Uh, I think I’m changing my list. Tango might not be challenging enough. What about becoming a B-Girl?If you look closely enough you’ll see the sand that I kicked directly into Em’s face.
FIERCE!
I might need a dance name
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Tag Archives: Health and whatnot
Summertime and the Livin is Easy
In summertime California explodes with produce, the tomato featured above was huge. It made dinner for three. Needless to say the best part of the week is CSA Tuesday.
This is how we eat nowadays. Chop tomato. Add fresh mozarella, basil (from CSA natch) and olive oil.
Apply to face with gusto. Repeat as needed.
Flippin Awesome
As you might know I discovered my love of running whilst jamming to beat the Meter Maid over on Capitol Ave three years. Ever since this belated discovery that I was capable of doing physical fitness type activities I’ve been trying to keep pushing the envelope a little. From beating the meter maid I moved to a 10K and then a 1/2 marathon. Since (for me anyways) doing a regular marathon is not only out of the question but also insane I’m temporarily on a swimming kick. Swimming is great for lots of reasons:
1) Summers in Sac are H.O.T.
2) It’s practically free at Sac City
3) I’m not good at it=lots of room from growth.
4) I have various neuroses fears about swimming=lots of room from growth.
Anyways, the first day my big accomplishment was getting in the pool because I’m kind of afraid of the deep end. From there we moved to swimming a mile and now we’re up to 2000 meters a day. And butterflying, but now you can all just call me Emily Torres because I have crossed the last frontier: FLIP TURNS.
It seems easy, you just flip over and push off… unless you are a paranoid Wilipina with various water-related neuroses. If that is your situation the flip turn is your Everest. Everyday I would try to do it once or twice but I couldn’t flip straight. I was like a three year old learning to tumble. Cute when you are three. Dorkalotus maximus when you’re pushing 30. And then it was “Learn how to flip turn” day at the pool. This involved surprisingly little instruction and 45 minutes of flip turning. Emily and I headed for the wall over and over again. There were multiple rounds of chickening out and much water up the nose. I developed a bizarre fear that I’d crack my head on the bottom of the pool and started hand-standing before turning over.
And then like magic. I did it. I DID IT!
It is so much fun. I now feel like a professional swimmer and flip turn just for the sheer joy of it and also to show off. I think I might ask Lisa if I can get promoted to stellar status.
Butterfly, oh, oh that's old. Let me see you tootsie roll!
Okay, this song has little to do with the post but everytime I think Butterfly I hear it. Anyways, some of you might remember that during our last swim class experience I learned how to Butterfly… sort of. I mean, I can get myself across the pool (with great effort) but I’m not really sure if I’m doing it correctly. I fear that I look like one of those crazy people who do the crawl without putting their face in the water i.e. totally wrong. However, I’m getting really bored of doing freestyle laps in swim class so I decided to suck up my pride and try to do a lap of butterfly. And it went…
Well I got across the pool. Thanks to my newfound cardiovascular strength(thanks 1/2 marathon training!) I made it, but the whole time I was kind of tortured by the possibility that all the good swimmers were sniggering at my floppy butterfly. It’s not really a subtle stroke. I was displacing A LOT of water. At the end of 25 looooooong meters I steadied myself for possible humiliation as I leaned up against the wall to re-catch my breath.
Then something wonderful happened.
The guy in the lane next to me opened his eyes wide and said “Ohmygosh. I was watching you under the water. That was hella cool.” Charmed by his enthusiasm, flattery and impossibly adorable chicano accent I immediately went into girly 7th grader mode. “Ohmygosh, thank you so much, I’m not sure if I was doing it right.” I think I might’ve even bit my thumb while I did gushed. I mean what else could I do? I’m a Bay Area girl and he said “Hella!”
Renewed by a strangers compliment I took a deep breath and butterflopped my way back to the other side.
Swimming Update
For the most part swimming is going well. Last week we did something called the Cooper test. Luckily since I trained with Sacfit, I’ve done this before. The Cooper test is when you basically try to run/swim as far as you can in 12 minutes. It’s a cardiovascular endurance test. The instructions they gave us for running where something like “If you did it right by the end you should feel slightly nasesous.” Yay! Sounds like a fun weekend activity.
Wisely, our swim instructor did not give us those instructions because you can die in a pool if you get too tired. If you run too hard, you’ll probably just pass out or barf.
Anyways, because Emily (my friend Emily, this isn’t some weird third person thing) and I are both kind of competitive we tore it up in the pool. Well, we tore it up as much as the fastest remedial int. level swimmers can. I swam 575 meters! This got me into the “Good Fitness” ranking. 2nd highest ranking! I couldn’t believe how much easier swimming is now after having run for so long. I guess there is something to this whole “excercise makes you heart stronger” malarkey.
Food Inc.
Update: Saw this at APHA. It was good.
Working in public health you learn a lot about things it’s easier not to know. Like how what you put in your body affects both you AND other people. For a thrifty girl like me it’s hard to spend money on higher quality food when I can go to WinCo and get so much more for so much less. For better or worse, now I know better and I totally agree with the sentiment of this trailer “Everytime you buy food you are voting on the future.”
Better food is expensive. I get that, but that’s when it’s time to make sacrifices. Arnold and I eat beans every single day to be able to afford better produce, fair trade coffee etc. etc. And if you know how much I love eating meat and how I hated beans for years you’ll realize that I am super serious about using my pennies to vote for safer, locally produced food.
