Spent the last 5 days ripping house and car apart to find missing Road ID bracelet that I figured I'd lost.

Will not bitch about Velcro anymore.

This Week at the Pool: Skill Development

Student has mastered the following:

Flop Turn

n.  often preceded by an extra, unnecessary breath and a moment of panic, a flop turn involves somersaulting in the water a little too far from the wall, and flipping over a little too quickly so that you hardly get any propulsion and find yourself swimming downward in a moment of disequilibrium before the voice in your head starts yelling “Where’s the surface???  Where's the surface???? Aaaaccckkk!!!”

by Emilie L. David, 22 January 2012

There’s No Place Like Home

by Emilie L. David, 16 January 2012

Although it’s not a quick trip, I head for home as often as I can.  As soon as I see the New York State sign I actually feel like I am breathing a little easier.  When I am visiting, it is always a bit of a battle to get myself out to run, but it’s almost always a good run, no matter the distance.

My home town has changed.  It has a Walmart and a Lowe’s.  The K-mart  where I bought music when it came on a plastic disk bigger than a dinner plate is a parking lot full of rubble, and the Friendly’s I went to after every school concert and dance has closed.  The house I grew up in is a different color, the fence that served as my pony is long gone, and the rocky flower bed I still have a scar on my knee from falling in will not trip up any other 4 year olds.  But there is still enough there that is familiar, enough to wake up the ghosts of my childhood moments.

When I was in 6^th grade, my family moved across the main thoroughfare in my town to a larger, newer house.  My brother and I never really forgave our parents for that.  The back yard at the old house was fenced in and landscaped in a way that made it seem like its own territory.  The backyard beyond it was an open and vast playing field, and in winter, when pooled water froze, a private skating rink.

It’s funny I should love that house so much.  It was the stage of endless humiliations.  When he was up for it, my dad would race me around the house.  He was competitive about it, and with my grace and agility, I often found myself sprawling somewhere (like the flower bed) just before the finish. 

He loved to watch boxing, and one weekend, he bought a boxing set at a store called Two Guys.  It came with 2 sets of gloves, one padded head protector, and two mouth guards, which were so flimsy and big, mine protruded in a ripple out of my mouth.  I found I was not bad at hitting, but I was horrible at blocking, and, since I was typically NOT wearing the head protector, good at falling in a round losing KO. 

My dad liked to play tennis and he tried to teach me with a gizmo that he bought that consisted of a tennis ball attached to an elastic cord, tethered to a weighted disk. You put the disk in the middle of the driveway about 6 feet in front of you and hit the ball, preferably in an arc so that it hit the driveway beyond the disk and the cord pulled the ball back to you for a second go.  My dad would demonstrate the appropriate form and approach.  I would whack the ball.  Sometimes it would come back and hit me.  Sometimes it would send me running off to my left or my right and evade my racket, hitting the asphalt and arcing away from me.  Once, it snapped its cord and took off across the street.  Always, these sessions ended with my dad, tsk-ing his tongue against his teeth in utter disappointment, and me, slamming my racket to the driveway in a McEnroe sized tantrum of frustration.

Occasionally we could get the neighborhood kids together for some Wiffle ball.  On those rare occasions that I actually hit the ball, I hit it in a nice slow arc directly back to the pitcher. 

I remember one summer, probably during the Olympics (always inspiring), my dad decided we should go for a jog.  Not a race around the house – but a jog.  I was very excited.  We were going to go further out of the neighborhood than I had ever walked.  It might take us all day.  My dad was all about gear, so we donned appropriate outfits, including head bands and, in his case, tube socks, in my case, ankle socks with pompons on the back.  I brought a pack of Gatorade gum in my pocket to sustain us.  We made it all the way down the street and past the YMCA, which is the furthest I had ever walked by myself.  Then we made it to Indian Meadows park (site of another of our outings, The Great Kite Flying Failure of 1976).   And then we went PAST the entrance – this was territory we only ever drove the car to!  And then suddenly we were both sweating and gasping asthmatically and I was probably whining about it so we stopped and turned around and walked back home.  I don’t remember ever running anywhere with my dad again.

So with that history,  it does give me pleasure now to route my runs from the big house my mother still lives in, across Route 50 and into my old neighborhood to the house I grew up in.  From there I head down the street, past the Y, past the park, and I finish the course my father and I had intended to run all those years ago and head back to the big house.  There is still a lot of sweating, and sometimes there is some wheezing (I always forget how flat it isn’t), but each time, there is a little bit of laughing.  At all the things my dad and I did together in the name of fitness.  About how excited and hopeful we would be when we started.  And mostly about how, when you add it all up, the entire loop is just a little over 6 miles; the ‘marathon’ that my father and I ran just one time, barely a mile.

Can I roll on that?

by Emilie L. David, 7 January 2012


My foam roller has become one of those things that I use just about every day.  There is always something that is achy or knotted to roll out.  The Stick is also handy if you can't get to a good masseuse.  The problem with these tools is that they don't pack well, although once Vera Bradley comes out with a foam roller carrier, I am sure you will see them regularly slung across the backs of runners flying to their next destination race.

For now though, whenever I travel and don't pack the foam roller or stick, I find myself sizing up the things around around me and wondering, can I roll on that?  Below are some tested alternatives.

Hand weights: Ok to roll your arch on, 
but slightly dangerous for anything else (as evidenced by bruises)

Rolling pin:  Although it looks like The Stick, it is a little too bulky, and the handles are not that strong.  Definitely do NOT attempt to use your great grandmother's rolling pin - you know, the one your mother has been saving to give you until such time as you are more responsible and less rough with things...

Beer bottle:  If full and cold, this is good to rest against an achy knee, between sips.  Really, what's inside is more helpful at making the aches "disappear."  If drained and not one of those tin jobbers, do NOT attempt to roll a glute on it against a hard surface.

Weeble:  A) it is hard to smash your posterior against something that is smiling innocently like this.  2. Weebles definitely wobble, and if you are rolling on them on carpeting, their egg shape will cause them to escape and ricochet against your furniture and, since she is already in a foul mood, your mother's ankle bone.  4) If you try to roll on them on the wood floor, they start to make this horrible squeaking noise that will make you feel guilty.  Weeble murderer.

Baseball and bat:  Ok, so, I didn't really test the baseball. The one I have has a signature on it and I'm not taking it out of its protective box, but I imagine it would work pretty well.  I also did not use my Louisville slugger, because after what happened with the rolling pin, I didn't want to disrespect Louisville.  But I did try a Wiffle ball bat, because who respects that?  Plus, it was blue!  Can you imagine?!  Anyway, if you are visiting your mom and you didn't bring your stick - you can borrow the Wiffle bat she won't throw away.  The Stick people don't want to hear me say this, but for my money, it works just as good.  Plus, that knob at the end of the handle is excellent for really digging into those stubborn little knots.

Tennis ball:  My physical therapist recommended this to me.  It's especially good for piriformis issues (pain in the ass) - you can put it between your issue and a wall and lean into it until, as she says, the pain goes from sharp to dull, or, as I say, until the screaming becomes a moan.

Lacrosse ball:  Better than a tennis ball.  Just believe me because in the first draft of this entry when I tried to explain why it's better it started to look like I was writing a different sort of blog.  So let's just be brief and say it has to do with firmness and smoothness.  Plus, they come in a wide variety of colors, including red violet (like the crayon)! 

My year in review

by Emilie L. David, 1 January 2012