I Don't Know Squat

So apparently I haven't done anything in the last 20 years that resembles 10 squats.  I know that because pretty much everything in my body hurts below the waist.  You'd think that feeding Flutter the cat for 17 years would count for several squats all added up, but no.  Nor does picking up the newspaper from the porch, even with Thursday having two papers and the occasional under-the-car throwing error.

It's now Week 5 of The Year of Marcia Getting In Shape, and I've moved on from slow jogging/walking around Lake Merritt and a 1:40 interval in the pool (Week 1-2) to slow jogging/less walking and 1:30s (Week 3-4), to a sprained toe, ground zero strength training, and only pulling in the pool.  I was t-h-i-s close to actually moving up to slow-lower-moderate jogging when I tripped on a step at the theater last Saturday night.  My toe turned a ripe shade of purple and refused to bend forward any more.  Now two days later it doesn't appear to be as bad as I thought, but it's amazing how much I took it for granted.

Today in my conditioning class we were doing step-ups with dumbbells and I couldn't step up or step down with any confidence.  Who knew toes were such a big deal?  I was partnered up with a water polo player who had no trouble doing any of the assigned exercises.  We were coached by a Laney colleague who played football at Cal and then on in the Arena League and NFL Europe.  At 38 Derrick still looks like he could start at DB, though like most coaches he has such an economy of movement that you can't tell if he's really crippled or just bored to tears coaching beginners.

What's funny is I used to be that water polo girl, the one who could do every exercise perfectly the first time.  Now I'm sure I'm seen as the old lady who inadvertently left her walker in the Pontiac.  Oops -- did you leave your velcro sneakers in your
NPR tote bag, ma'am?  Being the leading scorer in balloon volleyball at the senior center is probably all they expect of me now, though they might snapchat me if they need anything crocheted.

Today (two days later -- I got distracted), we did way more core and upper body stuff, which I was actually competent at.  I waved those ropes like a champ, did burpees, leg raisers, and planks galore.  Derrick gamely kept a straight face as his class did karaokes with extra lifts and lunges-into-hamstring stretches that quite resembled slow motion video of people breaking their hips while falling from ladders.

I don't think everyone has extreme pity on me anymore, especially after we shared all our day-after pain stories while waiting for today's class to start. I bought one of those self-massage sticks, which did a spectacular job of actually increasing my daily minutes of pain.  But it must be good for something, as I felt ready to take on the second class without crying to Derrick about all my personal limitations and/or faking a limp, which I strongly considered for 48 hours.  And you know, once you get going

it all feels better.  I also brought a towel today, to wipe the buckets of sweat I was generating.  As a swimmer for so long I'm not comfortable being wet, ironically.  Having that towel made me feel better too, as someone who actually had "gear."  This is my workout towel, mothaf***ers!

Because I hatehatehate triathletes who can't shut up about their daily workouts, I'm not going to blab on about how great if feels to train.  But it's awesome!  And I've still got 10.5 months until Masters Nationals in Portland.  Hopefully by then I'll be able to beat enough people in my age group to make Top 10 in something, which I used to do regularly.  If all else fails I suppose I can enter the 200 butterfly, which is generally hard pressed to find 10 women in all the land to do it.  Man, I hope not.

So back to my pain-inflicting stick, swimming tomorrow, and maybe a nice nap.  If I can just figure out a way to lie down without squatting.

Let's Talk About Our Feelings. No Thank You.

I just came back from a Women In Coaching swim clinic this weekend, with a bunch of lovely smart female coaches, nearly all of whom self-identified as "caring, passionate, and detail-oriented."  When asked to pick three words that described my coaching style I selected "over-dramatic, enthusiastic, and relentless."  Those in attendance who knew me shouted out loud like I had just made a hole in one.

Yes, that pretty much nailed it.  I think I'm pretty good about knowing who I am.  And basically I'm pretty simple.  I like competing.  I like winning.  And I love the journey, if it's anything that I care about.  I love that I have a job where I get to watch/make people compete all day long.  Some of my swimmers have issues with competition, which is just baffling to me. We never turn off that clock for a reason.

Am I a caring, passionate person?  Uh, I guess.  But it isn't something that I think about or self-identify with. And reflecting on my life? Pass. I don't really have anything on my bucket list, or feel bad that I only (actuarially) have 920 Saturdays left in my life.  I don't need to Find My Passion, because I'm good here! And I don't need to find the Person Inside, because that person is pretty much hanging out on the outside 24/7.

Today's speaker was a dear woman who spoke on the topic of "Desire to Inspire."  There were beautiful slides filled with pictures of sunbeams filtering through redwood trees, lighthouses in the fog, wildflowers that were too beautiful to be included in The Sound of Music, and I believe amber waves of grain waiting to be filmed in a Chevrolet commercial.  All of these images were the background to inspirational quotes and exhortations that what matters most "is how we live and love."  These slides and quotes were set to a soundtrack consisting of a pianist's right hand tinkling the last few octaves of a piano and four more violins than the Fire Marshall probably would've approved to be in that recording studio.

It's just not my thing.  It's too slow and too deep, and just kind of a downer.  I want to be inspired by things blowing up and fireworks splitting the sky, and some song by Queen.  I want leaping high fives, swinging strikeouts, and the clock running down in the corner of the screen. I want big people jumping onto little people and then everyone falling down while laughing and crying.  I don't want John Tesh anywhere near me.

And that's why I flunked out of my one and only yoga class.  I liked competing with all the others when we were supposed to be closing our eyes.  But the instructor was a slow-talking, soft-spoken, freakishly flexible guy, who never knew how much I wanted to head butt him on the way out each Wednesday.

There are just some topics at every conference that I just can't get into.  "Leadership:  The Process," "Maximizing the Moment." "Developing a Character-Based Culture."  That's when Facebook calls to me:  cat video indicator is one quart low!  But I sat there and listened, because she is a fine person and I know how it feels to be in the Conference Slot of Death, where all the people in attendance either haven't arrived, have left early, or are drunkenly watching a basketball game in the hotel bar.  Sometimes just being there is all that matters.  And she doesn't have to know that I am inspire-intolerant.

True Grit

Near the end of the 2010 sequel True Grit, Rooster Cogburn (played by the Dude, Jeff Bridges) rushes dear Mattie to the care of a doctor after being bitten by a rattlesnake.  Time is of the essence.  His own horse shot by the bad guys, Rooster gets on Mattie's beloved horse Little Blackie and throws Mattie atop.  It's far, and Little Blackie runs a full gallop for hours and hours.  With no water breaks (which doesn't really make big-picture sense, but whatever), the horse breaks down, heartbreakingly.  Rooster shoots the horse (pretty much ratcheting down Mattie's will to live, but whatever) and carries Mattie in his arms the rest of the way to help.

My MEMO team was that horse last weekend.

Oh they got plenty of water.  But swimming four events and four relays in one day was pushing it.  Some people actually swam seven events and ten relays in the course of the meet, which was the maximum possible.  Everyone suffered the same misery, as I had all hands on deck swimming relays that were either immediately preceding hard races, just after hard races, or just after another relay.  Sometimes all three.

