August 4, 2008 (Tubing)

Ok, so Thursday I found out that I am not the ideal trainee. Marcella keeps asking me if I can handle certain amounts of weights to lift. Every time, I say something like, "I don't know. I guess we'll see." I didn't know this, but she usually can look at a person's face and tell whether to raise or lower the amount after one set. She says that I have the same expression whether it's too little, just right, or too much. Fearless (a nickname for our boss at the community college) calls this being stoic, because she can't figure me out either. Marcella actually poked me in the belly to see if I was working my abs hard enough because I wasn't grimacing enough for her. What was funny about that is that I reacted inwardly stronger towards that than all the naked manhandling that doctors have been doing to me lately. My belly is the flabbiest part of me that isn't supposed to be flabby. It's funny to think that breast exams are less humiliating than being poked in the belly by your, in shape, trainer. She really touches me too much sometimes. I did finally grimace when she was stretching my hamstrings. We both thought that was amusing and she told me I need to relax....again. So in an effort to get me to relax, she told me to lie out flat on my back with my eyes closed and breath slowly. Finally, she found something that I couldn't do. I could NOT keep my eyes closed and relax. I kept picturing someone dropping a shoe on my stomach (fond childhood memory-don't ask) or worse yet, Marcella poking me in the belly again. It's funny that this was the first thing that she asked me to do that I just couldn't do at all.

Saturday, EJ, Chrissie and I went tubing. I really didn't know what I was getting in to, but thought this would be nice to get a little fun and exercise with the family. We went with about a dozen people from various churches to Scottsville, which is 3 hours away if you're driving with a church group, but only two hours when I drove us back a different route and speed on the way back. The river is about 5 ft deep at it's deepest points and about 75 meters wide there. There are rocks and trees sticking up occasionally. Sometimes because of the rocks, it's only a few inches deep. You get in inner tubes and float down the river. This would take two hours for me to do alone, it took four hours and 15 minutes, which could have been relaxing, but..... The first thing that happened was that I ripped that stupid toenail off so that it was only hanging by the corner. I spent most of the four hours trying to work the corner off and finally had to give up until I got home. The one joy I got out of that is that Chrissie was right next to me saying "ewww, get that thing away from me" almost the whole time.

Now, you would think that floating down the river in an inner tube would not be much of a work out. In fact, I was planning on going to the gym when I got home, but..... My retired navy husband could not for the life of himself figure out how to push himself over the more shallow parts and would get behind the group. Then he couldn't figure out how to paddle himself to catch up. When he would get 50 meters behind us, I would paddle upstream, hook my foot under his tube and pull him until we caught up with the group. (I grew up in Guam and Hawaii and am part fish. I was a lifeguard and on a swim team for 10 years of my childhood.)

For two hours I was pulling both him and Chrissie down the river. (Somehow all of our kids have EJ's water abilities. They don't drown, but I wouldn't call what they do swimming.) This was hard work. EJ weighs 100 pounds more than I do and Chrissie weighs more than half what I do. My foot was hooked under EJ's tube and his tube, for obvious reasons would hit rocks my tube would glide over, pinning my foot. This only happened a few times because I would put my foot with the dangling toe nail on top of the tube when I felt my tube slide across rocks. Finally, after two hours, Chrissie got the hang of things and I didn't have to pull both of them any more. However, by now, I was getting tired and could only pull EJ for twenty minutes or so at a time. That fool and love of my life did not get the hang of it until he could see the end and decided he wanted to beat me to shore. I didn't know we were racing so I stayed with Chrissie, our baby. (I know she's 12, but she'll always be my baby.) When he tells people about the trip he only mentions that he beat me to shore. Sometimes you just have to keep telling yourself that he's the love of your life whether you feel it or not at the time. :-)

Needless to say, I didn't go to the gym when I got home. This was the best workout I've had since I don't know when. It didn't come without injury though. In addition to the toenail, I got bit by a baby leach, blood worm or something. Try pulling that off your butt with twelve other people you barely know in an inner tube with all the grace and dignity of a pastor's wife. I took care of the toenail when I got home and thought I had bruised my heel. It wasn't until the next morning that I noticed fresh blood on the bathroom floor. It was 4 o'clock in the morning so I knew it had to be me. The only thing I could thing of was that bruised heel. Sure enough I had a small gash that was deep enough to bleed all night. Thankfully our sheets are navy blue. It wasn't hurt bad enough to miss jogging three miles two hours later though, so just say ewww, don't feel sorry for me. Feel sorry for EJ, he has sunburned legs and is sore from paddling against me. He has declared that we are never going tubing again. I think that I would enjoy going again as long as I left him at home and didn't try and stay with a group. I am so glad that I have been training leading up to this.

I'd hate to feel like EJ. Gas: $50, inner tubes $60, not feeling like EJ: priceless. :-)