Triangle Kidney Walk Report

On Saturday, March 29, Rob and I did the Triangle Kidney Walk. In my last blog post, I wrote about how Rob's kidney disease had finally reached the "end stage" and that he is now on dialysis and waiting for a kidney transplant. On March 1, I finally sent out a mass email to all our friends, coworkers, and family members that said we were going to do the Kidney Walk and that we were raising money for it. We had an overwhelming response to the fundraising email! As of this blog entry, we raised $1243 for the National Kidney Foundation of North Carolina! Words cannot describe how we feel about everyone who donated to our fundraising effort!

We froze our butts off at the walk - it was a whopping 44 degrees, windy and looking like it was going to rain at 9:50. The walk began at 10:05 and a few minutes later, rain started to lightly fall. Rob ran to the car to get our umbrella, as did a bunch of other walkers. But many walkers weren't prepared for the rain. It took me about 10 minutes to "warm up" - my eyes kept watering and my nose was a faucet - but once I warmed up, the walk was much better. We were keeping a pretty fast pace as we had to keep passing slower people.

There were all kinds of people walking in the walk - young enough to be in a stroller, old enough to be retired, fit enough to be runners and/or other active looking people, un-fit enough to consider a 5K walk a substantial workout, and lots of four-legged furry friends (including 2 of the cutest GSP's I've ever seen)!

It was so cold, Rob put his kidney walk t-shirt on over his polartec jacket, then when he went back to the car to get the umbrella, on went another jacket on top of that. It just wasn't fair that the weather was so yucky. The day before the walk, which happened to be Rob's 37th birthday (more on that later), the temp reached 80 degrees. Then a little more than 18 hours later, the weather was a dreary 44. Ugh.

Here's a pic of Rob and I at the end of the walk.

Yes, I know, I look like a big time dork with my kidney walk hat on top of my beanie cap...but that should show you just how cold I was!

After the walk, we all gathered inside the RTP headquarters building where the Foundation's big whigs all got up to talk and thank everyone for coming out and raising money. We were hoping that we'd be recognized for our fundraising efforts because I was ranked in 5th place out of everyone for individual money raised. (See Triangle Kidney Walk home page)

Here's a pic of us standing with the Kidney mascot, who spent the whole walk dancing around to invisible music with hot 80's and 90's dance moves like the Roger Rabbit and the Cabbage Patch (oh those were the days, weren't they?)



I tracked down the director of the walk, Carina Montanari, to ask her about the "reward" we earned for fundraising more than $1000. Straight from the website, it says:

Apple Ipod Shuffle ($1,000.00 +)
Each individual that raises $1000 will receive a free Apple Ipod Shuffle, a Kidney Walk Baseball Cap, and Kidney Walk T-Shirt.

We found out that they will order the iPod rewards (for those who raised $2K or more, the reward is an iPod Nano) in a couple of weeks because they keep the fundraising tools open online for those last-minute donations that always seem to trickle in. So if you're reading this, and you meant to donate, you still have time!

I'm going to give the iPod to Rob when I get it. It will be an extra birthday gift for him. So Rob is 37 now, which puts him in the last year of his "mid 30's", as when he turns 38, he'll be pushing "late 30's"! Psssh, like I should tease...I'm the one who's sadly counting down the months, and eventually, days, until I turn the big 3-0. OH NOooooo! It's all downhill from there, right? ;)

I had to work like normal on Friday, Rob's b-day. It would've been nice to take the day off, but since I have a new nanny job (yes, newer than the one I wrote about 2 blog posts ago) I didn't feel right taking a day off so soon. So my new kids, Ben (will turn 3 in June) and Sophie (will turn 2 in October) and extremely adorable, fun, smart, and all that other cutesy-ness that I could describe, but I'll leave it at that, for your sake.

It's been an extremely trying work week for me as Super-Nanny, as Ben just started potty training and while he has had lots of successes (YAY! You went pee-pee in the toilet! You get a sticker and a high-five!), he's had just about as many accidents (it's okay, everyone has accidents when they're learning - said with a gigantic, warm, ooey-gooey "I love you anyway" smile on my face) So on Friday, I announced to Ben that when Sophie took her nap, that we were going to make cupcakes for Rob, and that he could help me decorate them and eat some. He was pretty excited.

The cupcakes came out awesome! The best I've ever made, I think.



We invited a few friends over to the house later that night for pizza, beer and cupcakes. It was a really fun night. For a present, I got Rob a nice pair of Wireless Headphones from Radio Shack!

With these headphones, he'll be able to watch movies at night after I've gone to bed (he sometimes stays up later than me) and keep the volume up loud enough for him to hear everything, without it waking me up.

Rob starts training for Home Dialysis on April 7, and it lasts 3 weeks. I have to be there for the 2nd week of training because I'll need to learn how to insert the needle and all that ucky bloody stuff that I don't like to look at. I'm sure you'll be reading blog posts about that when the time comes!

Thank you again to all of the wonderful people who donated to our Kidney Walk fundraiser! Have a great week!

