eclaire (what's in a) name?

i just read a very interesting article in the new york times (thanks, dad!) about female swim coaches – somewhat surprisingly there are very few of them in the competitive swimming world – and only three who coach 2008 olympians, all of whom reside in california.

i just don’t get the preconceptions that female coaches will be “easy” or “less competitive” than male coaches, but that’s probably because when i was in high school we had an awesome, laid back male coach who created loooong, grueling workouts for our afternoon practices. but in the morning (we’re talking 6am monday-friday, people), we had this gnarly female coach who made us focus on stroke refinement instead of yardage. i believe it’s due to her that i dropped so much time in my events my senior year – as well as the reason why i was able to in turn teach swim lessons for almost a decade. i ran into her a couple of weeks ago when i went swimming with my mom at ucsc, and she’s still going strong with the coaching, setting up the next generation of swimmers for success.

ok, enough from me, check out this article:

Women Jumping in as Elite Swim Coaches

ps- is anybody else excited about the summer olympics? i don’t know bout all of you, but i plan on spending all of my free time in front of the tv, watching my favorite summer sports!

around the pogan household, march madness refers to a month jam packed with birthdays and celebrations instead of the typical reference to basketball games.  while catching my breath after a whirlwind of fun events, i started to write a post about all of the march madness activities and realized that all of them included two essential components of the ncaa march madness: exercise and food (ok, the food isn’t televised, but do you know how much college athletes eat?!?!  it’s obscene!).  so maybe there’s more similarities between our version of march madness and the ncaa one than i originally thought:

1. we began the month celebrating jamie’s birthday at sky high sports, where we jumped to our heart’s content on a humongous trampoline, dove into foam, and played some dodgeball. we capped off the night with some thai food, a lemon cake, and vegan chocolate banana muffins.  exercise evaluation: it was more challenging to jump on trampolines for an hour than i ever imagined it could be, but also more fun, totally meriting an achy back for the next few days. food evaluation: delicious, filling, varied.

2. shortly thereafter, we proceeded to celebrate tyler’s birthday at the new norcal sports complex, where we took turns batting:

this delightful party ended with some taco bell chow at the new fancy taco bell on mission street, a blueberry pie & an apple pie, and a stimulating game of riff. exercise evaluation: this involved some serious hand eye coordination, and out of nowhere, old tips from my parents started emanating from some long-lost corner of my brain – like “keep your eye on the ball, step into it as you swing, make sure to really swing through, choke up on the bat,”  etc, etc. my arms could definitely feel the exercise the next day. food evaluation: unusual (haven’t had tb in a LONG time), ended the night groaning with fullness.

3. in the middle of all the birthdays, we paused for a respite with shoveling dirt at a dear friend’s house, then helping plant a garden in front of her new home, then helping her move into said house. exercise evaluation: exhausting manual labor that felt good but led to the realization that i could probably never chose farming for a career. food evaluation: delicious – over the course of 3 weekends, we were treated to easter jelly beans and m&ms, scrumptious dharma’s food, an amazing veggie & cheese tray from gayle’s and perfect pastry cakes from the buttery, not to mention delicious ice cold new-refrigerator-filtered-water.

4. in continuing with the deviation from the stream of birthdays, we celebrated easter with my family’s religion: delicious food! exercise evaluation: the easter baskets contained frisbees made out of nylon that can be folded and packed to take to any event.  the afternoon deteriorated into three frisbees flying all over the living room while ness and mike challenged each other to a frisbee/juggling match.  food evaluation: we put together an absolutely amazing brunch, with every family member pitching in to make something tasty.

5. getting back to the regularly scheduled birthdays, we celebrated chuck’s birthday (mike’s dad). chuck’s birthday is technically in between jamie and tyler’s, but he and barb were in arizona for the big day at spring training, so we all celebrated when they visited santa cruz. they stayed at our house while in town, so mike and i utilized a towel oragami book (thanks, dad!) to create a birthday cake made out of towels….yes, it was a little martha stewart-y, but pretty cool too. exercise evaluation: rolling towels for oragmi may not be incredibly physically challenging, but truly a test of mental endurance. food evaluation: we enjoyed delicious mexican entrees and margaritas (ok, not me – you all know about me and margaritas.  and if you don’t, ask mike – i don’t want to relive that story!) from palapas followed by creamy and sweet flan, all while watching the gorgeous sunset over the water.

6. last but definitely not least, we celebrated my dad’s 60th birthday in san francisco with a trip to the legion of honor to see the annie leibovitz photos and the dead sea scrolls, then headed to el mansour for a moroccan feast.  exercise evaluation: standing and looking at art work for hours can be quite challenging for the legs, not to mention the long walk we had from our car to the legion of honor and back. food evaluation: this event packed in two meals, with a brie and kalamata olive filled picnic prior to the museum and a delicious 5 course moroccan meal afterwards that was completey fabulous.

so, dear readers, there you have it: a trip through the pogan’s march madness.  in between all of the eating, exerising, and eating some more, it’s completely understandable why i didn’t blog for almost a whole month, right?!?

this could potentially be quite exciting for all of you out there who don’t own an ipod nano, but are interested in utilizing the nike+….there’s no cost listed yet, but it’s expected to be available on april 10:

http://www.uncrate.com/men/gear/sports/nike-sportband/

the long awaited part two is finally here. (i apologize again for the delay, life gets so busy!)

so, to catch you up to speed from part 1, i have a long and varied history with exercise. i primarily consider myself a swimmer, but i have been running for several years, mostly because mike likes to run and if i consent to run with him, he’ll swim with me.

i have always felt uncoordinated while running, and i get frustrated because i often have trouble setting a pace and catching my breath. it’s very easy for me just to give up and walk because really, who cares? who (besides mike) will notice if i’m a slacker on the treadmill? well, my friends, now the nike + will notice!

