Terrible at this blogging thing much?

Yes. I am epically failing at updating. I think one of my issues (among many) is that I think of things I want to publish but forget/don't have time to write it down. Then by the time I want write an entry, it's usually only one or two days from something exciting and I think that I can summarize everything in one post. Long story short: I make too many excuses.

Training in May and early June was pretty dismal. With finals, starting summer, and moving to a different dorm, I slept really terrible hours: sleeping at 3am and getting up at 1pm. It wasn't that I didn't have plenty to do. However, going cold turkey after drink 3 caffeine drinks a day definitely did not help my situation. Forget working out, getting out of bed became a daily struggle.

REFORM!!

For training sake (and health sake) I have been trying to progressively get up earlier everyday. Pulling an all-nighter to work on my research project and to catch an early train jump started this change. Funny story with that is I ended up passing out at 7 pm the next day while on my laptop, half way off my bed.

I also increased my training intensity. My goal for each week is to swim 5-6 thousand meters each day and a dryland/lifting/cardo/abs session or at least work out twice a day. How is it going so far? As expected, I'm tired and sore. :( I actually find it pretty difficult to stay in the pool for the whole 5-6 thousand and my practices are not that creative. Although, how creative can one be when the best way to get in yardage (meterage? haha) is to do sets of 300, 500, and 1000s. Dryland with various MIT swim team members are always fun though (especially lunges with Anna Kokensparger).

Open water swims:

Although I have not entered into any open water races yet, I did swim in Long Island Sound when I went back home last weekend. Lessons learnt from that experience:

1. Currents are a *****. When I was going against the current, I bared moved.
2. Need new goggles. I have two problems with my current pair. I have a weird issue where, after an hour or so, my google would suction onto my eyes really tight and in really awkward positions. Hypothesis: my eyeballs are taking in the oxygen/air?? The goggle second problem is less mysterious. My goggles lost its anti-fog quality and the contrast of the cold water and body temperature quickens condensation.
3. Salt water makes me really dehydrated. Actually, not only does it make me dehydrated, it also makes my mouth swollen. Blahhhh Clara had told me that using mouthwash should decrease the swelling. I'll have to try that on a longer swim.

I also went out to Walden Pond on Wednesday with a group in Boston. Walden is about 1.5 miles around the perimeter. Super fun! Pictures and more details to come...at some point haha

Last thing before I close this monster of a post, swimmers are not meant for land!! Twisted my ankle doing suicides. Oops. Living on ice and pain killers right now.

Over and out...to the beach (Revere) for more swimming!!! YAY!!