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July 6, 2006
20 + 1
This morning at the pool when the workout was announced as 21x100 I instantly had a sneaking suspicion that the last 100 might be an "all-out" type of deal. Indeed it was. The first 20 at pace, the last one all out. I kind of like that hard last one though. It reminds me of my high school coach and the "gut-busters" we used to do. A gut-buster was an unannounced (until the END of the workout that is) all out 400 on the track, usually after hill repeat workouts. Coach would yell "GUT-BUSTER!" and we'd all groan and then go down to the track and run as hard as we could once around the track on very tired legs. The key was that in a race, when we had about 400 to go, Coach would yell gut-buster and we would remember that indeed we had the ability and the tenacity to dig down deep one last time. It was a good idea. If I'm ever a coach, I might use that trick.
Anyway, I've gone way off track...
The pool was long course again this morning. I'm starting to think that short course isn't coming back for a while. It's been over 3 weeks of no short course. Perhaps it will come back again in the fall. Regardless I was helping set up lane lines this morning so I only got 500 meters warmup before we started the workout...which was...
6x100 meters on 1:45
5x100 on 1:50
4x100 on 1:55
3x100 on 2
2x100 on 2:05
last 100 meters all out - my time was 1:20
Now this isn't usually how we do things - in fact quite the opposite. We usually get FASTER with each interval set but let me tell you, this was just as difficult! I may have underestimated the workout some, thinking that it was going to get easier, but the first 11 repeats were pretty hard and not a lot of rest and so the rest of the workout felt pretty hard too! I survived though and was pleased with my 1:20 effort at the end. My arms are tired now.
In other news, I had quite a heartbreaking patient today. Actually, it was the patient's husband that had me all ripped up inside. The patient has a huge tumor/hernia type deal but is at very high surgical risk due to a bad heart/age and so they are trying to decide if she should have the surgery or if they want palliative care and in the mean time she can't eat or be fed through her GI tract because of this tumor and he's trying to decide if he should continue this whole thing or not.
When I went to talk to him he was so nice and had lots of questions and then he started to talk about his marriage and the tears welled up in his eyes, I think because he was imaging life without her. They have been married 65 years!!!!!!! It's amazing to me. AND he said they started dating 5 years before that (high school sweathearts) so he told me he tells everyone they have been married for 70 years. The tears started to flow and I got choked up myself and I wanted to give him a big hug like you wouldn't believe! I was able to get him laughing again though, and he told me stories about his wife and through it all he was holding her hand. It broke my heart to see how heart broken he was! I think he's going to decide to withdrawl support which is by far the harder choice but in so many cases (in my opinion) the right choice. It's times like these that I'm thankful my job helps me to realize a much bigger picture. As athletes we get bogged down in the details sometimes, when really the details are pretty meaningless.
So now it's about time to get going home! I hope everyone has a wonderful Thursday night.
Posted by beth at July 6, 2006 4:03 PM
Comments
beth, so many thanks for your wonderful thoughts, some good rest for your tired arms and bucketfuls of admiration for your incredible drive and energy :)
Posted by: corrado giambalvo at July 6, 2006 5:02 PM
beth, so many thanks for your wonderful thoughts, some good rest for your tired arms and bucketfuls of admiration for your incredible drive and energy :)
Posted by: corrado giambalvo at July 6, 2006 5:03 PM
i will be praying for you... and the husband and wife that is going through this stressful and challanging time... stay strong...
Posted by: Kranky C Dale at July 7, 2006 9:19 AM
i will be praying for you... and the husband and wife that is going through this stressful and challanging time... stay strong...
Posted by: Kranky C Dale at July 7, 2006 9:19 AM