It was hot:  86, 90, and 94 on the three days of the meet.  I missed watching many, many swims.  Mostly I was distracted rearranging relays, and then rearranging them again. And again.  I had to readjust relays when people didn't show up, when they begged out of butterfly, when they couldn't flex their ankle, when they had to go winetasting, when their kids were having a meltdown, and when they texted me the morning of the meet.  And sacrifices were made by everyone.  Breastpumping happened in the locker room -- how relaxing that must have been.  Spouses left at home had to take kids to soccer, watch babies, and generally hold the fort down for absentee swimmer parents.  Maybe even worse were the spouses that came to watch the meet.  It's pretty darn hard to sit for 10 hours for five minutes of action, in 90 degree heat.  I suppose it could've been raining or we could've been hit with locusts falling from the sky, but it was still a long, long weekend.

Occasionally I had to leap in the water to swim a relay leg.  When you haven't been in great shape for 20 years, reasonable shape for 8 years, or a shape you recognize as your own body for 3 years, that was a little humbling.  But I can just let that go now, along with the fact that I can't remember pretty much any scientific law (after majoring in Biophysics -- sorry, Cal), half my passwords, or how to use my turn signal.

But what fun it was!  Hanging out in the tent is the best.  We train each day only knowing (and occasionally exasperated by) the 3-5 people in our lane, and we shower with another third of the team (trust me, the math is correct).  But at meets everyone is together -- even people no one has ever met before.  Sometimes people even I've never met before.

And while times mattered to some of us when we were younger, they don't as much now.  Bettering one's times from last year is often good enough.  Trying a new event, scoring lots of points for the team, and braving the first swim meet in your life are really satisfying things to do.

We all fail, and that doesn't matter much either. Team MEMO totally hit for the DQ cycle this meet!  We miss our event because we don't check in, miss it because we're busy "visualizing" said event, jump in the wrong heat, leave early on the relay, don't leave on our back in backstroke (not like I've never FREAKIN' SAID THAT!), miss our leg in the relay, flutter kick in breaststroke, quit in the middle of a race, and sometimes just don't want to leave the dang tent.  And that's not counting all the DQs I saw that the officials missed.  Which is also a lot.

Satisfaction and near whole-body-failure both came to poor Alex, fresh out of college, who wrote me a couple of weeks ago about getting back into swimming.  One guy short, I asked him if he'd consider swimming a relay on Sunday.  He was game, and after I Googled him and saw that he was a backstroker in the day (hahahaha -- in the day, to a 22-year-old!), I penciled him in.  He had a pretty beautiful 75 backstroke and a reasonable last lap.  Then, needing another body in the next relay, a rejuvenating 8 minutes later, I pencilled him in for the 100 fly.  Man, that first lap looked good!  By the fourth 25 it was T-Rex butterfly, like watching the Ironman girl crawl across the finish line mixed with a dose of helmet-to-helmet wooziness.  I hope he comes back.  And doesn't sue me.

But we all got to really laugh at ourselves.  Besides forgetting to check in for the 800 free, I was too hot to wear shorts and looked like Queen of the Dorks in a swimsuit and polo shirt by the third day.  I also had my 40th high school reunion on the evening of the second day of the meet.  While meaning to apply teeth-whitening gel to my smile for five days in a row, I again hopelessly failed.  Getting in the car Saturday morning, I q-tipped a gob on and drove out to the pool grimacing ferociously while attempting to keep lips away from teeth.  I had to cover my mouth every time I came to a stoplight or merge point, to keep other drivers from becoming terrified.

And it all worked out.  The reunion went great, and MEMO took second place for the second year in a row.  We scored 1306 points, after just 833.5 last year, which was pretty amazing.  Every single swimmer earned points for the team.  And even the people who couldn't make it helped us, by helping the people who were there train harder in workout.  But that "help" is a one-time pass.  Next meet, you're in for real.

I'm so proud of my team.  I'm so happy.  True Grit, by everyone.

I've Turned Into That Weird Guy With a Clipboard at Safeway

I've been spending the last several weeks emailing, and texting, and posting, and chatting up all my current students and past students and teammates, in the hopes that they will enter an upcoming Masters swim meet.  I'm getting tired of hearing myself at this point.  But it's just amazing to me that people don't want to compete.

I know, ex-swimmers.  It's been years and years, and you've moved ON.  I hear you.  But for those I am trying to seduce, coming back as a Masters swimmer is all of the fun with none of the pressure.  People don't warmup, they scratch events, they go out drinking during the meet.  They buy an expensive racing suit that they squish into after missing every other practice for a month, and every other month for a year; or they don't even bother and wear any old suit that's hanging on a doorknob or on the shower curtain.  They bring their distracting kids or spouses to the meets, they lay in the sun between events to catch some rays, and they even get disqualified because they haven't paid any attention to the rules since 1988.  And no one cares!

Imagine going to school like that -- miss the first five weeks of the semester, then wander in late during a test and just draw pyramids in the margins and write A-B-A-B-A-B in the answer key.  The teacher invites you out for a beer after Section 1.  You go!  You can't recite the book from heart, but you are in the Top 2 percent and everyone thinks you're Neil Degrasse Tyson because you're cool and smart and just know stuff.

That's what it's like now for experienced swimmers.  It's like the sport you know, but with 6-foot baskets.

But for the inexperienced swimmers it's a total terror.  There are whistles going off, men and women in blue and white with clipboards to disqualfiy you, heats and lanes to remember, stroke rules that must be adhered to, and waiting and waiting and waiting.  People

are watching you, staring at you all the time you're swimming -- they're either laughing or crying with laughter.  How many laps in a 200 again?  Do I have to dive?  Why do I have to go to the bathroom every 10 minutes?  It can't be 10:30, I've finished my lunch already.  When will this hell be over?

I get it.  But it grows on you.  Oh some people bang out an email or five on their phones, some can't wake up early on Sunday and just pass.  But after a few meets you learn to enjoy the slow movement of time, interspersed with moments of action like it is when you watch a baseball game.

The ex-swimmers have moments where they can't believe their once-proud physique has been reduced to a shapeless blob, and the days of fitting into a 28 are so long gone that one leg would need a good greasing just to accomplish it.  But hearing the sounds and the laughter, and the cheering from their teammates brings them back to a happy time.  For the ex-swimmers it was when they were young and strong.  For the new swimmers, it's a chance to challenge yourself with a new skill.  You WIN ribbons, rather than get handed a finisher's medal.  That is pretty dang impressive.

And everyone can agree that a beer and some food sounds really, really good after it's over.

Hi! Can You Still Swim? Part IV

Besides having three different Team MEMO shirts to wear all three days of the recent PacMasters Championships, I knew I'd stepped into the legit world when I paid for my relay entries with a Team

MEMO check.  Okay, it was number 1002, but it was a really l-o-o-ng business check which makes me feel like a Wall Street Banker, though a kindly one wearing flipflops.  Getting the business account was a little more complicated than I expected.  First I had to go to the Alameda County Recorder's Office, near Laney College, and fill out and pay for a Fictitious Business License, which just seems wrong.  Next, over to the legal newspaper to pay to have the notice published in what I believe borders on a fictitious newspaper.  Then back to the bank with proof of DBA registration, and on to signing up for my Business Savings account, with a $500 minimum deposit.  Since Business Savings comes with one book of free checks, that was good enough for me.  I'm mainstream!

