sports Active game. Boy, am I sore AGAIN. I’ll be comparing it to Wii Fit and My Fitness Coach pretty soon. I should probably use it more than twice before spouting off my opinion.

Week 6: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 8
Total Swim: 6
Total Tennis: 3

Well, it appears that tennis, like many sports, take more effort to arrange than, say, jogging by yourself. Even swimming has its limitations, as the pool is only open hours that are less than convenient by my standards.

It was a revelation to me, many years ago, when I realized it wasn’t so much that I didn’t like exercising; it was more that I hate team sports, especially ones with balls. Which is most of them. This summer did start as an experiment, and I did leave out one of my long-term loves, biking, on purpose. I wanted to see whether I could expand my horizons. The answer is mostly “no” as we see here.

But my swimming has improved. I’m up to full-on breaststroke, which (in my head) resembles closely what you would see in any televised swimming event. I wear goggles, and my head goes under water on every stroke. Yep, I’m a professional. Let’s gloss over the bits where I gasp for air at the edge after most laps. Let us not talk of my freestyle and backstroke. And future bikini shots can be ruled out entirely, never mind what the comments said the other week. You crazy kids!

Week 5: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 6
Total Swim: 4
Total Tennis: 3

Nothing to see here. Move along, move along.

Week 4: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 5
Total Swim: 4
Total Tennis: 3

Played tennis with a wall! Only lost one ball on top of the school roof, even! I think my tennis game has improved dramatically from "wow, so sucky" to "only somewhat sucky" -- great strides, my friends.

Ran twice. The second time I did 4 miles in a pathetic jog/walk. Took me an hour, but the weather was lovely.

For those of you not grasping the non-athletic abilities of Bluestem, please note that there are NO underwater turns in her swimming. Nor really any sense of dignity or style. She regularly switches in the middle of a lap from old-lady-breaststroke to laying on her back and weakly kicking her feet. She generally does not put her face in the water during her so-called freestyle laps. Are we getting the picture here?

Lastly, I did a My Fitness Coach (Wii) session that was set to "upper body," and my legs ended up so sore that I could barely go up and down stairs for 3 days. Yep. I'm ready for my first Ironman.

Week 3: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 3
Total Swim: 3
Total Tennis: 2

Swum in a lake, even! Played tennis with a friend! If by “played tennis” you mean, “just volleyed awhile because I’m not good enough to bother keeping score.” I’m still behind on my tennis, though. I’ll have to try to catch up before the next heat wave hits later this week.

And did the 10-minute advanced boxing on the Wii Fit and couldn’t lift my arms for two days.

Week 2: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Total Jog: 2
Total Swim: 2
Total Tennis: 1

The heat index was over 100 nearly the whole week, so although there was talk of tennis, my friend and I decided we’d rather live. I did My Fitness Coach once, too. So, not ideal but not awful, considering the weather, how much overtime I worked, and a certain birthday party that needed to be organized and held. See? I have excuses! Those are pretty solid, right?

Week 1: Jog, Swim, Tennis

Well, the good news is that I attained my goal of jogging once, swimming once, and playing tennis once, despite the record-breaking rainfalls. I even did a round of Wii My Fitness Coach and some Wii tennis.

The bad news is that Dad was right. There! I said it. Happy Father’s Day, Dad. He warned me that tennis is a dangerous sport, due to the sudden shifts in direction during play. I reassured him that I wouldn’t try too hard, har har. But I pulled a groin muscle anyway. I didn’t even have that injury in my most probable list. N and I both royally suck at tennis, so I’m surprised I even managed to work hard enough to hurt myself.

Anyway, it’s not too bad, and I think I’ll be able to resume my plan if I take it easy for a few days. It does mean no little-old-lady-breaststroke, though. My preferred mode of swimming. Guess I’ll have to do mostly backstroke. I can’t do freestyle for very long. I blame my miserable lung capacity, but it’s probably technique and laziness as much as anything.

In summary:
Jog: 1
Swim: 1
Tennis: 1

Summer resolution

Summers should be different. They should stand apart from the rest of the year. I’ve decided to try an experiment for the next 10 weeks. Each week I will jog once, swim once, and play tennis once. Using the ever handy mapmyrun.com, I see my usual jogging path is 2.5 miles. Walking to the pool and back is 1.2 miles. To the tennis courts is 0.8 miles roundtrip. Now, I figure the weather will be a factor, especially since it’s been so cool and rainy here in the Greater Chicagoland Metropolitan Area. So, if I jog more at the beginning and swim more when it’s hotter, no big deal, right? I’ll aim for 10/10/10 by the end of the summer. Since tennis partners aren’t always available, I’ve decided that hitting a ball against the side of our grade school should count, too.

The real suspense, however, will be how my body will fail me. Who wants to place their bets? Here’s some likely contenders: carpel tunnel (already have a little problem there), tennis elbow (have never really played, so this is a wild card), throwing out my back (not high returns on that – fairly likely), heat stroke (not at the rate this summer is going, but August is always hell around here), knee problems (another dark horse – no problems here thus far. However, both my brother and my mom have had meniscus surgery.)

Weekly results will be posted on Saturdays. This week (naturally) started out strong, with a jog yesterday and a swim today. I'm nearly done already!