I paid that much for one of these, and I use it a ton, and I still think it’s a rip off. I wanted a water running buddy, but couldn’t bring myself to recommend an overpriced piece of custom-cut foam, so I got a little creative.

I used to do my water running without a belt, but I’m convinced that it is a less productive exercise that way. Sure, it’s much harder to water run without floatation, but the extra effort goes into downward thrusts, which really don’t simulate running as much as marching. With a belt you can still go just as hard, but you have to think about it, and you can really focus on form (like front to back movement and a high recovery.

Belt or no belt, however, water running is among the most boring forms of exercise. It’s great cross training, and wonderful for muscle balance and as a supplement to running or for injury rehab – but it’s slow, wet and lonely. Which is why I needed a second belt: to commiserate.

Courtenay has begun water running because it’s 100 degrees in Seattle and nobody has A//C here. She has been going alone in the afternoons because we only have one belt. Until today anyway. I made myself a new water running belt for next to nothing. Here’s how:

Step 1: get one of those awful lifejackets they made you wear in summer camp. They’re super cheap at any boating store, and the cheaper the better.

Step 2: cut the seam along the top of the jacket and pull out the foam from the head support.

Step 3: pull the strap out of the loop on the non-clipping side.

Step 4: sew or safety pin the two chest pieces together fairly close. Your making one linear piece (see picture) you want the foam to wrap around your hips, but have most of the floatation in the back.

Step 5: run the nylon strap through a safety pin in the back, and another one near what is now the front right of  the belt (used to be the bottom left). This is to keep the strap straight.

Step 6: put it on, adjust the strap so it feels a little “too” tight, then go (water) run.

I like the feel better than the $50 version. With the blue one I feel like I’m going to topple over backwards if I go too hard or really accentuate my stride. When that happens I tend to bend at the waist, which is horrible technique. I’ve adjusted this belt to lift more in the back, forcing me to use good powerful strides to stay upright.

Visiting Spencer Chiropractic has become among the most anticipated parts of my schedule, which already has an abundance of fun and interesting activities.  (Bear with me on this jarring subject transition). Today I swam the 100m butterfly at a pool in Federal Way, Washington (where Phil Spencer lives). Brian Davis was also swimming it, and this would be the long awaited final showdown of Ben vs. Brian in the 100 butterfly. The first duel, of course, was at the Seattle Open, where I was still doing one-legged flip turns to protect my tender hip. At the first wall I had a small lead, but in the second half Brian was able to pull me back and put a full second on me at the finish. This time, I swore, would be different.

The meet today was prelims and finals, and between sessions Brian and I two different  preparatory tactics. I went to Panera Bread and ate, then went to hang out with Phil, and finished off with an adjustment – including something called something like the “cervical awakening”. My neck cracked so loud I thought I might be dead, but instead I went from my morning feeling of sluggish and moody to feeling good, even hyper!

Courtenay doesn’t like it when I get hyper. Like during the tour when I’m talking nonsense and distracting her from watching Thor and Bradley in their sexy pants.

I got back to the pool and did a nice 1000 warm-up, went over to Issaquah Swim Team’s area and talked a decent amount of shit to Brian and his teammates, then headed back to Cascade Swim Club’s area to motivate my team. (did I mention the 100 fly was part of the 400 medley relay?) Brian’s relay had a combined age of 85, which is ancient in the world of age group swimming. My team, however, edged them out by two years at 87 (26, 25, 20, and 16). Plus, we had a guy named Thor doing the backstroke.

Phil and Courtenay were sitting in the stands making fun of people’s lack of fashion sense. She was anyway, I figure Phil probably just responded with a nervous laugh to try to hide the fact that he didn’t see anything wrong with walking around the pool deck in a full body Blue Seventy Nero suit with Uggs and mascara.

Let me set the scene for you: It’s 7:45 at night at the Wherehouser King County Aquatic Center, Issaquah Swim team is in the preferred lane four, Cascade in lane one. The sweat is dripping from the caps of the heat favorites from the east side, while the Seattle boys stand calm and ready, fearless of defeat. The fans are relentless in their lack of enthusiasm, and the quiet of the crowd seems eerie – it’s the quiet before the storm. The magnitude of this event weighs down the hearts of the onlookers, grasping them with suffocating anticipation.