We had 30 relays in this past meet, which was a lot of scrambling to do each day as people often inexplicably left and new ones came late.  And I had a surprising number of relays in the older age groups, 45+ and 55+.  Each club was only allowed two relay teams in each event, so having a third wouldn't help any.  I often had to move people around to other, younger, teams to maximize MEMO's point-scoring potential.

The 45s were led by speedy Clare Burger's 20 points, in a tough age group filled with fast women.  Joining her were Kari Boeger, Green Huse, and Anna Musco in their second meet ever; Tracy Ostrom and Jean Tucker in their first meet, and veterans Pia Macchiavello, Kimberly King and Liz Hurt.  Jean and Tracy kind of eased into it, swimming just one event and then leaving.  Tracy stayed awhile to soak up the atmosphere and cheer for her lanemates, while Jean flew off to barely make it to the Giants' home opener on Friday afternoon.  Both are hooked, though.  At least that's what they told me.

Anna, Green, and Kari were splendid teammates.  All three ditched their children, which seemed to

give them an even better experience.  I've got to agree with that, as I find I can't even remember that I have children when I'm at a meet.  It's nice to have the adult companionship and not have to be ever vigilant to prevent death at any moment.  While Kari was worried about . . . many, many things, she performed splendidly in two-thirds of her events.  The last one, she didn't quite make it to.  It was, however, a planned sacrifice.  No more kindly coach from me next year, though.  Tough love, baby!  Anna, 50,  had the weekend's toughest assignment, when she was forced (by me) to join the 25+ mixed medley relay for the meet's next-to-last event because of an unexpected AWOL.  Clearly wondering what the heck she was doing there next to superstars Brian Berry, Yusef, and an exhausted Sarah Stretch, she swam a fantastic breaststroke leg on that relay and gave the two remaining swimmers an opportunity to catch up and still earn fourth-place relay points.  While she was swimming my husband David, who was the Starter of the meet, said that all three of the teammates were cheeering Anna on, down at the edge of the pool.  It was like some sort of Budweiser commercial, where the big horses are cheering for the little one.  So sweet.

Kimberly and Liz came through like the champions they are in workout -- no complaints, and lots of speed!  Dear sweet wonderful Liz has been with me forever, and no one could ask for a better lanemate or teammate.  Kimberly is a recent returnee, and has very specific goals and knowledge of her body's limitations -- such a dream to coach.  And though she's not 45+ I've got to give some props to Renske Lynde, who also swam the mile on Friday, because I forgot to mention her yesterday.  After the mile Renske scurried off to pick up her inlaws at SFO.  Unfortunately I missed every miler except Dan swim while I took a mid-day leave of absence to drive back to Laney to teach my once-a-week Beginning swim class.  I hate missing anyone's event, but especially the milers because it's so fun to yell at them over and over.

Pia used to swim with me and my husband at our local pool in San Leandro, which is where I hide so that no one I know sees me and asks me for coaching "tips."  I feel like the realtor who everyone is

always asking whether it's a "good time to sell," or the dermatologist who is asked to "just take a look at this mole."  I need some quiet time to just do my own thing, though it's an odd little place and one I've written about several times before.  Pia is an awesome swimming machine.  A Peruvian Olympian (1980, and I'm still mad at Jimmy Carter for that one), she has fantastic skills, amazing endurance, perfect temperament, and a great accent -- especially when she pronounces her daughter's name, Laura, with like six syllables.  I've only got to change 30 years of bad habits, and she'll be the rock star of the MEMOs.  Bring it on, Pia!

For the 45+ guys I had Craig Coombs, David Lopez, Robert Inchausti, Danny Wan, and (for a wonderful one minute eleven seconds) brand new MEMO Jeff Everett.  Robert had the most adventures [see blog, Part I], but all had great swims.  David Lopez, the chatterbox of Lane 4 at noon, swam six events and placed in just one, the 50 breast.  He demonstrated the virtues of the coach selecting the events for the swimmer.  Danny swam extremely well in his first meet, considering he dives like one of the train-robbing victims described in the last post, and was undoubtedly motivated

Good vs Evil

after watching hunky Jason swim breaststroke.  Seeing it done like I describe must be such an epiphany, especially when most folks do it more Gangnam style than Olympic style.  And Craig, who is a Bay swimmer and has crossed the Strait of Gibraltar, and done two huge inter-island swims in Hawaii, had a great meet.  Taking Saturday off to please the missus (smart man!), he had fine swims in the mile, 1000, 200 IM, and three other events (that I suggested, DAVID LOPEZ).  Craig last swam 30 years ago in high school, and even though he went to Stanford, has proved fantastically coachable and brings it every day.

My fellow AARP-eligibles, Peter Tsugawa, Suzie Haufler [see blog, part I], Julie Johnson, Tom Chew, and Danielle Ruymaker had one awesome 55+ mixed relay team.  I can't really label them "old" because I'm older than all of them except Danielle, and I am not old whatsoever.  And in the Masters swimming community being over 55 practically makes you a teenager.  An awesome 85-year-old, Dixie Germolis, competed in seven events at the meet including the 200 breaststroke.  Swimming at meets actually makes you enjoy the inevitable age-up.  When you're an age group swimmer, moving into the next age group makes you the young, small, slow kid.  But as a Masters swimmer, moving up makes you even less decrepit than the others.  Your first year is a very good year, except for the inevitable fast people that follow you around for your entire swimming career.

Peter, who breathes so hard at workout he sounds like the Big Bad Wolf engaged in blowing down the brick house, had a terrific meet.  Though he succumbed to the David Lopez School of Event Selection,

Peter had a fine 50 freestyle, swimming the sprint of all sprints in 31.83.  The idea of pacing has eluded Peter, though he is nothing if not dependable when it comes to swimming the very first repeat in a set at warp speed.  Day after day.

Danielle swam Gibraltar with Craig, and would prefer swimming in SF Bay any day to swimming with me.  But somehow she still keeps coming, forcing herself to do all the things she hates  -- which include kicking, sculling, using fins, swimming breaststroke, swimming butterfly, sprinting, diving, and going first in her lane. I need to back off the hypnosis on her, I think.

Conversely, I need to get much better at the Vulcan Mind Meld on Julie.  She is the poster girl for Not A Morning Person.  Going to workouts at 6 a.m. is just torture for her, though I tell her over and over that once she forces herself to go at least twice a week she'll get used to it.  She theoretically believes me, but it just hasn't clicked into reality.  When Julie worked a few blocks away she could swim with my Nooners and she really thrived, but once the office moved it just got so hard.  She was a trooper to swim in the meet, with minimal preparation, but being 55 and having a pulse helps a lot in the points department.