1/4 plus 3/4...now you're caught up on my life

...I finally got to the hospital around 10pm. I checked in downstairs, took the elevator up to the 7th floor and then walked around the maze-like floors that led to Rob's room. I was so relieved to finally see Rob.

Here's how he ended up in the hospital: He was supposed to work that day from 1 to 10, but at 10:30am, he'd called his doctor with the same complaints as he had from calling on Friday morning, too. On Friday morning, he was throwing up and just not feeling like himself. Same thing Saturday morning. But this time, the doctor said he'd better come in, to check into the emergency room, just to be sure.

Most of you reading this will know that Rob has PKD, or Polycystic Kidney Disease. But if you didn't know that, it's a genetic disease that he inherited from his Dad's side of the genes that basically makes your kidneys stop working, and then you need dialysis and eventually a kidney transplant. Many of the Newton aunts, uncles and cousins have it. More PKD info.

Here are some images from his MRI scan done on January 26:



So in this picture, you can see how big Rob's kidneys are, and how many cysts he has. This is a transverse view from the bottom. The kidney on the left (his right kidney) is much bigger than the other. When I first saw this scan my first thought was that Rob looked like he had a fetal pig inside him! (hey, if you can't laugh at the rough stuff in life, it's just going to suck more) The other kidney is big, too, you just can't see it in this section cut. Imagine sliding up an inch or so toward his head. Here's an image of that:



What you're seeing here is the result of a burst cyst. That blob above the kidney on the left is fluid from the cyst. The fluid is just floating around in his peritoneal cavity (I think? I was so fascinated seeing these images that I missed a few things the doctor said!) The fluid eventually caused a condition called "ileus", which means that there was a temporary paralysis of his intestines. You can't eat anything when you have this, except ice chips, but then again, when you're in a lot of pain like Rob was, you don't want to eat, you just want to sleep all day because the pain meds are so numbing.

Rob's liver is also enlarged and has a couple of small cysts, too. I don't know why, but many PKD patients also have these effects on their livers? Maybe one of my doctor or nurse friends will know the answer. Here's a view of the largest section of his liver:



Now, here's a view of what a normal kidney, liver, spleen, intestines, should look like.



So you can see that Rob's kidneys are about 4-5 times larger than normal size ones. One doctor told Rob that his right kidney (the big one) is about as big as a football. Yeah, a football. They're supposed to be as big as your fist. Wow.

So to conclude, Rob stayed in the hospital from that Saturday morning until Thursday afternoon. Rob started dialysis while in the hospital, on Wed. Jan 30. He will remain on dialysis until he has a kidney transplant, which could be a few more years. We don't know what caused the burst cyst.

But life is very different now for Rob, and me, too. Rob gets up at 5:45am every Mon, Wed, and Fri, for dialysis, and he's not a morning person, so this is a big deal to him. He drives to the Davita clinic (about 8 miles away) and sits in a chair with a 15 gauge needle in his arm for about 3.5 hours. He usually has Monday and Wednesdays off from work, because dialysis is very tiring for most people. Luckily, Rob hasn't felt that extreme tiredness, and he uses those days off for projects around the house or working extra hours with Scott. The dialysis diet has been the biggest change for me. I am cooking more, and cooking healthier, less-processed foods. Rob is losing weight, and that's a good thing. We hope to be able to transition to the at-home-dialysis soon. That will definitely free up some time on Rob's schedule, and he won't have to be around all those annoying people at the Davita clinic!

Well that's all for now. I have a feeling I won't be writing much about swimming, cycling and other fun adventures. And I'm okay with that. More updates later. Be sure to check back soon!

Three-Quarter Catch-Up....no, not the drill

Wow, 6 weeks since my last blog post. Let me catch you up on things since Jan 1.

Jan 3: Started my new 40-hour a week job as a live-out nanny for a little girl who is 13/14 months old. (13 when I started, 14 now...huge difference, for those of you who may be reading this that are inexperienced with children and how they develop). Her name is Ella and she is a real doll, smart, not fussy, fun to play with and watch her learn. The mom, Teresa, works from home, in her office, door shut most of the day. The dad, Jason, works for the railroad as either a conductor or an engineer, I don't know exactly. I can use the mom's car to drive Ella around town to run errands or visit a playground, which is very nice. They live in Wake Forest and my 17.5 mile commute to work takes 22 minutes on a good day, 30 minutes if I get stuck behind a slow grading truck or school bus (grrr!) The pay is exactly what I need, and I can sometimes get overtime, which I can elect to either be paid for, or I can save it up and use it as vacation/sick time pay. Yay, I'm happy!

From Jan 3 through Jan 31: Worked anywhere from 60-70 hours a week because I was still "head coach" of DAMA. That's an easy 20 hours a week there (I mean, what I get paid for). Plus my 40 with Ella. And I worked overtime with Ella for about 2 of those weeks, since Teresa had a big work project to complete and she needed me anywhere from an extra half hour to an extra 4 hours. During this time, my house was a complete mess, but I made myself not care about it, knowing that once the month was all over, I'd be able to play catch up.