mike surprised me with this gift for christmas. it’s a two part gadget – one piece fits into an ipod nano and one piece fits into a nike shoe that is specially designed to hold it. when i saw the nike+ for the first time at the apple store in los gatos in early december, i wrote off the idea of ever being able to use it because nike shoes do not fit my flat and narrow feet very well. luckily, being married to mike means that there is always someone who will incessantly search the interwebs for frugal and reliable solutions for all gadget/electronic needs. he found an awesome sensor holder that fits onto the laces of any shoe, so i have one on my running shoes and one on my walking shoes that live at work.

when you’re about to begin your walk or run, you simply select the nike+ menu option on your nano, choose a time or distance goal and a playlist and go! the nike+ works like an advanced pedometer – it tracks your exercise time and distance. it also gives you a verbal time alert, like: “5 minutes complete” and “halfway done” and, in the last five minutes: “five minutes left” and “four minutes left” etc, etc. at the end of the workout, it will tell you how far you went, how much time you spent, average speed, and then if you did really well, it will tell you that your workout was a personal best. (the personal best messages are voiced by famous athletes like lance armstrong!)

when you plug your ipod into your computer to sync it, you are directed to the nike+ website, where you can view a visual of your run:

you can compare specific runs to your personal best run:

and, you can look back at all your previous runs or walks:

by registering with nike+, i also received some free treadmill playlists that coach you through interval running on a treadmill. i use intervals for motivation often while swimming, but had never thought to apply them to running.

with the combination of graphical outputs of each run, statistical analysis and comparison of different runs (i love stats!), time coaching/count downs, free playlists, and the possibility of lance armstrong congratulating me, i have had a major running breakthrough. i now find myself looking forward to the treadmill instead of bargaining with myself to just run 30 seconds more or trying to get out of going to the gym altogether. thanks, mike, apple and nike!!

**editor’s note: this is part one of a two part series on my relationship with exercise and how the nike + ipod has created a running breakthrough for me**

**warning: this blog entry contains a lot of text and musings about my personal relationship with exercise. it does not include a review of the nike + ipod, so if you’re looking forward to that you could skip this post and wait for the second installment.**

ok, so you’ve read the warning and you still want to read my musings before learning about my new running gadget. thanks!

my relationship with exercise can be broken into five distinct segments:

1. as a kid, my parents supported and promoted formal participation in athletic endeavors, including ballet, soccer, tap dance, and swimming lessons. in addition to orchestrated exercise, some of my most cherished childhood memories center around playing wiffle ball at the garfield park church around the corner from our house, going to recreation swim at harvey west pool with my family, and walking, biking, or roller skating (with my adorable minnie mouse velcro roller skates, of course) down to the ocean and back. i was lucky to have parents who planned such fun activities and ensured i was active throughout my childhood.

2. in sixth grade, i had a major growth spurt and my arches fell (editor’s note: i’m not *really* sure if these two go hand in hand) and through the end of high school running and walking were somewhat painful, despite my custom made arch supports. i had always loved swimming, and with the onset of pronated ankles/flat feet, i threw myself into the sport. for swim team and water polo, i dedicated myself to morning, evening, and weekend practices and spent more hours in the pool than anywhere else. my high school years blended into a series of exhausting practices for swim team, not doing anything athletic for a while, pouring all my energy into daily doubles for water polo, and repeating. after high school, i played water polo at uc davis, which maintained the cycle of mandatory binge work outs followed by long periods of no exercise. basically, if a practice wasn’t scheduled, there was no way i’d do anything athletic.

3. after i chose to stop playing water polo at davis so i could focus on my studies, i swam infrequently, both on my own and with my parents. i ate a lot of great food with mike and spent most of my time studying, munching, hanging out with friends, and unsure how to begin a regular exercise pattern without a coach (or parent) making me get into the water. i also worked teaching lessons at harvey west pool, and had no desire to exercise in the water after hours of working there – i just wanted to be dry!

4. the summer after i graduated from college i realized how out of shape i had become, and erm, how much weight pizza and beer added to my figure. thus mike, tyler and i implemented our get-fit-2003 campaign, where we exercised 4-5 times every week. tyler and i would swim (aka have hardcore competitions) at harvey west pool while mike ran around the block outside. mike and i made a conscious effort to cook more at home and eat smaller, healthier portions of food. while i may never look at cottage cheese or soy crisps with delight again (i waaay over consumed them throughout the get-fit campaign), we discovered a mutual love of cooking and attempted many new recipes in addition to copying recipes our very health conscious parents made for us as kids. get-fit-2003 was a challenging and exhausting era, where we re-trained both our bodies and stomachs, and learned to love exercising and healthy eating and cooking. i also slowly incorporated running into my repertoire, as mike loves to run. i shockingly discovered that my arches were no longer painful, which i never thought would be possible again.

5. it’s been about 4.5 years since the get-fit campaign. i am still exercising about four times per week, and find that i really need the work outs to feel good. i cherish my exercise time, much as i did as a child with my parents, and enjoy the time out from everything else in my life to clear my mind and move my limbs. mike and i alternate between swimming, running, long walks, biking, and yoga/pilates, and luckily my arches are continuing to be pain-free. shockingly, i have become a bit of a swimming wuss and dedicate most of my time in the winter to treadmills and pilates instead of braving the cold in the pool (my nordic ancestors would be so disappointed in me!).

while it’s been a half decade since i started running, up until a month ago i never really loved running. i feel like i suck at it, especially because mike is 100x faster than me and i end up breathing in his dust as i trail him. however, mike gave me a groundbreaking present for christmas: a nike + ipod, and it has changed my relationship with running. what is this fine device??? you’ll have to read the next installment to find out!