Tom Chew, chiropractor to the stars, or at least the athletic masses, goes w-a-y back with me.  When I took a diversion from Cal and swam at Laney College in the 80s, Tom was my trainer.  When I coached swimming at Laney, Tom coached Water Polo and was my swim assistant.  Our kids were pals when they were little, before mine grew up and embraced irony, Communism, and British musical theatre.  Getting Tom to swim in a meet isn't tough; getting Tom to swim in workout is much harder.  But like many of these swimmers, a day or two a week is good enough.  Or for Tom, once or twice a month.

So now I've shared a little something about all my swimmers at the meet.  There are more too, but you've got to pay the price of the meet entry to get written about!  I've already started recruiting fast friends for next year, and have ensured a promise by my husband that he will at least slog across the pool 66 times to score two points in the mile, whether or not he wants to.  If everyone enters a distance event (where it's easier to score points) and we get at least two points/person more, and have a few more relays, everyone is healthy, and we have no missed events or disqualifications, we should be #2 next year.  Five points/person plus all of the above and we're #1.  I'd better buy another turquoise shirt.  I just can't wait to use check #1003.

Hi! Can You Still Swim? Part III

Our team colors, turquoise and chocolate brown, were not picked to go well together, or even with much thought at all.  Our first team t-shirt was turquoise in color because I'd read somewhere that turquoise is the unique hue that looks good on all skin tones and hair colors.  Our second shirt was chocolate brown because I wanted to make a joke about Hershey bars.  Team MEMO's official colors were picked because those were the colors of our first two shirts.  Kind of after-the-act decision making, the kind I'm strong at.

And Team MEMO was wearing the colors in force at our big meet last weekend.  One of the biggest age groups was the 35-44 gang.  Led by high-point MEMO Tanya Mahn and Megumi Ozawa [see blog, part I], the team proudly arrived rocking the turquoise and brown.  With the arrival of this year's matching caps we finally looked totally legit.  Next year:  team suits and a banner.  Dream purchase:  EZ-up custom tent.  The EZ-up I have now is their discount version, the NotEZ-up.  It doesn't help that it was dropped repeatedly some years ago and never recovered from the bent leg.  But the effort required to get the top into the four supporting pegs just about wipes out any energy the four swimmers conscripted to assemble it will have for the meet's first hour.  My NotEZ-up has been around for at least ten years, when I got it for my husband as a Father's Day present.  We've hung out in it at meets on rainy days, put the birthday cake underneath at backyard parties, and even camped in the backyard.  It's next duty will be housing us as the downstairs hardwood floors get redone.  Why stay at a hotel when we can drag a week's worth of possessions into the charming ambiance of the 10x10 NotEZ-up?

So that turned out to be the headquarters of Team MEMO, along with the two other (truly) EZ-ups brought by Dan Jegers, which I dubbed our Annex.  Having 48 people, though not all at the same time, crowded the NotEZ-up and the Annex.  The few ringers I had, Jason Corbett [see blog, part II], Andrew Naber, and Brian Patterson, who didn't actually know any of the MEMOs, hung out elsewhere with their friends.  But the rest were enjoying the close quarters.  

Dan, who is the Hardest Working Man in the wedding business, sets up our team area with more thought than I gave to my entire lifetime of camping, getting there every day way before I did to organize and unpack.  He also knows which way the wind will blow before it does (like some sort of swimming shaman), and ties all things down appropriately, with actual knots.  My only set-up idea is “pop the corner of the tent” to let the wind pass through, which is about as knowledgeable as putting around Lake Merritt and then taking the helm of one of the America's Cup boats.  Dan was a member of the second swim team I ever coached in my life.  Despite knowing just about nothing for my first year, I pretty much lived and breathed swimming when I came to Walnut Creek in year two and had a good bit of success with his Las Lomas Knights.  Dan swam butterfly for me then and now, and turned out to be a terrific husband, dad, and person.  I don't know how many coaches get to coach the same person again 25 years later, but I'll heartily recommend anyone trying to, especially if it's Dan.

Two of my ringers were also from the same era.  Dave Barber, who anchored the awesome 400 free relay on Saturday [see blog, part II], was on my first and second Las Lomas team.  Somehow on Facebook a few months ago Dave and I got to talking about swimming.  (This is not unusual for just about anyone who talks to me, unless they have a teenager or a cat.)  Living in LA, and the winner of some sort of Sound Award in showbiz, where you wear a tuxedo and hold it aloft while people clap, Dave and I have corresponded since then.  I send him workouts, which he does in the 30 minutes he has free a couple days a week.  He sends me reports on how he did, and then I critique them and send more workouts.  He sends videos, and I laugh and laugh and then critique those too.  Somehow, in 30 minutes a day a few days a week, with weeks off to do this and that, he lost 25 pounds and swam less than three seconds slower than he swam as a senior in high school, 25 years ago.  Now for girls, getting in shape like that would take like five years and we'd have to stop eating solid food.  But guys like Dave, no prob.  Amazing discipline.  Why can't my family listen to me like Dave does?  Really, just give me 30 minutes a day and I'll be happy.

Brian Patterson also joined the relay on Sunday, after I saw his green Facebook light on late

Saturday night.  Just like Nick Carraway in The Great Gatsby thought that the green light must have represented how the first vision of America, rising out of the ocean, must have looked to early settlers, Brian's green light represented the future of my Sunday 400 Mixed Medley Relay.  What an inspiring American Dream it was.  Sometimes I scare myself.  

Brian is also the same vintage as Dan and Dave, and has kept in amazing shape by doing every sport known to man, with some gnarly road rash along the way.  A few years after I coached Dave and Dan I started training again seriously.  The age group team I swam with when I was 30 years old (what is now the Terrapins) had high school-aged Brian as my teammate.  We've had a couple of reunions since then and stayed in touch.  On Sunday morning at the meet Brian changed teams, signed the waiver, and voila -- instant MEMO.  How lucky am I?  Trolling the Internet pays off, kids.  So long as it’s for relay swimmers.

Now for my regular, garden-variety 35+ folks who swim with me every day (or their best approximation of every day), I didn't have quite that depth of swimming experience.  Andrew Slakey, the first mortician I've ever met, was at his first meet ever.  Blindingly pale, as befits a man of his profession and a swimmer at 6 a.m., Andrew was at his first swim meet ever.  He charged to a 1:05 100 freestyle in the relay, which was at least 15 seconds faster than I had ever seen him move before, and undoubtedly faster than his pace with his paying customers.  Though he only entered one individual event, he like almost every other person was conscripted to swim on as many relays as there were in a day.  

Conan Chin from my Nooners, and Michael Kellenback, who swims with one of my colleagues at Laney, also scored points in both breaststroke races they swam. How lucky I am to have two guys who can do this well!  Breaststroke is a specialty like no other.  I have a really challenging time teaching adults in my Beginning swim classes, as well as MEMOs, how to do it properly.  It seems you either do it well and like it, or have one uncontrollable foot that doesn't respond to human thought.  It's amazing that those non-breaststroke people can even put on their socks and shoes and walk down the street, but they all seem to get along in the world just fine.  Sarah Lindahl and Becky Espinosa are two such members of society.  Sarah, inexplicably, enjoys doing it and enters it (at least within the 100 IM) every chance she gets.  My strategy so far has been to try to distract the officials.  Stroke and Turn officials, or S&Ts, are the lowest peg on the food chain of officiating.  When there aren't enough officials volunteering at a meet, they skimp on the coverage of S&Ts.  This, fortunately, was one of those meets.