The extra money was nice. I was able to take a weekend trip with DAMA friends Kim and Jason to Asheville. They had a free pass for me to go to the Biltmore house, which I couldn't pass up, since I'd never been and I've wanted to since we moved to NC. Rob couldn't go with us, since he works pretty much every weekend from now until eternity. We left on Jan 19, around 9am. Started Biltmore tour around 2pm, after we had lunch at some nice cafe on the grounds near the winery, which was surprisingly not too expensive. Jason was my tour guide, as he's been to the house like 9 times before, since he grew up in Lenoir, which is less than an hour east of Asheville. It was amazing! You can't take pictures inside the house. But we got a good one of Kim and I goofing off around this lion statue right out front of the house:



After we finished touring, we found a cheap hotel room near the asheville mall. A couple hours later, we're eating dinner at the Chili's across the street, and we had quite possibly, the worst waiter (or was it Waitress?) on the face of the planet. Oh well, I still tipped "the minimum" (10%), since I have experience here as a server at restaurants in NC. They don't get minimum wage, they make something like $2.50 an hour. So that means, if you don't tip, you're treating them like they're less than a human being, that they're not worthy of at least making minimum wage. And I just can't do that to someone, no matter how bad the service is.

The next morning, we ate our free buffet breakfast, where I enjoyed a waffle, 2 sausages and a few sips of some really gross coffee. Then we drove up north a bit to the town of Mars Hill, where we went to the Wolf Ridge ski resort. I opted to snowboard, while Kim and Jason skied. Now mind you, the last time I went snowboarding was January 1 in the year of 2002. And that was the day I broke my ankle. That was at the Heavenly resort in Tahoe, with Rob. So I've been a bit leery of trying it again. I stuck to the 2 bunny slopes all day. I fell a lot, but nothing too bad. For the first half of the day, I could only snowboard on my toe-side because every time I tried to go heel-side, I'd fall right away. I was getting really pissed about that, but it eventually worked itself out and I could carve a semi-straight path down the bunny slope by switching toe-to-heel and heel-to-toe. I did have a ton of fun though, despite the falling down, and not having the nerve yet to go up on the big ski lift and try to "intermediate" run. Oh well, next time. I did catch a little bit of air off the tiny jump someone made at the bottom of the bunny slope - it was no higher than 9 inches maybe, but it sure was fun. Here I am halfway down the bunny slope:



Jan. 26: I went to the Charlotte Sunbelt Championship meet with a handful of DAMA swimmers - Derek, Marshall, Josh, Dave, Joe, Heidi and Karen. I didn't swim, since I had caught the worst cold after coming home from my Asheville weekend, and I was still on antibiotics. It was fun to go just as a coach instead of a coach/swimmer like I normally do. I left at the crack o'dawn with Heidi because she swam the distance events in the morning. All the others came later, when the afternoon events started. Here's a great pic of Heidi after she finished the 1650:



She swam her event so great. Neg split 5:53, 5:52, 5:51 - wow! Talk about a perfect swim! Then came the 1000, which she swam studly, too. I can't remember those splits. Then everyone else checked in, warmed up and swam great, too. I took some videos of everyone swimming, I'll have to put those up on YouTube later. Derek had a great swim in his 50 Free - he finally broke out of the 25's, so he was happy about that. Marshall's swims were good, all near his best times. And Josh, Joe and Dave all swam well.

Here's 2 more pics - the mens' relay and the mixed relay. Check out the buff-ness:





I was planning on having dinner with everyone and then heading home to Durham, but I finally got a hold of Rob, who had checked himself into the hospital around noon that day. When I first spoke to him, he said, don't worry, don't come home yet, I'm fine...etc. The second time I spoke to him, he said, yeah, I'm staying overnight - so I left as quickly as possible and safely sped as fast as I could to Duke. To be continued on the next blog post...

New Year's Day mountain bike ride

It's been a long time since I went mountain biking. The few rides I have been doing occasionally have been in the Duke Forest or the American Tobacco Trail - pretty easy stuff. All the local trails were wet and therefore closed, and we didn't feel like riding the Umstead fire roads, so we decided to ride the Chapel Hill trails, which never officially close.

Marshall came over to our house and we drove to Chapel Hill in our truck. We still need to get a third bike mount for our truck bed, but with 2 bungee cords, we got Marshall's bike in just fine.

Both Marshall and Rob rode their singlespeeds. It was Rob's first "real" ride on his new build. Marshall built up his SS a while ago, maybe earlier this year? Anyway, here's a pic of the guys with their singlespeed smiles:



We skipped the first trail that starts just over the RR tracks from Seawell school because that trail is usually horribly muddy for a while after rains. So we rode over by that church/daycare entrance and picked up the Beaver Twister trail. Rode all of that in the normal order, passing only 1 other mountain biker the whole time.

On that first steep, rooty, tech climb where you drop in a little creek, climb up that super root-laden, twisty trail for about 20 seconds, then it levels off...get this: I MADE IT! I usually only successfully make that climb when I'm in shape from riding often, which I am so obviously not in right now! I guess I got lucky. But it sure did feel good to make it to the top, and to turn around and see the guys walking their bikes up it!

