Rabbit Food

In college when I was trying to make weight, I would eat what my friends would call "rabbit food"--raw vegetables, Fiber One cereal, and whole grain bran muffins.  It is pretty hilarious when I look back now, but at the time, my rabbit food was very serious.  Crew was very serious, and not making weight was simply unacceptable.  At the time, I really lacked the maturity and mindset to make weight without developing poor eating habits, such as going through cycles of binging and starving.  In the end, I could only make weight by crash dieting, and dehydration worked to shed the last few pounds.

For my birthday the year I was trying to make weight for the Head of the Charles, my roommate gave me a cake made of "rabbit food."

"Rabbit food" cake

This is how I spent my junior year in college.  Picture a 100 person lecture hall with a professor standing in the front of the room, droning on in his heavy foreign accent about some upper division mechanical engineering concept--heat transfer to be specific.  I am wearing my crew sweats and slouching in my seat in the back row of the lecture hall with my notebook open to take notes.  I am snacking on my raw broccoli and whole grain brain muffins, which my friends think are disgusting.  I have to admit that the muffins really just tasted like cardboard, but they were the closest thing to complex carbohydrates that I would allow myself to eat.  I am trying to pay attention to the professor while my friends are making snide comments about the lecture (thus one of the reasons why we are sitting in the back).  What I am really thinking about during lecture is food and all the things I want to eat, but should not eat, cannot eat, must not eat.  Twenty minutes into lecture, I am fast asleep (the another reason why we are sitting in the back). 

I was a pretty bad student.  In all four years of college, the best sleep I got was in lecture.  The warm lecture halls and the monotone voice of the professor created the perfect nap envirnoment.  I was always behind on sleep, thanks to crew, and always falling asleep in lecture with my rabbit food in hand.

NyQuil and Chocolate Cake

Part Two of "I did NOT want to get up this morning, coffee or no coffee."  You can read Part One here.

To be truthful, I think my body simply shut down from too much stress, lack of sleep, and probably too much coffee.  Passing out early the other night was my body holding up a white flag.  That whole night, I had the chills and aches, followed by a low-grade fever and headache.  The following day or yesterday, I left work early to come home and rest.  No rower wants to hear or face the reality that perhaps, she is cracking under too much stress.  Somewhere in her contorted mind, it implies to her that she cannot handle the physical and mental stress of the training schedule.  There are several components that make up a top athlete: strength, endurance, core strength and balance, mental toughness, consistency, and stress.  None of the other components mean anything if you cannot perform under stress.  And trust me, sitting at the start line of a 2,000m race is very stressful because no one else can help you.  Nothing, but rowing those 2,000m and completing the race can bring you salvation, but yet, it is that 2,000 meters that is so uncertain and brings about the anxiety of anticipation.

This morning, I left the house with no coffee and with a low-grade fever and chills, but I had a plan--NyQuil.  I am not a big believer in taking medicine for minor colds or discomforts, but I am a big believer in sleep, and NyQuil will give me sleep.

We had 1 LMRC double, 1 men's single, 1 LMRC eight (same line-up as Saturday and Monday), 2 JLAC women's eights, and 1 JLAC men's eight on the water today.  At the finger, Chris had the eight practice a catch drill where a pair sits at the finish and then rows up to the catch.  At the catch, the two rowers will simply lift their hands off the handle, allowing gravity to do its job and the oar to plunk right into the water.  The drill demonstrates that your hands should lift, and not drop, into the catch.  We continued to warm up to the log boom.  From the log boom back to the finger, we practiced starts.  None of the starts were particularly great even when Chris had us slow down the speed and ease off on the pressure.  Our main piece was from the finger to the log boom at a 24spm and at steady state pressure with a focus on length.  The last drill that we did before going in was the "chop-chop" drill.  (Anyone know the actual name?!)  The whole boat sat at the finish with arms away and simply tapped the oar handle up and down, hence the chop-chop.  Once the boat was able to maintain timing and togetherness, the coxswain would call "Way enough" and the rowers would stop their blades in the air. 

With a quick stop at Safeway after practice, I had my NyQuil, and with my NyQuil, I slept a fitful, yet much needed five hours.  I woke up with the chills gone, but my head in a daze, probably from the NyQuil.  I woke up to one thought in my head--CHOCOLATE CAKE.  I pictured luscious, rich chocolate cupcakes and a whole 9x13in pan of moist chocolate cake coming out of my oven.  I have no idea where this thought came from because one, there is no chocolate cake in the house, and two, I usually prefer white or yellow cake over chocolate cake.  But once the thought of food enters my head, it is a beast to shake off.

