What's up doc?

Didn't go swimming this morning since I seem be be coming down with a cold again. I saw a chiropractor, Tom Goodwin, this afternoon, just to check in and see how my post-rowing back was doing - preventative maintenance I guess. He had a great holistic approach to overall health. Found out that I had 17% body fat and need to get that down to 10-14%. Also, discovered that because of my long 2nd and 3rd toes, orthotics are in order to help support my foot bridge. Dr. Goodwin suggested that I not run until I get the orthotics to avoind any further injury. In addition, I do have some issues with my sacrum not having a full range of motion, which could explain some of my challenges in my posting, as well as in yoga. Finally, we discussed some diet changes...more protein, less carbos and more fish. Back on Friday to do a little more work on my sacrum.

Bye, bye base

AM entry. I went for my first run in two weeks this morning. I just did a steady state run to get started, none of the fancy interval stuff. Yikes, although it felt pretty good overall, I've definitely lost a lot of my cardio base. Then again, it could be the fact that I was out a little late last night, celebrating Lauren's birthday with her hubby Kelly and Dr. Robin. While doing a little disco dancin, ran into a couple guys from the crew team, so felt a little better about being out so late. Nevertheless, I'll have to really gear it up so that I'm at a point where Wendy's coaching in January won't be wasted on me just trying to catch up. I also met a fellow last night, Callum, who sold me on doing some cross-training in boxing. He's an actor from NY whose done some stage fencing, is pretty athletic all around and has a background in yoga too, so his comments on how boxing helped him with focus and responsiveness really caught my attention. Boxing might be a good way to exploit and channel that street fighting feel I get from epee. Speaking of which, my right chest and arm have turned a nice shade of green-brown-yellow. My how bruises age so beautifully! I either need to get some padding for these areas or work a lot harder on not getting hit. Stay tuned...epee tonight at Salle Auriol.

PM Entry. I went to Salle Ariol to do some footwork tonight, but discovered when I arrived that the coach had a cold and wouldn't be doing the footwork portion. Because I was coming down with something too, I didnt' feel like doing any full on fencing, so I turned around and took it easy for the night. Should be back to normal on the 4th at Wallingford.

Sister Wendy...Becker and an ounce of prevention

Everyone knows that the true sign of culture is whether a person is familiar with the work of Sister Wendy Beckett, renowned art commentator and historian. Well a sister of athletic sorts has arrived to enlighten my pentathlon world...that would be sister-in-sport Wendy Becker. Wendy will be coaching me in my running and swimming events. Wendy has both competed in and coached for competitive triathlon and biathlon, but I will be her first pentathlete. She also comes with a message therapy, an appreciation for yoga and a much appreciated sensitivity to overall health. The plan for now is that she will spend some time throughout January viewing me in the swim and run, as well as viewing me in some of the other events to get a feel for the big pentathlon picture.

Riding went well tonight. Pet seems to be responding to my transition signals better, but is still taking corners short and it takes several times around the rink to get a good trot/post out of him (this is probably as much my issue as it is his). I finally got a good trot out of him and spent the rest of the time at canter. I still seem to be leaning forward too much, around the turns and in the transition to canter, but after some wisdom from Laura addressed this only to find out the value of "prevention"...keeping control of the rhythm before it...and the speed get out of hand. With some more wisdom on the use of my hands, I was able to pull things together and finish my lesson on another positive note. Laura's gone for the next two weeks, which should provide me with some time to really internalize what I've learned thus far.

An evening at La Salle

The Wallingford Fencing Club is out for the holidays, so I spent an evening at the Salle Auriol Fencing Club, the other club in Seattle. It is a permanent space on the top floor of a warehouse near Lake Union. There were several people there that I had met before when I used to fence at UW. The footwork portion was quite different than Wallingford...much faster paced with longer, more choreographed sequences. With the permanent set up, it was also much easier to do some electric fencing. I fenced epee with Greg again (the assistant coach at Wallingford) along with a George (a well seasoned fencer who had a lot of good advice) and Ilya (an A level epeeist that also gave me some good pointers). I got two touches on Greg, beat George 5-4 and I did get one point on Ilya, which made me feel pretty good. I also found out that there were some people that had competed in the pentathlon in Seattle, so I am going to try and track them down in hopes that they might have some good advice on the big picture of the pentathlon. I have some great individual coaches, but need to figure out how to put it all together. I spent some time on Sunday looking at the US Modern Pentathlon Association website and quickly realized that I have a lot of work ahead as they have a pretty clear plan for how an athlete qualifies and advances in the events over a four year period. I meet with my prospective running and swimming coach on Wednesday, so I'm pretty exited to "escalate" things.