Most of the trail was in good shape, despite the rains we got a couple days ago. Chapel Hill drains pretty good. I slid out on one log crossing, and also on that 2nd steep climb that's less rooty than the 1st - I made it up until that dang-blasted root near the top made my rear wheel spin out.

We stopped a lot, keeping a pace that was for the most part, slow enough for us to be able to carry a conversation the whole time. Once we were done with all of Beaver Twister, we could've continued on and done that one trail that's super fun, the one that's a slight downhill the whole way...but we were tired and hungry, and as Marshall put it, we wanted a beer and to catch up on the football scores. (well, I don't care about the football scores, but I'll go along for the company - I feign interest pretty well)

Here's a pic of us 3 in the parking lot after the ride.



We tried going to Carolina Brewery for dinner, beer and football, but it was closed. A quick 411 call to track down Tyler's Taproom/Speakeasy and hooray, it was open! But only the Speakeasy side was open, so the menu was limited. Chicken nachos was my dinner (I know, not exactly healthy), but I'll start my healthful New Year-New Me eating/excising routine on Thursday, the 3rd - the day I start my new job. I find it easier to start a new habit during a new job. 2.5 years ago when I was starting my DAMA coaching job, I made flossing my teeth a new habit. I used to hardly ever floss and every time I went to see the dentist, they'd yell at me, and I knew I needed to, I just never made myself do it. So my new "habit" will be eating healthier (more green stuff, a few less carbs, more water, less eating outside of the house) and exercising before and/or after work (swimming, or riding, or working out at the gym we're going to join soon)

Wow, I really went off on a tangent...I'll stop now and write more later about my New Year's goals/resolutions/new job, etc.

But it was a good ride and a good way to start the year. Wow, 2008 already. In 10 months, I'll be turning the big THREE-OH! Yikes.

Christmas Recap

Christmas was really nice this year. I was off work from Dec 24-26, while Rob was unfortunately only off on Christmas Day. I don't like the retail hours, but Rob is happy with his job and it pays the mortgage...so I guess I shouldn't complain.

My favorite part of Christmas is the shopping I get to do for other people. It's so fun to waste away half a day, or even a whole day if my work schedule allowed it, shopping. I shopped for gifts for our nieces Payton and Lauren, gifts for Marshall and Karen, my parents and Rob's mom, and Rob.

We made plans for Marshall and Karen to come over to our house for Christmas. Karen was home in NJ, and flew back into RDU in the early afternoon. Marshall and puppy Dumplin' came over around 2, followed by Karen an hour later. We watched "Superbad" on our new high-def LCD TV - which we love...what a step up from our old TV which my Mom bought for me at the Goodwill while I was a senior in college. Here's the new TV.



After the movie, Rob fired up the grill for these awesome steaks I'd bought at Whole Foods. I got 2 strip steaks and 2 ribeyes, and I made an awesome marinade that the steaks sat in for about 20 hours before cooking. I made some mashed potatoes and steamed some fresh green beans. Pretty easy cooking. But delicious.

Then we played Outburst for a bit, before they left to go home. It was a really nice Christmas.

Rob had to work the opening shift at work the next morning and he had to process a bunch of returns and exchanges, and a lot of people were using their Perf gift cards.

I loved the gifts Rob got me - especially my new purse. Check it out, it matches my laptop bag. I love my new Chrome purse!


The big gift I got Rob was a really nice pair of leather UGG clogs - Rob's been asking for clogs for a long time. He can't wear flip flops outside, at least in the winter, when he just needs to run outside for a quick thing like checking the mail or running to Food Lion for some milk. I had to special order them through Nordstrom - this guy who swims on DAMA, he works in the mens shoe dept there and he hooked me up.

Anyway, it was a really nice Christmas. Next blog: New Year's Eve Eve party Recap.

Now, I'm heading out to go mountain bike with Rob and Marshall. Hopefully I'll get a pic or two, or a video of something cool.

Bermuda Trip Diary

this article isn't yet finished, but feel free to read it... I will add pictures to it later, and finish everyone's names that I forgot.

Ten Triangle-Area Swimmers Attend Bermuda Open Water Swim

As soon as the open water race announcement hit the inboxes of DAMA swimmers who’d participated in previous international open water swims, such as St. Croix and Bonaire, word spread like wildfire through our team email listserv about the Bermuda “Round the Sound” swim. Longtime DAMA swimmer and open water enthusiast, Gretchen Van De Carr, was the first to stir up interest. In a matter of days, we’d shared more than 20 emails amongst the team, all of us talking up ideas of sharing hotel rooms, sharing airline deals we’d seen online (as low as $240 with 2 stops from RDU airport) and other travel logistics. In total, we had 5 swimmers from DAMA that were attending – Heidi Williams, Tommy and Lindsay Gainer, Gretchen and myself.

In addition to DAMA swimmers, the THAT swim team had 4 swimmers set to attend – Elizabeth Nowak, Martha, Tommy, and ______, plus one of their coaches, _______. RAM swimmer, Billy Su, was also geared up to make it a swimming vacation that would not be soon forgotten.

