short showers?

let's be honest. i'm not that tall. at 5'8'', i don't really tower over anyone, yet i have to duck to get under the showers in the women's locker room at gregory gym (the gym/rec center at ut austin). the facility is relatively new, so its not like i'm trying to squeeze into an ancient facility built during a time when people were short. i don't get it.

but i digress. i'm swimming again, which is why i was at gregory gym in the first place. it is amazing how quickly the feel of the water comes back to you. its also amazing how an action so subtle can make you remember why you do what you do. how you move your hand through the water can make you fast or slow. how you position your body in the water can do the same. and those were the things i was thinking about while i was swimming...i love thinking about that kind of thing. its silly, but the subtle movements we make can have such a huge impact on how fast or slow we are and whether or not we get injured.

really, one of the best things about what i do is that i get to watch people move. it fascinates me...and it's not work. marathons are like christmas. people running in all sorts of weird ways, and yet they're all functional enough to get the person across the finish line. one of the questions that i think about that most though is what makes someone able to keep doing a certain activity for years and years. part of it is mental and shear enjoyment. i thoroughly believe if you want to do something you will find a way to do it or at least be involved. i met a guy this summer who had had most of the major joints in his body replaced at least once...and he was only a couple years older than me. all the cancer treatments he'd been through had caused this to happen. at one point, he had to stop playing soccer. he started coaching, and if i remember correctly, had been coaching for 11 years. people like that inspire me.

i rode this morning. it was the first time i'd gone out for a workout on the bike since the ride this summer (that ended ~3 weeks ago). i headed out to shoal creek and did intervals for a couple hours. i haven't done intervals on a bike in i don't know how long. it felt great. it is amazing how good riding feels when your legs don't feel like crap. it's also amazing how great my tri bike feels. maybe you have to ride a lot to know how different bikes feel. when i got my tri bike a couple years ago, the people at the shop told me to ease into riding in aero to get used to the new geometry. i went out and did a 60 or so mile ride the next day and only got out of aero when i had to stop at lights. i love the fit of it, and have been fortunate in that i've never had low back problems from my position.

this weekend i'm going to ride the half-ironman course with a friend. apparently the bike course is a bit hilly. i still don't know what that means here though because austin tends to be these short, steep hills as opposed to long gradual ones. a few of us are trying to start doing lost creek repeats more regularly, but we still seem to be unable to get ourselves up early enough to get a decent workout in before class. lame, i know. i'm working on it.

they did let me pass my proficiency exam, so i finally figured out what classes i'm in this semester. that was a bit of weight taken off my shoulders. after this term, i will just have one course left for my phd. however, there may still be more classes in my future. i had a meeting this afternoon with the director of the athletic training program here to see if it would be possible for me to get athletic training certification while doing my phd. it would mean two or three classes a semester for the rest of the time i'm here, and a lot of hours in the training room. the program director thinks its feasible though. i have to look into logistics a little more closely though and talk to the folks in grad division because basically it would mean me graduating from ut with a bachelor's (in athletic training) and a phd (in bme) at the same time. the work would be complimentary though given that all my research is in biomechanics. it takes about three years to do all the stuff for athletic training simply because of the sequence of courses and clinic stuff, so i think i'm going to start doing the directed observation program this semester just to check it out. the program director approved. so we'll see what happened. i will keep you all posted.