If you have not yet heard of my amazing ability, please do indulge me by reading about it here because being sick is no deterrent for me.  I assessed my situation.  There was no chocolate cake in the house, but I did have sugar-free chocolate popsicles and chocolate pudding and real sugar, full fat chocolate chips and several boxes of brownie mix.  In my former, less glamorous lightweight days, I would have gone for the boxes of brownie mix, which I would rip open, pour into a bowl, along with some yogurt, butter, and/or egg whites and would try desperately to make a brownie meant to be baked in the oven for over 30 minutes, in the microwave in 30 seconds.  Then, in worried panic that I might finish off the rest of the brownie mix, I would throw it out and take out the trash because once the brownie mix was in the dumpster, I could not be tempted to fish it out.  Today though, I worked my way up, first from the popsicles and pudding to the chocolate chips.  With my head still in a daze and my stomach bloated from sugar-free crap, I have come to the realization that may be I should just take another NyQuil and sleep it all away.

Amazing Ability

I have this amazing ability. I am probably the only person you know who can gain weight while sick. This is the same ability that allowed me today to continue eating and snacking while having a massive stomach ache.

A few months ago, my mixed double's partner was explaining to me about how sick he had been that week and as a result, how much weight he had lost. He had actually lost a fair amount of weight while ill. Of course, most of the weight was regained after a few healthy days, but like normal people, he still came out with a net loss. Whenever I am sick, I come out with a net gain. Being sick might suppress my appetite, but it does not mean that I eat less. I usually eat more because I am so miserable being sick that I am constantly looking for a pick-me-up, usually in the form of food whether it is a bar of candy or five bowls of chicken soup. Add on top of that not being able to workout and it becomes a simple inequality--calories in >> calories out. No wonder the scale reads a few pounds heavier.

For the last month, I have been trying to eat healthier by the usual means--more fruits and veggies and less processed food and sweets. Today, I was quite on track towards the end of the day, eating my carrots and sugar snap peas. These veggies were not quite filling so I had some oatmeal too. Somehow, these foods or this combination at this particular time of day did not agree with my stomach and I ended up with a bloated, uncomfortable stomach. Then, somehow in my twisted logic under physical distress, I reasoned that eating more food would help the situation. Of course, that did not provide the relief I was looking for. Any normal person would have known to stop eating, drink warm herbal tea, and lie down.

Learning that food is not the answer to illness, stomach aches, stress, bad days, screaming babies, etc. is clearly something I need to work on. This amazing ability has got to go.

Nothing Cute to Wear

My head-strong daughter, the Princess, turned a big ONE earlier this week. One of the nights after work, I hosted a small get-together with a few of my friends. Before my friends arrived, I had given the Princess a bath and was in the middle of trying to dress her, as she squirmed and cried bloody hell. I had a hard time finding something cute and something that did not look like PJs for her to wear; she was, after all, the birthday girl. Every birthday girl needs an outfit. (My husband would disagree.) My husband and I have not had to buy the Princess any clothes because we have been lucky enough to get plenty of gifts and hand-me-downs for her to wear. As I realized that night, we are reaching the point where we were running out of free clothes. A had nothing cute (and clean) to wear!

I joined crew in college during the spring semester, and the summer after my novice semester in college, I was rowing with a small masters team. You must picture an overweight me with the typical novice look in my eye, eager to pull hard with no idea about endurance or technique. I am rather embarrassed to think about it, but I must have looked so pathetic then. I tried really hard that summer to improve my rowing. I got up, every Monday through Friday, at 4AM to bike 45 minutes through the ghettos to be at the boathouse for 5AM practice. After practice, I would bike 35 minutes to work. You must remember that I was not really in-shape at this point in my life and that I had no clue about bikes. Sometimes, I really live in a box and possess no common sense. I had purchased the cheapest mountain bike, which weighed a ton, and was riding it around with NO CLUE about shifting and gears. I always wondered how cyclists went up hills so easily because going up hill for me was a series of agonizing slow-motion pedal strokes. I was so miserable on that bike, but I had to bike because I had no car and because one of my novice coaches had recommended biking as a good way to stay in shape over the summer and to lose weight. And, of course, I had to lose weight because...I rowed on a LIGHTWEIGHT team.

One practice, I was not boated and stayed on land to erg. I was wearing what I usually wore, a random T-shirt and short, short (short like track and field, volleyball short) spandex from REI because that was all the spandex that I could find. I had not discovered JL or Sew Sporty yet. That's how much of a novice I was. After I finished erging, one of the coaches who coached a collegiate men's team and occasionally helped out with the masters team approached me. He was at the boathouse everyday, rowing his own boat, and had seen me come to every practice. He probably finally took pity on me and offered me advice. He said, "If you really want to be serious about rowing and you want other people to take you seriously, you need to be wearing the right gear." Up to that point, I had not realized how ridiculous I must have looked, wearing shorts that were clearly too tight for me. No lie, I was absolutely embarrassed and mortified, especially being a female, but even then, I truly, deeply appreciated that honesty. Nothing beats honesty.

Any rower knows that rowing gear is expensive. JLs, spandex, splash jackets, unis can pretty much make you broke, but if you want to be serious about rowing, you have to have some of the basics--JLs and trou. Look for sales at regattas or online or ask around for hand-me-downs. It might not be your birthday, but you do need something suitable to wear.