The race would take place on October 21 in Harrington Sound, which sits southeast of the capital city, Hamilton. Five race distances were offered: 0.8K, 2K, 4K, 7.25K and 10K. The host resort hotel, Grotto Bay, was offering greatly reduced from normal rates. Gretchen and myself, along with our spouses/significant others, traveled to and roomed together in Bermuda. The following is a diary-style synopsis of our trip. I hope you enjoy reading it!

Thursday, October 18:

Gretchen, Jeb, Rob (my husband) and myself flew into Bermuda in the evening. Getting through customs wasn’t as bad as we’d predicted. We took a cab from the airport to the Grotto Bay hotel, which took all of a whopping 3 minutes to get to! After dumping our luggage in the room, we all went out to the resort terrace to join a good size group of swimmers who were already socializing. Randy Nutt, the race organizer for the U.S. based swimmers, appeared shortly thereafter and announced the location of the following morning’s swim. The socializing tapered off an hour or so later, and we left to explore the resort grounds.

As we walked toward the hotel pool, we happened upon 2 caves (hence the name – Grotto Bay), one of which was lighted and open to exploring, the other was dark, and only open during daylight hours. We were amazed at the cave’s geologic formations and the crystal clear water! It was so beautiful! After many posed Kodak moments and general ooh’ing and aah’ing, we found our way back to our room and went to sleep…

…or tried to, that is! With dueling snores coming from both Rob and Jeb, poor Gretchen wasn’t getting much sleep. Me, on the other hand, I’m sound asleep – I could sleep through a freight train crashing into my house! Rob’s snores were so loud that they woke up Jeb. After nudging Rob and notifying him of his snoring, installing earplugs and using pillows to sandwich her ears from the logs being sawed in our room, Gretchen finally got some sleep.

Friday, October 19:

When the morning sun shone and woke us, we jumped up excitedly, like kids’ on Christmas morning, eager to see the presents under the tree. We walked out onto our 3rd floor balcony, and fully took in the view. “Wow!” and “It’s so beautiful!” and “Let’s get moving, guys!” were some of the comments that followed.

A few swimmers, eager to test out the waters and stretch out the cramped-in-coach-class legs, joined in on a morning Pilates workout followed by a 2-3 mile swim. Everyone was making plans on how to spend their day: Gretchen and Jeb planned to go scuba diving, Heidi and others planned to take the bus into Hamilton to sightsee. Rob and I made plans to rent “pedal cycles” (a regular bicycle) from a local shop in town, and spend the day riding the old Bermuda Rail-Trail.

Our bicycle excursion was excellent. What a beautiful way to see many parts of the island! We passed through many perfectly manicured gardens, old military forts, naval shipyards, and lighthouses. After riding and exploring for 4 hours, we hopped on a ferry that took us back into Hamilton, where we returned the pedal cycles. From there, we hopped on the bus and returned to our hotel room where Gretchen and Jeb were getting a much needed nap.

Our hotel phone rang at 5pm. It was Heidi, calling to invite all of us to a night out on the town. Gretchen and Jeb accepted the offer, while Rob and I declined, instead deciding to make it a romantic night.

So we put on our best outfits – Rob in dress slacks, a crisp new button down and a handsome blazer, and I put on a black cocktail party dress, heeled sandals and … some makeup! It’s not often that swim coaches find themselves at places where such attire can be worn! Dinner was excellent, albeit expensive, but it was okay, since we’d be given a gift of money specifically for a nice dinner out on the town by my Mom. (Thanks Mom!) Afterwards, we took our shoes off and walked hand-in-hand, strolling along the beach front. Ahhh, how sweet! < cue cheesy love story music here >

We arrived back at our room just in time to have Gretchen and Jeb come back from their fun night with Heidi and everyone else. Oh, the story they told us about … let’s just say somebody had a couple more drinks than normal and … yeah, umm, never mind. Sleep was summoned soon thereafter, and I think we all slept pretty good that night.

Saturday, October 20:

After eating bagels or oatmeal in our hotel room, (we saved a lot of money bringing our own food!) we made plans to go snorkeling in Tobacco Bay, not too far from our hotel. All of us, which included Heidi, Billy, Martha, ________ (friend of ??? – she was an Ob-Gyn doctor at Duke?), Gretchen, Jeb, Rob and I. The nearest bus stop was in St. George, a town that was the original capital of Bermuda, so there were a few things of interest to stop and see. One such place was the famous “Unfinished Church”. The church was built in 1874 and was never finished due to constant disagreements between church members. Also, a storm caused some structural damage halfway through construction, so it sat, unfinished for years until being bought by the Bermuda National Trust.

We finally made the long walk to Tobacco Bay and snorkeled for a bit, maybe 20 or 30 minutes. We would’ve gone longer, but the water was a little cold. Don’t get me wrong, it was the perfect temperature for an open water race, but not so for gentle breaststroke sculling and fin-assisted kicking! We took a few pictures with Gretchen’s underwater camera, including some of the amazing schools of fish that seemed to border us all around anytime we remained still, and of the beautiful, huge coral reefs everywhere!