Elementary PE teacher Orin Bentley is another non-breaststroker, but one who avoids it at every opportunity.  Orin is a great butterflyer, and was on the awesome 400 free relay with Yusef, Dave, and Jason.  Another guy who dropped at least 25 pounds since he started swimming, Orin loves going to meets and it takes no cajoling at all to get him to register.  Orin is just about the mildest guy out of the pool you could meet, with a gentle voice and an open, friendly face.  But put him in the pool and his inner beast busts out.  My daughter, who swims in his lane occasionally, and is used to leading the lane, described him as "aggressive," which is no small thing coming from someone who can devour her dinner in less time than it takes her to swim a 50 freestyle.

The final swimmer in the 35-44s was Deborah Bevilacqua.  Man I just love saying that last name!  It just rolls off the tongue!  Deborah lost a leg in a motorcycle accident some years ago and is an amazing athlete.  She has a Cheetah leg for running races, like Oscar Pistorius, and goes with her natural 1.5 self for swimming.  Everywhere I go, and everywhere she goes when doing athletic stuff, she gets stopped

by strangers telling her how inspirational she is.  Well, that's nice.  But what's inspirational to me is how awesome she is at "take your mark."  I completely overlook the rest at workout.  But "take your mark," balanced on one leg, with two hands holding the front of the starting block and head down -- followed by the starting "beep" is what's the truly athletic thing. Deborah dives off more cleanly and straight than just about any of my other swimmers.  No torque, just pure straight-ahead power.  Most of my MEMOs look like they have been thrown out a moving locomotive by a trainrobber in a 1940s Western.

All in all, a fun group.  Some old, some new.  The elderly, in Part IV.

Hi! Can You Still Swim? Part II

90.6 percent.

That's the percentage of registered MEMOs that participated in the recent PacMasters Championships, in Moraga last weekend.  Looking at some of my other competitors in the Medium Team division,  Santa Rosa checked in with 24.2 percent, while the winning Davis Aquatic Masters could only muster up a pitiful 6.5 percent.  If you figure that the more experienced swimmers are the ones that compete (except for yours truly's team), then DAM is sending just its superstars.  No wonder they won the Mediums.  We got our points the old-fashioned way -- we scraped them out in ones and twos, except for the ones I kinda hustled for (more later).

Masters relays, for competitions in 25-yard pools, are composed of age groups determined by the youngest member of the team.  Because I only had a couple of people 18-24, I often had to "borrow" from my 25+ team, and even once from my 45+ team to make a foursome of 18+ folks.  You'd think lots of 18-24s would still be swimming, as they're still relatively uninjured and often without kids.  But it takes awhile for most good age-group swimmers to miss swimming.  And it takes awhile for those who never swam to get injured running or biking, and thus turn to swimming.  Those are the two main categories of Masters swimmers -- ex-good kid swimmers, and beat-up runners/bikers.  There is a small window in their lives for healthy, wealthy triathletes to participate -- and I have a couple of those -- but it's like pulling teeth with tweezers to get those guys to do much besides their beloved mile.

I'd like to showcase the 18+  and the 25+ folks who participated in the meet.  My youngest kids!  Leading the way was Jason Corbett, 21, who was a friend of a MEMO, but of course is now in the fold.  Jason would've been in his senior year at Cal State Bakersfield, except for the fact that he's not.  With swimming injuries and a very reasonable desire to leave Bakersfield, he's back in the Bay Area.  You used to swim?  You're just what I'm looking for!  Jason split 1:00 in his 100 breast on the medley relay, which is not Division I caliber anymore, but definitely the fastest guy in the pool last weekend.  That time was faster than all but five of our 48 swimmers could even do going freestyle.  After his leg in the medley relay, which was the first event he swam as a MEMO, the 16 women who had just finished their medley relay came barging over to my table shouting "WHO WAS THAT BREASTSTROKER?" as though Ryan Lochte had parachuted into our pool and ripped off his tuxedo to reveal a pink Speedo.  Just because they had never seen him in workout before, or even ever in their entire lives, doesn't mean he can't cough up the USMS fee the night before.

I also had Francesca Ginocchio, who has three part-time jobs and must make several hundred a night in tips in her gig as the most beautiful bartender in the Bay Area.  Francesca has a flair for butterfly (which is a blessing and a curse, as you then have to train for it), and had a fantastic swim in the women's relay and her individual events.  Newest California driver's license holder Yuri Nishizawa came on Sunday, after many weeks of non-training (that will prove to be a unifying theme with many of my MEMOs), and still managed a respectable few events and even-better relay legs.  She ended with the 1000, and then undoubtedly practiced DWE (Driving While Exhausted).  Brian Poggetti also staffed the young 'uns group.  Brian swims with the Nooners, and decided that the thousands of yards he has swum since joining would be just the thing he needed to sign up for . . . only the 50 free.  Sigh.  Next year, Brian!  And your wife too!  She's good, I can tell that.

Also in the 25+ group were experienced ex-swimmers (Yusef Freeman, Sarah Stretch, Tara Stoop, as well as Brian Berry and Nia Doyle [both of whom I mentioned in my previous post]) and novices John Han and Leilani Castro.  Yusef gave me perhaps my best memory of the entire meet when he gave me a huge shout-out after their awesome 400 free relay team almost defeated the 18+ group from Walnut Creek.  Thank goodness I kept it together because I almost burst into tears.  Having a 16-year-old at home I never get thanked for anything, much less appreciated.  The last time anyone at the pool called my name from 25-yards away it was followed by "don't forget to turn off the pool lights."

Because Jason was on that relay team we had to call ourselves 18+, even with our magnificent 42-year-old anchor, Dave Barber. The closeness of that race defied those ages.  Yusef later said that it was way more fun being on a team at a meet like this, then swimming your events alone.  So true.  Yusef had a great age-group career in swimming that tailed to an end in college, but thank goodness he never really burned out.  It's still something that he and many other MEMOs are good at, so they keep on doing it. It's hard when work takes you all over the country.  You're always just getting into shape when you take off for a week or two.  But we can't be picky after awhile.  Any day of swimming is a good day.

I had the great joy of coaching and teaching Tara in high school, as well as coaching her for a year on the Laney College swim team.  She is someone that returned after having two kids (impossible to tell that from looking at her) and a busy job.  At 34, Tara is the age when many people start looking in the mirror and wanting more.  Sometimes it's because the kids sap so much "me" out of a person, and sometimes you just want to start taking better care of yourself.  Tara scored in both of her events and was on a second-place relay with Jason, Yusef, and Yuri.  Tara was also one of several swimmers who brought their spouse, family, kids, and/or friends to watch.  That is just sooo cute!  It's great that they're proud of their activity, and I love it when people introduce me to their family.  I always get "I've heard so much about you," which I just generally assume to be a compliment.  That's true, right?