Epee or bust

Had a great catch up/holiday dinner and beer with Lauren, Kelly and Robin. Robin's back in town from Med school in Boston, so it was good to get back together. We all came up with our own pentathlons, which included such competitive sports like dog ball throwing. I'll have to have a "name your pentathlon" page on my website.

Rushed off to fencing after that and arrived just in time to watch the end of the basketball match. Garik (the coach from Belarus) feels pretty strongly that diverse athletic activity can do us all a lot of good. Basketball especially is great because of the bent knee stance and hopping around that are an important part of the game. We did a couple balance drills that were really challenging and something that I can take into my other events. One, where you stand facing your partner and try to make them lose their balance by pushing their hands, will prove especially valuable in my riding as it really emphasized loose elbows.

Greg (one of our other fencing assistant coaches) started me in on my epee adventure. What a difference from foil! The best way that I can describe the different feel is that epee felt much more like street fighting. You bounce around a lot and wait for the perfect moment to take a punch. Foil is has a very classic look and feel to it. I describe it as high speed chess. Very strategic and defense is quite important. In contrast, epee is different in that you don't have to establish right-of-way and the whole body is a target. Thus, if you spend time defending yourself, you'll probably receive a touch from the opponent before you realize what you were trying to do. I really enjoyed it, but realize that I have a long way to go. Since one of my big problems was trying to parry against Greg's blade all the time, it will be good to leave foil behind as quickly as possible. I have a long way to go!

Canter Man

It was back to Pet tonight, which is a good thing as it gave me a chance to put into practice the things I learned the week before riding on Eli. Once again, had the usual trouble getting Pet up to the post and when I did it was slow and forced. Not the kind of post you want to go up into a canter with. Laura suggested that I actually take him up to canter to get a better post and it worked well...a little reverse horse psychology.

I seemed to have gotten my canter in the correct "wild thing" motion as Laura calls it, which made my canter much smoother and I was able to get Pet in frame easier as well. When I finally went up into canter things went really well. I was in the saddle, kept things pretty much under control and Laura even commented on my arms being relaxed in the right way. I still need to work on the transitions but I’m pretty please with my progress.

Talk to me Eli

Interesting night at the barn tonight. Laura had an animal communicator come into the barn the Friday before, so we all got to hear what the horses had on their mind. Suffice it to say, everyone was suspicious of a "horse communicator" but after the sessions, Laura was pretty convinced. Eli, the horse I rode tonight, was the talkative one I guess. Which definitely came through in my riding. According to the horse communicator, Eli wanted to be an Astronomer and/or a chef. Apparently, Eli is the one horse in the barn that eats anything he's given, so this fits him well. Eli also told the communicator that "he didn't need a bit in his mouth to teach these novices how to ride". This is definitely the attitude that we've all come to know with Eli, but once again I really felt it in the ride. It was almost as though Eli was commenting on my riding as we went along. His head was all over the place and he seemed to especially have a lot to say when I gave an unclear signal with my aids. I definitely learned a lot from Eli about balance though. As a former polo pony, he's much more sensitive to balance shifts and signals. He also was much more responsive to signals, particularly transitions from post to canter, than Pet. I look forward to riding him again.

Knuckle neck

Since I got to leave work early due to the WTO situation downtown, I was able to get to Hilltop Stables early enough (6:30pm) to observe other riders. I really do learn a lot from doing this. Its one of the things Jenny Hale taught me early on in my rowing instruction…you can learn a lot by watching. I’ve decided that visualization is really important to me in training. Watching the UW crew guys, watching fencing bouts, and other riders really helps me focus on what I need to concentrate on. The funniest part of observation time was one of the horse’s (Mac) response to a reindeer antler/Santa hat that someone put on top of my UW cap. Mac just couldn’t stop looking at me. He’s a curious horse, but the look on his face was hysterical…not sure if it was worry or disbelief.

I was pretty tight at first and had the usual problems getting Pet to listen to my aides, he seemed to keep wanting to make short turns. Laura had me pull the outside reign along with pressure on the inside leg to get Pet to stay to his full turns. Got a handle on this then worked on getting good flex in Pet. This basically means that I was trying to get him to curve his neck (eventually his whole body) into the turn or path I am taking. I did this by pulling my inside elbow back while maintaining constant pressure on the outside reign. Took me a couple laps in both directions, but I eventually got it. By the end Pet was responding much better to all my commands. Then up to canter where I finally figures out what Laura has been trying to tell my about using my knuckles rather than my wrists on Pet’s neck during the 2-point and canter. It felt 100 times better when I started using my knuckles.