Back at the hotel, we caught the arranged tour buses that would take us to the race site, which was the Harrington Sound, near Palmetto Bay resort. At the race site, we finally ran into Tommy and Lindsay Gainer, whose flight had just come in from Boston. (Technically speaking, Tommy wasn’t a DAMA swimmer since he’d switched his USMS registration over to New England Masters since their June move from Durham to Boston.) Back at the race site, Randy Nutt introduced us to the local open water race director, Reeve Trott. This Bermuda local told us about the history of the swim and announced that this year marked the 17th annual race. He warned us about the 2 types of jellyfish we might see during our race; regular, mostly harmless “moon jellies”, and the rare, more dangerous, “spaghetti-like” man-o-war type of jelly. You could almost hear everyone gasp at the description, and mutter “I hope I don’t see any tomorrow!”

Then we all departed on separate boats for an ocean cruise to our start locations, where a local would help point out landmarks to use for sighting. For my race, the 4K, the big turn was at a rock named “No Name Rock”, which was a refrigerator-sized rock island a little ways away from the 2K start area. On top of the rock was a big wooden sign with a bright orange arrow pointing you to swim a 90 degree angle around it. Everything else about our race course was pretty mellow.

After the ocean cruise, we had a small social with free beer and wine, homemade dips and snacks, all provided for us by the local Bermuda swim team – the Dolphins. The locals were so awesome to have provided that for us! We really felt great generosity towards them, so a pool of money was collected for us to give to the Dolphins on race day.

When the sun set, we got back on the tour buses and went back to our hotel for the night, where we remained mellow, not drinking much of anything except water. Bedtime came early for us that night, and poor Gretchen could not sleep due to Jeb and Rob who were busy sawing down some more logs all night. Gretchen finally retreated to sleeping outside on the front door balcony, where she said she slept just “okay”.

Race Day: Sunday, October 21:

Elizabeth, Billy, Martha and I were doing the 4K race. Heidi, Tommy Gainer, Tommy (from THAT) and _______ (THAT swimmer, name I can’t remember) were doing the 10K race. Gretchen was doing the 7.25K race, and Lindsay was doing the 2K.

Our races had staggered starts so that we would all finish close together. The weather had been beautiful, mid-to-high 70’s, with bright sunshine, blue skies and few clouds on the previous 3 days, but today was different. The skies were gray, and the sun radiated bleakly through the thick, low-lying clouds. The temperature had dropped to the low 70’s. It seemed as though the rain would hold off for the race. But some wind had picked up, thus causing some choppiness to the water.

The 4K race started, and I started swimming at a moderate-fast pace, sighting every 9 strokes or so. It was fine until about 5 minutes into the swim. Then the choppiness started to eat my alive. I don’t have much experience with open water swimming (my first year, and this was my 4th race), so when the chop picked up, I had a hard time breathing. I had to stop more than a few times to choke out water I’d breathed in, but after a while, I learned to time my breaths with the rise and fall of the chop.

I began to feel lactic acid building up in my triceps from the lack of training for this race. My moderate-fast pace slowed down to a moderate pace, and my stroke form started to get ugly. When I’m tired, I begin to cross over my centerline, most noticeably on my left arm entry. Mix bad form with choppy water and sighting every 9 strokes, and the end result is swimming way off course. When I realized how far off I’d gone, I swam hard and fast back closer to the sound’s shore. There, I caught on with 2 men who were swimmingly a decent pace. I figured I’d use them to sight for me. It began to work until I noticed I was still crossing over and falling to the right of their feet! Frustrated at myself, I began to swim breaststroke for a bit, and found that my long glide timing matched the waves just perfectly, so in essence, I’d do an outsweep/insweep/breathe at the top of a wave, and recover/kick/glide as the wave would crash down and help push me forward. I did breaststroke for a while, and kept up on the 2 guys’ feet until my hip flexors and pectorals started to fill with lactic acid, and I got dropped.

I swam into the 2K checkpoint area and looked at my watch, which I’d set to run on stopwatch mode. I almost smacked myself in the face when I saw it report I’d already been swimming for 58 minutes! I thought to myself, “WOW! That was so slow! Those waves were fierce, and I sure did swim off course a lot! I better get moving!” So I took a drink of fresh water offered to me by the race volunteers, and swam off towards the finish line.

I went around “No Name Rock” soon thereafter, and had to switch back to breaststroke for a bit, since it became very shallow. If I’d stuck to freestyle, I would’ve ended up with coral under my fingernails! At this turn-around point, the water was much more calm – in fact, I don’t remember there being any waves. Sighting became easier and I was swimming better in a straight line. I was so exhausted by this point, that I was in auto-pilot mode. I wasn’t even thinking about technique or breathing, I was just letting things happen naturally and slowly. I thought about quitting, once, but then I remembered that I’m not a quitter, and that even though I may be swimming slow, I would still finish. I kept thinking of an image of a turtle and the caption…”Slow and steady finishes the race.” I also retreated to my tried-and-true mental imagery of The Little Train That Could. “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can – YES! I can!” I know, weird…but so much of distance swimming is mental, especially when you’re like me and never train at all.