Sarah Stretch coaches the Women's Swim Team at Laney College, a job that I had ten years ago.  Besides being eternally grateful to Sarah for joining me, I'm happy that she got a chance to see what it was like being a swimmer again.  It might give her a little more insight into some things that her swimmers may be feeling as they approach their championship meet next week.  We coaches all know that stuff, but we forget.  Sarah swam with a shoulder that needed icing for days afterward, which puts a little crimp in her style when she teaches boot camp and plays in a soccer league besides training for this meet.  Despite the fact that I wouldn't play in a soccer league if someone paid me in trucks of gold bullion, we faced a lot of similar problems with our teams at Laney.  I am happy to see how great the Laney team has turned out since Sarah took over.  Let's hope she stays active forever and doesn't turn out like me, who has now resorted to parking far away from things and hoping that might be considered aerobic exercise.

And finally my novices John and Leilani.  John was easier to convince, especially after he purchased the parka.  When you look the part it's easier to go to a meet.  When you've got a grocery bag and a mismatched set of bath towels, you just know you don't belong.  But John swam a fine 500 free on Saturday, and joined a great men's medley relay.  John swam high school in Oakland (I think), which is a little like saying you're a fine water-skier in Death Valley.  Masters meets are completely different from any other competition.  The officials generally wait while people meander to the blocks, and the rules are different slightly, to adapt to the stroke modifications some folks make as they age.  I think that John enjoyed it.  Most people would say that the meet is welcoming, once they get used to the two-races-happening-at-once thing.  It's kind of like a track meet, when sometimes you don't know who to watch.  I got fooled as a coach several times.  The worst was when Yusef, who is 6-5 and about the only Black guy in the pool, swam directly in front of me in his 100 IM and I never even looked up.

Leilani, at under five feet tall, was easier to miss, but I didn't.  She was at her first meet ever, and I was worried that she wouldn't enjoy herself.  Most of the rest had gone to a practice meet a couple weeks before.  It took plenty of convincing by me and all her 6 a.m. lanemates to get her to enter, but she did.  Still working on her diving technique, she gamely swam two freestyle races and a 50 backstroke, as well as two relays.  That 50 backstroke sprouted at least a dozen more grey hairs in my head, as Leilani routinely turns over (disqualifying herself) just about every single lap of her life.  Thank goodness she crashed into the wall at her finish.  I've never been so happy to see that before.

Sorry for the length.  That's it for the young folk.  35 and over is coming next.

Hi! Can You Still Swim? Part I

Time to call in some favors, and it turned out pretty dang well.

Jut finished the PacMasters Championships with my awesome team MEMO.  The three-day meet was held at the awesome Soda Aquatic Center, on the campus of Campolindo High School in Moraga, under drizzly, cold, and only occasionally sunny conditions.  I recruited the heck out of all my 6 a.m. and noon swimmers, getting 41 of them to sign up.  I also got the very fastest of my colleagues at Laney (Sarah Stretch), one of another colleague's swimmers (Michael Kellenback), a guy I've been coaching remotely in LA (Dave Barber) who came up for this meet, Danielle Ruymaker's pal (Jeff Everett), who totally fit the bill for a fast guy over 50, Yusef Freeman's fantastic neighbor (Andrew Naber), Brian Berry's assistant coach at Castro Valley HS (Jason Corbett -- see below), and one of my old teammates from the 80s (Brian Patterson), who I found while trolling the Internet the night before the last day of the meet.

Every day brought new fears that no one would show up, and I rejoiced when every single person strolled in, like a lunatic who was seeing family again after being released from prison.  All but one showed up.  Most came on time.  Most had their suits.  Brought my husband's swim bag in case he had to rip off his official's whites and dive in.  (And thank goodness that didn't happen, because I really had to dangle an extremely big favor.)  We had a couple of DQs, a few NSs, and several near misses.  But much joy.

I have to say that losing the Coach of the Year wasn't particularly traumatizing.  The voting was just held too early.  If it had been held one minute into this meet I would have walked away with it, carried on the shoulders of my team (well, maybe 5-6 really strong guys), while rose petals were strewn about and big long trumpets were blown.

I had so many favorite moments from this meet that it just doesn't seem right to single out any one person to celebrate.  But I'm going to pick out a few first, and then hit everyone in the next post.  This may be long.  Feel free to stop when you need a snack, or just when you get to your own name.

Robert Inchausti
After doing the One Hour Postal in January, Robert was a changed man.  He was faster, more consistent, and seemed to take more interest in swimming in general.  But getting to the starting blocks proved a little challenging.  He completely missed the 50 freestyle, reporting to the wrong side of the pool, and was seconds away from missing one of his best events, the 100 breast.  With Heat 1 finishing up I finally found him right behind me just as the referee was about to blow his whistle signaling the start of the race. "Run!" I said, and away he went.  He tore around the pool, down the length, and across to Lane 8 where I was frantically signaling him to stop, like I was out on a runway at SFO as an out-of-control tanker was maydaying it in seconds before it exploded over a populated area.  The referee whistled the swimmers up.  Robert put on his goggles, kicked off his sandals, and was about to step up on the blocks when he realized he was still wearing a shirt.  He ripped it off like a stripper as the music swelled, stepped up, dove in, and swam one heck of a race.  First 100 breast ever.  Seventh place.  Two points for Team MEMO.  Readily agreed to swim the 100 butterfly in the Medley Relay after that, which considering the circumstances, was like taking candy from a baby.


Tanya Mahn
High Point scorer for Team MEMO.  45 points of awesomeness.  200 butterfly, best time as a Masters swimmer.  Doing it again after an age group career filled with 200 butterflys, doing it after never wanting to do another 200 fly again.  But after coming back to swimming again and getting back in shape, the love for that event and the challenge it represented proved too irresistible.  With the whole team cheering her on at each turn, she broke the 3:00 barrier, got out like a champion (after flipping me off to the delight of the crowd), and completely held it together all the way.  She went on to swim another 100 fly in the relay, not long after, and then won the 1000 freestyle after almost all the team had packed up and gone home.  Big day.  Big meet.  Big comeback.

Brian Berry
Another 200 flyer, but completely different.  Brian had never done a 200 fly before, but had read my memo about the best way to score points (doing the most painful events possible) and signed up.  He was having a pretty good day on Sunday, after a really good day on Saturday.  The 200 fly was coming up and Brian was having second thoughts.  Actually he was only having one thought:  Get me the heck outta here!  I'm not doing this!!  What was I thinking??  With several other MEMOs, we talked him into it, though we weren't completely sure until we saw him standing behind the blocks.  It wouldn't have surprised me at all to see him hiding in a stall in the men's bathroom, and then strolling out pretending  he really wanted to swim but "had to go."  He swam a what might best be described as really conservative 200 fly, and got sixth with three points.  Brian's other major contribution was finding one of my unfreakinbelieveable ringers, Jason Corbett, who completely classed the place up.  If Jason needs a bunch of 40-50 year old girlfriends, he need not worry about where to look.


Susie Haufler

Point person for my unsuccessful campaign for Coach of the Year.  Slacked off at work drafting my nomination packet, coordinated my unbelievably generous team gift, scored 24 points at the meet while scoring in all six events, was on an awesome winning relay team (Women's 400 Free Relay, 45+), came on Friday just to help swim a relay, and was an awesome all-around facilitator and great teammate.  Susie and I swam together 25 years ago, but she has defied aging where I have cartwheeled into the bin of "wow, she's really let herself go" former athletes.  Ran into her in the locker room after my pitiful 400 IM, as she was trying on two-pieces because she's still totally hot.

