Saturday, February 9, 2008

Checking in..

Between family here, training, knitting and scrapbooking classes, I have neglected my blog, which sucks, because it is my therapy. The training went well this week. I am pooped tonite! My son-in-law expressed his concern that I was learning to knit and talking about shopping at Walmart these days. What can I say? My world is maybe getting a little smaller but damn- I am still training for an Ironman! I LOVE scrapbooking by the way-made my first page today..Knitting-well, let's just say I am learning and it is fun. I think the cashmere sweater may be far distant in the future but we may have plenty of washcloths soon, with my current talents.

I experienced a bit of vertigo this week. I had a similar case about 4 years ago and it was BAD. I awoke on the last day of vacation in Cancun and could not get out of bed without the room spinning uncontrollably (kind of like my old drinking days but this time no Margaritas involved). I was pretty sure I had a brain tumor. When we got home, I went to the ER and they said it was just a case of "Benign paroxysmal positional vertigo", which basically means there is no real reason for it. It lasted months. I had to take anti-seasick pills almost daily. Then one day, it just went away. The only thing, at the time, I figured out was that I had taken windsurfing classes in Mexico and had flipped over the side of the boat several times and thought I had suffered whiplash. The Dr. said there is also a theory now that bits of calcium can break loose in your middle ear and cause vertigo.

All of this made me have a lighbulb moment when the vertigo started in a mild form this week. I have been trying to do flip turns every time I swim for the last 2 weeks. Now I have never been a religious flipper, if you will. I saw a video on beginnertriathlete.com and thought I had it finally nailed. Then the dizziness started. Aha! I think these flip turns are breaking loose those calcium thingies in my inner ear. So no flip turns today and no vertigo.. Hopefully problem solved!

Tomorrow-high in the 50's, sunny-H & I are off for a 3 hour SLOW bike ride so maybe finally I can keep my HR down. I check in with my coach for the first time this week so am looking forward to that..

Oh and may I just add a pet peeve here: When the guy in the lane next to you is swimming faster than you and he has some of those long baggy trunks on and you can see his big fat belly under the water. WTF?

8 comments:

21stCenturyMom said...

I hear you on that swimming thing - SO ANNOYING! There is a woman at our pool who is a back stroker. Now granted, she wears fins but not the really long ones. She can back stroke, practically vertical in the water and with a very round body a little faster than I can swim freestyle. Makes.me.crazy!

I hope the vertigo goes away ASAP

Unknown said...

If you are right and the flip turns are the culprit, that's an easy fix!

Podium quest said...

The fat on that guy actually will help him to swim better than you. Fat floats. Muscle doesn't. & from the looks of you your all muscle now.

Oly said...

Fear the flip!

skoshi said...

Really sorry to hear about the vertigo--that must be miserable.

The "bits of calcium" in your ear that you are refering to are called "otoliths." Lots of info on line (try wikipedia).

PT's treat this condition. Hope it gets better for you soon and doesn't come back.

Anonymous said...

man, vertigo sounds not fun!

You were smart to figure out the connection with the flip turns.

Hope it gets better :)

Bones said...

Hummm, didn't you always flip when we swam together? Of course that was a few years ago. I just read something about vertigo, darn, I need to remember where it was at.

Cody is right. You need to put on about 40 lbs so you can just float through the IM :)

Vickie said...

Is the pet peeve that you could see his fat belly or that fat belly was actually swimming faster than you? I am constantly amazed at the speed of the overweight. Makes you wonder what we're doing wrong?