Near the end, I saw one of those “spaghetti-like” jellies off to my left. It was close, maybe 5 feet away. I immediately stopped, dropped underwater and looked all around to see if I was in the middle of a horde of them. Luckily, the water is pretty clear, so I can see about 10 feet in front of me. I didn’t see any more, so with my heart rate at 200 beats per minute (ha!) I resumed swimming towards the finish. I kept my head position a little higher after that, just in case another jelly decided to swim in my path!

About 5 minutes later, I finally crossed the finish line. I looked at my watch – 1 hour, 37 minutes! Wow, so my first 2K took 58 minutes, and my last 2K took 39 minutes! And to think of how exhausted I was after the first 2K! If only I hadn’t gone off course so much, or I’d swum better in the chop, or I’d trained even a little bit for the swim…I would’ve done so much better! Oh well, it felt great to be finished!

The rain was still holding off, but the weather had turned colder, mid-60’s maybe. I bundled up in a dry towel, and hung out with the rest of the Triangle crowd, sharing stories of our swims. The best thing to drink at this time would’ve been water, but we couldn’t seem to find any! The only drink that seemed to magically appear before us was beer. So we “replenished” ourselves with dehydrating liquids, knowing fully that we’d regret it later. But…how often do we find ourselves on a beautiful island on vacation? Not very often. In fact, our last real glamorous vacation was in 2002 when we went to Cabo San Lucas. So “live it up” we did!

The rain held off until just before the awards ceremony. Five of the Triangle swimmers received awards for 1st through 3rd place:

Heidi Williams, 10K – 3rd place 20-39,
Tommy Gainer, 10K – 2nd place 20-39,
Martha Montgomery, 4K – 2nd place 20-39,
Elizabeth Nowak – 4K overall winner,
Billy Su, 4K – 1st place, 20-39

Once the awards ceremony was concluded, we jumped back on the bus back to the hotel. Immediately, showers began and plans were made for our social night at the famous Swizzle Inn, home of the Bermuda national drink – the “Rum Swizzle”.

Social at the Swizzle Inn – 8pm until 2am:

Holiday Hoot Swim Meet in Charlotte

Mark Smith, Sonia Grego, Joe Caruth and I traveled down to Charlotte yesterday to attend the Holiday Hoot Mini-Meet and Clinic, hosted by MAC Masters.

I met Joe and Sonia at Starbucks at 7:30am. With chattering teeth, and complaints about the weather, we all ran inside so that Joe and I could fuel up with caffeine goodness. One almost-$5, venti no-whip, soy cinnamon dolce latte, and a venti regular coffee later, (care to guess who got the fancy pants drink?) - and we're off to pick up Mark in Chapel Hill near the Harris Teeter that's right off Highway 86. As we arrive at Harris Teeter, we look around for Mark's Prius, but we don't see it. Then my phone rings. It's Mark, he said he'd be there in about 5 minutes. So we wait, then somehow, Mark magically appears. He climbs in, we ask him, "Where's your car? We didn't even see you drive in." To which he replies, "Oh no, I ran here from my house, a few miles away. It's the only way I can really warm up!" Wow, it must be nice to be a true runner.

It's around 8am when we leave Chapel Hill, and the drive takes us 2.5 hours. We entertain ourselves during the drive down with "Airplane Yoga", conversation about religion, politics, Joe's love life (or lack thereof), and much to everyone's surprise, I kept my mouth shut for a lot of it. I know, strange, huh? I'm usually Miss Blabbermouth on car trips.

So we get there a half hour before the Start and Turn Clinic is supposed to begin. Joe and I still need to deck enter, so I find Patty, the head coach of MAC Masters and ask if the reg table is open yet. It's not, but she tells us that we can register later, in between the clinic and the meet.

We set up our stuff on the bleachers in exactly the same spot as we did last year. We watch the legendary, ex-Auburn-now-MAC "Center of Excellence" Head Coach, Dave Marsh, as he is finishing up a workout for his Olympic Prep Group. They are having these guys (and a couple of women) swim these sets where after they're done, they have to climb up this rope as high as they can, and then fall back in, and swim a 10 yard or so race-pace sprint, followed by some easy recovery swimming. Looks like fun! I need to ask Campus Hills if we can install some some ropes! Our ceiling is just a wee-bit higher than theirs...



The clinic starts a few minutes past 11am in the aerobics room just off the pool. Dave Marsh talks to us for about a half hour about how he teaches starts and turns, and he takes a few questions from the attendees. He uses the white board for drawings, erases with his hand (a big pet peeve of mine! it's comparable to fingernails on a blackboard - Aggh! STOP! Please!), and peppers in some stories of old swimmers he used to coach and how they sucked at starts and turns, and how he got them to improve. Basically, lots of repetition. And lots of plyometrics at the gym.