Megumi Ozawa and Nia Doyle
I've got to stop at five people, but I can't.  Both Megumi and Nia swam with unbelievable injuries and
amazing discomfort.  Megumi got one of the many colds wracking our team last month, and tore the muscle connecting her ribs while coughing.  Every deep breath hurt.  Every stroke.  Pretty much every movement.  She swam the 50 backstroke in 31.95, which is so amazingly fast that only two of our guys beat her -- and barely.  She won the 200 backstroke.  She swam four relays and four events.  No complaints ever.

Nia hurt her shoulder and can't lift her arm above her head except at an angle of around 50 degrees.  She can't throw her arms overhead to dive, nor can she bring them up to leave the wall in a streamline.  She figured out how to do freestyle with one arm normal and the other at 50 degrees, so that she swims resembling a guy with his foot asleep.  She pushes off turns with one arm up and the other down, which is so awesomely clever it will now be called the Nia Turn.  But she swam the 500 (sixth) and the 1000 (third), just because she knew that she could do it and that she could score points for MEMO.  Amazingly enough, she entered the 50 free (which she won last year when healthy), and beat three people to score in eighth place.  She started in the water.  Everyone else dived in.

I'm going to stop for a break myself.  Woohoo -- Income Taxes, what fun!  But I'll be back with Part 2. What a great job I have.

IM Not Very Prepared

Some random thoughts after completing my 400 IM today at the PacMasters Championship:

On its way, after my 400 IM

• 
  
• Damn, that's a long way.
• After completing the 100 butterfly it got much easier, in the same way you feel better when the bull leaves after goring you in Pamplona. 
• I kept meaning to train for this, but didn't.
• It's a good thing this keyboard is low and my chair is high, because my arms cannot raise above elbow height for the rest of the evening.
• When thinking about a seed time, I figured out what was about the most embarrassing and ridiculous four splits a person could do.  And I just about nailed it.
• After the race I ate a coach's lunch that had been sitting around for at least an hour and was cold and congealed.  It appeared to be pasta in Campbell's Cream of Mushroom soup, with a can of catfood mixed in.  I scarfed it down like the Grand Champion in a hotdog eating contest on the 4th of July.
• When you are just resting the entire 100 backstroke leg, you can make out lots of interesting clouds overhead.
• The suit size I usually buy now leaves marks like I've been tied to a chair and tortured for information.
• My philosophy in the race was to not get disqualified, and to score points for my team.  Perhaps "race" was too lofty a description of what I did.
• If the 400 IM is the decathlon of swimming, then I'm someone the next Olympics would pick to do a feature on, since it is evident I come from an underprivileged country with no knowledge of modern training methods, good dietary practices, or competent skin care.
• I didn't warm up enough, but mainly because the yardage was tiring me out.
• I didn't warm down enough, mainly because I couldn't swim another stroke.
• It's amazing how muscle memory just stays with you.  I put on my swim cap exactly the same way I did when I was really fast.
• I think I made a lot of people feel good about themselves today, especially those people who used to have to step up their game because I was in their heat. 

But mainly I learned that you get what you deserve.  And that even bad swimming is a wonderful thing.

Kick Me When I'm Down

So I'm sitting at the computer, watching from the window my neighbor run a boot camp for the locals, and I'm thinking wow -- he's slow, she really can't do a pushup, they make spandex in that size?  Which is ironic because, you know, I'm just sitting here at the computer. But hey, once a coach always a coach.

Today my task is to imput entries from the national postal event that I created, the 400 Kick For Time.  It's a competition open to all registered United States Masters Swimmers, where they just send in their results and a program sorts the data into age groups and placings.  I mail out the awards, t-shirts for those who want them, cash their checks and receive the glory.

Except that it's kinda labor intensive, on my part.  And I'm not even kicking.

So you can enter online, where with a few clicks of your finger all is done.  Entry accepted, all forms of credit accepted, safe and secure. Or,  you can send in a check (except for the four-and-counting that forgot, sigh), fill out your paper entry form (but don't really try to print legibly because you don't know how to hold a pen anymore), and then be over the age of 18 and still not know how to fold a letter-size piece of paper in freakin THIRDS.

I'm a little tense.  Maybe watching the joggers will help.

Once I correctly imput all the data, then the program will sort out the winners.  And it turns out that over half the people like to mail in their entries.  Who knew?  My deal with the computer brain people is a $100 flat fee plus five percent of the credit card processing.  Maybe a quarter of the folks buy a $20 shirt and the rest cough up only the $10 entry fee.  So I lose between 50 cents and a buck fifty for every online entry.  Which, now in retrospect, is not only fine but would make me really very, very happy.

It's fun to see the entries coming from all over the country, Alaska to Connecticut, and it's fun to see how fast some people really are at this event.  This is a low-key way to compete, that's for sure.  Mail in your time and receive your prize the next month.  No shivering or sweltering at a meet for the better part of a weekend, no scary competition setting, no pressure to make the time standard.  Just kick, at your local pool, with someone timing you.

I've gotten lots of emails too.  Some are asking for clarification on the rules, others suggesting new rules (yeah, thanks buddy!) or asking about the shirt in detail before they decide to squeeze out a twenty. Are t-shirts even being made in polyester anymore?  Do you realize this event originates in the Bay Area?  It's all free-range, non-bullied cotton here, baby.

So back to work.  Paper entries must be received by January 17, so I have a few more days of data imput.  Good luck to all of you who entered.  And if you haven't, please use the online entry form next year.  Or learn to fold in thirds.

Trading Families

It's good to get out, once in awhile. It's not that I miss picking up after the family (no way!), or making lunch, or doing laundry -- which is kinda like a dream job. But when I got the chance to be on the coaching staff of the Western Zones All Star team in Grand Junction, Colorado, I jumped. It was six days of coaching, small talk, meetings, nagging, chaperoning, bus and airplane riding, and lots and lots of waiting. It was six days of the world's worst food too, but eating to win wasn't quite as important for the coaches.

The meet is a competition between all the United States Swimming All Star teams located in the West. There were over a dozen zones present (California has several, while some other states combine to make one); I was with Pacific. The host team Colorado won, beating us narrowly, 1,543-1,536.5, due to their superior altitude lungs (Grand Junction is 4,593 elevation). I was in charge of Pacific's 13-14 boys, a hardy subgroup of humankind that eats vast quantities of anything on plates, napkins and/or carpeting, and loves superheroes and the thought of girls -- but not actual girls.

I spent a little of my free time going from Zone to Zone, recruiting for next year's Maccabi Games in Israel -- where I am also coaching. That is a meet for Jewish athletes, and more about that in another post. But I'd go up to all the coaches from the other Zones and ask if they had any Jewish kids that were fast, who would consider applying to Team USA. Let's just say pickings were slim. One lady from Utah (in retrospect, that was a longshot) actually knew a Jewish swimmer, which made her quite pleased. So there were no Jews, no non-Whites except for us, and no Peet's Coffee. I was the only married coach from Pacific and the only one with a teenager. My roommate just graduated from college.

Grand Junction was very hot and surrounded by the beautiful uplift known as Colorado National Monument, though we were inside at Colorado Mesa University. We got a few short tours of the area by our bus driver, a budding and yet terrible tour guide named Charlotte. Other days we got the near-toothless Crazy Man bus driver, who on the last day hugged all the kids while I watched horrified from afar, like seeing a car go through a plate glass window. Colorado is also one of the big "swing states", and we were blanketed with advertising for both presidential candidates. A Romney bus was parked in our hotel parking lot a couple of days, but I'm pretty sure it was just filled with staffers, because even one bite of those eggs would've brought his campaign to a quick end. Obama also flew into town while we were there, delaying the Crazy Toothless Man bus.

Like most of Pacific Swimming (and team Hawaii), my group was predominantly Asian. Living in the Bay Area and teaching at Laney College, it felt normal. All but two of my daughter's friends are Asian, and except for her current obsession with all things British, she is a future Asian history major (sigh). My group of boys was super-Asian, as they all could do all the things that one ever sees Asians excelling at. Swim fast -- check. Build computers -- check. Play Hayden, Mozart, Beethoven -- check. Take pre-calc in 8th grade -- check. Rubik's Cube under a minute -- check. Quiet on the outside, party on the inside -- check. Those are so my-kind-of-people I could just weep.

On All Star teams you get a pile of free clothing which you wear in a rotating order, like attending an incredibly fit Catholic school without having to roll up your skirt. We'd go to breakfast wearing the shirt of the day, where we'd see the same "eggs" in the chafing dish, and then gather in the lobby before boarding the bus to the pool. On the way to the lobby was a baby grand piano where, on the red-shirt day, one of my boys sat down and whipped out the first movement of a Mozart concerto. As we walked to the bus I asked him if he'd studied the Suzuki method, as my daughter had when she learned to play violin. He said not for piano, but he did with the violin. So that's nice that he can do both. And be at the freakin All Star meet.

The next day (blue shirt) saw the same eggs and same walk to the lobby. The junior Mr. Rubik sits down and plays something equally majestic. However, he doesn't also play violin. In school he sits first chair clarinet. On white-shirt day yet another kid sits and plays equally amazingly. He's the one in pre-calc. He finaled in all his events. To be fair, I did have a couple of non-Asian kids, one of which was a budding frat boy inside a 6-2 frame, with phenomenal good looks, and the other two were loveable dorks. But the quieter kids are just easier for me to relate to.

Due to a weird bit of scheduling I was on different flights in and out of Oakland from my 13-14 boys. Who wouldn't like to report to OAK at 3:30 am? And sign me up for the fabulous 10 pm return flight, when my real family and I were leaving for vacation 11 hours later. I didn't have any laundry to do when I got home (red, white and blue Pacific Swimming shirts were not so valued on vacay), but I had to water the plants outside in the dark, check the home answering machine, and make up some quality cat time for a few hours. Did you need to save all the junk mail for me, really? And the rubber bands from the morning paper?

In Hawaii I did miss the 13-14 boys a little, though I was glad to be back with my real family. We did take the bus around the island, but no toothless crazy man was at the wheel. The only sign of politics was the bobblehead Obama doll wearing a lei and beach clothes, giving us the hang loose sign. No one can sit down and play piano concertos in my real family, but the breakfast was way better. And it's back to the home team.

Is That a Scythe in Your Backseat or Are You Just Happy to See Me?

Much of my time parenting a teenager is spent thinking of her feelings, empowering her to speak up for herself, and trying to replace the word "no" with "yes" whenever possible. HAHAHA! Help me, I can't get up -- my side has split from laughter and my spleen is rolling down the stairs!

No, most of my time is spent embarrassing her (okay, often accidentally), teasing her, and nagging at her to do all the things any reasonable human being would do, if they only had hygienic standards equal to those in a refugee camp in Sudan. And it's really easy for me to embarrass her because it's so fun. I mean, who doesn't love doing the arm movements to Y-M-C-A, while singing along? On BART. I'm not completely insensitive, you know. I'm there when she needs me, blah, blah, blah. But when you've got an overachieving kind of kid, I consider it my duty to make sure she doesn't come off as a know-it-all, and change the benevolent dictatorship (which seems to work quite well) into a tail-wagging-the-dog family dynamic.

Which leads me to the scythe in my backseat.

Among the many things in my late father's house are vintage tools. There are woodworking tools, blacksmithing stuff, machining equipment, and farm implements. He was born on a farm in South Dakota, before the Great Depression, and so I guess he collected the scythe as some sort of memory-inducing device. The other tools he probably actually used, as his hobby was restoring antique cars. But the 6-foot scythe, with a 24-inch blade -- not so much. I'd been walking around it, carefully (cue rimshot), for over a year, and decided it had to go.

I knew the perfect place. My wonderful Masters team, MEMO, swims on Sundays at Shadow Cliffs Regional Park, and afterwards we often go out to eat as a group. We found a great breakfast/lunch place near the lake called Jim's. After only a dozen or so times of eating the restaurant down to the foundation (open water swimming appears to increase the appetite), I noticed all the antique tools nailed to his walls. This would make Jim's look even toolier.

So the last time I went to my dad's house (with one of my Masters swimmers, Jane, who unbelievably seemed to enjoy seeing all this stuff), I took it home. Of course it sat in the car for a week because the handle was too long and the blade was too well packed under the passenger seat to remove it and then put it back in. So I drove my daughter around for a week with a scythe handle sticking up in the backseat, like some sort of Grim Reaper Convention attendee. We went to swim practice (careful of your bag, honey -- watch out for the scythe!), my job (where I hid the handle under newspapers, as not to be surrounded by the Oakland SWAT team), the grocery store, the gun dealer (more things from my dad's house, but best left for another blog), Target, Michael's, the Post Office, etc. It was always easy to find my car.

Of course my daughter was mortified that the scythe was always in the backseat. Weird things seem to bother 15-year-olds, I guess. Photoshopping yourself into a picture with the members of the band One Direction and then posting it on Instagram, however, is really cool. She sat in the front seat with me for the week, headphones on, trying to make herself invisible while I cheerfully explained the Story of the Scythe to anyone who parked next to me at lots all across the Bay Area.

And what does this all have to do with my Swimming Life? Not that much, really. But embarrassing my daughter is a little like how I act when I'm coaching. I just try to make all my swimmers laugh. I tease them like my daughter, in hopes of making them feel recognized; I nag them to improve their strokes and work harder. I do this not because I don't want them getting big heads, but because it's pretty hard getting up at 5:30 every morning and driving to the pool. It's got to be entertaining; it's got to be be fun; and you've got to feel good about yourself afterwards. Helping people to get a great workout is fine, but it's more than just designing clever sets and correcting strokes. Coaching adds the little bit of parenting that most people want. Young man, young man, are you listening to me? Young man, young man, what do you wanna be? Not the grim reaper, for sure. Just happy to be swimming.