We all liked the description Dave gave about swimmers who enter the water on their dive as a "wet noodle" and how they should instead enter the water as rigid as possible, like a "broomstick" being thrown into the pool, because I think we all could relate a little to noodley-feeling of our own dives. After the Dave Marsh part, we went back out to the pool deck where most of the Olympic Prep Group swimmers instructed us on how they do their starts and turns and the drills they did to help them learn the technique. Then we all got in the pool and practiced, while the Prep Group swimmers watched and gave us feedback.

About my own starts, I realized that I wasn't tensing up with enough pressure with my arms on the block at "take your mark", so when I did start, it was slow. So I tried putting more pressure, and I blasted off so much quicker that my entry speed caused my normally-tight-enough goggles to fill up with water (yes, my head was tucked tight into my streamline). Tightened the goggles, tried again - Success! And it sure does feel good!

With my turns, I learned that my flip turns are okay, they could be tighter and thus faster, but what I really need to work on are my open turns. One of the Prep Group swimmers saw mine and just about flipped out. He told me to stop bringing my legs to the wall by leaning back on my back...I was just slowing my turns down by using my back as a big water blocker. So I tried tucking my legs in under me without leaning back, which was really hard, dangit, I'm so out of shape! The Prep Group guy said, "Okay, better...keep working on it." Yay...clinics are fun!

I deck enter. I'm so horribly out of shape, that it really doesn't matter what I swim, so I enter 3 events that were spaced out as far as possible. 50 Fly, 50 Brst, and 500 Free (only because I wanted to burn more calories so I could rationalize pigging out at dinner later!)

Here we all are cheesing for the camera before the meet starts. (Further proof that I would look horrible with a shaved head)



I'm the first to swim - I'm in the 3rd and last heat of the 50 Brst, not because I'm fast, but because me and another girl deck entered and the other 2 heats were full. For my seed time, I estimated a slow time of 42.00, knowing that my fastest Masters time in this event has been a measly 39 high. And lately, with being so out of shape, I'm averaging about 2-3 slower per 50 than my normal Masters times. So I swim a 41.7 or something like that. Faster than my seed time. Yay! I "won"! My first 25 felt pretty good, I felt I was catching and pushing the water well and timing my kick on target, but after my crappy open water turn, it all fell apart!

I don't remember all the swims and times, but here's what I do remember:

Sonia swam the 100 Back in 1:39-something. Her seed time was 1:50, so she was very happy about that. And we both know she can drop more time if she does flip turns next time! Check out her HUGE smile in this picture. (Mark looks anxious about his upcoming 50 Free) She also crushed her best time in the 100 Free - she went a 1:17-something.



Mark's 50 Free was a best time, it was either a 37 or a 39. His 100 Free was also a best time - I think it was a 1:32 or a 1:33. And his 500 Free was a best time again - somewhere around a 9:10.

Joe was pretty happy with a 36 in the 50 Brst. He also did the 50 Back, and he hates backstroke, so that was a big deal! He went a 26 in the 50 Free, and a 1:02 in the 100 Free.

I beat my estimated-for-my-out-of-shapeness time in the 50 Fly of 38.00. I beat it by a whopping one-hundredth of a second! So I'm 2-0 for beating my seed times. But it dropped to 2-1 after my yucky 500 Free. I felt good for the first 200, holding 1:25 pace with the guy next to me, but then slowed way down to 1:31 pace on the last 300. I had one absolutely horrible turn where I almost missed the touch pad - I had to let the turbulent water behind my turn float my body and pointed toe a few extra inches into the touch pad, where I pushed off with my big toe and immediately started stroking. Note to self: don't get jumpy when I hear the bell ringing for the lead guy on his last lap, and flip turn on top of the "T" - I'm not that tall and I'm not going that fast to get to the wall from that distance!

Since I was the only female swimmer in my age group, I automatically won the High Point Award. Here's the DVD I won:



We went to the same restaurant for dinner as we did last year after the meet - On the Border. We chose it specifically because we were so hungry, we wanted the free chips and salsa as soon as we sat down! While we waited 10 minutes for our table, we ordered a drink at the bar, and I was carded. That hasn't happened in a while. I'm guessing my still-wet hair could've made me look younger... Mark and Sonia weren't carded, but baby-faced Joe was!

More cheese for the camera:



This time I didn't take my tortilla chips and spell out "DAMA Rox" (see that picture on our bulletin board at the pool). No, I waited to do that until we were all heavily breathing in the car on the way home. Here's my 2007 rendition.



We shared more funny stories during the car ride home, like when Mark was 27 and did some "really stupid things" (his quote, not mine) which included juicy info about his love life in the year leading up to meeting his wife. And Sonia told me all about her "boring" hometown that's 20 miles away from Naples. Joe kept us entertained with his many complaints of stupid drivers who tailgate, or people who pass him, then slow down again...

Finally, one last picture to share. Sonia and I in the backseat of Joe's car. Why is it impossible to take a self-picture without my neck-skin bunching up into a roll? I don't have a turkey neck! Even when I was fit and in shape, I could never take a good picture like this!



Overall, the meet was fun, the clinic was informative, the food was great, the company was excellent, and the drive was safe. All in all, I'd say our day trip was a success!

I'm definitely looking forward to the next meet at the end of January!