The gun sounds and the backstrokers leap from the wall, Issaquah edges away over the first 100m and Cascade starts the breaststroke with a 1-second deficit. On breaststroke it’s a battle between 29 year old Peter and 25 year old Andy, but youth shows its virtues and Andy reels in the Issy boys so Brian dives off a mere three tenths of a second ahead of me. I bury myself into the most powerful butterfly I’ve done since I actually trained for this type of event. At the turn I can see the embodiment of evil still half a body length ahead. I put my whole body into an undulating frenzy of aerial churned cream. My arms begin to tighten, I can feel my stroke shortening, by 75 meters my mind is consumed with visualizations of hitting the pad before my nemesis.

20 meters left – I try kicking harder

10 meters – my shoulders are paralyzed

5 meters – just touch the wall

My timing is perfect, my last stroke is neither too long nor too short. I look at the clock, we are less than a second down – there is no time to think about my split vs. Brian’s, and I cheer for our freestyler, who is holding even with his evil counterpart in lane four.

In the end we were 4:07 something, about 8 tenths behind Issaquah. It was a righteous battle, and hopefully not our last. Brian split a 58 something, and I was a 59 something, meaning our loss was my personal responsibility.  The disgrace has me with no choice but to perform seppuku. Had I worn a Blue Seventy skin suit, I may not have let my team down.

Back in May I went to the Blue70  headquarters here in Seattle to pick up my new Helix wetsuit. The suit is great. I have yet to race in it this season, but I swim in Lake Washington several times a week and the suit is really comfortable, flexible where it needs to be and warm enough that I am consistently the first person doing long open water swims in Seattle.

Blue Seventy is sister companies with Nuun, and while I was at the B70 office I decided to wonder around and say hello to the Nuun crew as well. I found them and received a warm welcome. They have a loft office with open desk areas and it seems like a cool place to work. More than that, they have a rock solid product. I’ve used Nuun in the past before races to help with hydration, but only a tab or two, just to break up the monotony of pure water. Before racing in Oklahoma City and Austin, however, I decided to listen to my doctors and load up on salt with my fluids. I added Nuun to my Clif Shot, I drank Nuun alone, I drank Nuun enhanced water by the gallon, and it felt great. I actually urinated less than I normally do before a race, I put on some water weight, of course, but it was gone by the time I started running on race day. Bottom line, I hydrated better, and didn’t have trouble competing in the heat.

I tried  a couple other brands of electrolyte tabs too. I mean, why stick with what works if there are a bunch of other brands that claim to be better? Here’s what I found.

Motor Tabs: I liked that they had a bit of sugar in them. It seemed like a cool way to pack an energy drink. The downside, they taste really bad. Like sugary Alkaseltzer.

Zym: Worked fine, but I preferred the taste of Nuun. They’re just different. Certainly better than Motor Tabs. They add some extra vitamins to the mix, and have a caffeinated option too. I haven’t read any studies with regards to vitamin B12 consumption during exercise, but maybe that’s good (or bad). I don’t know.

Advocare Rehydrate: This isn’t a tab, so it’s not an entirely fair comparison, but it’s low on sugar and high in electrolytes, and I used it for the same purpose. It’s equal in potassium and sodium composition, which Advocare claims is better. I’ve mostly heard arguments for lots of sodium, but not as much potassium. Regardless, it tastes really good, and I felt really well hydrated afterwards. I don’t know that I would add it to my bottle during a race (Like I do Nuun now), but it certainly is a good alternative to straight water in the pre-race days.

Where to start? I had to go look at my website to remember what I wrote about last time, and it was very disappointing. So I’ll start with the funny stuff. I raced on a relay team with Raise the Bar yesterday at the Seafair Triathlon. I had the fastest bike split, but Chris Tremonte won the regular race, and when he went up to receive his award, the announcer reminded him that, yet again, he didn’t break my course record. It’s good to feel loved, but he’s the one walking away with prize money. Courtenay raced too, and her swimming looks WAY faster (thanks to a few pointful lessons I’ve given her). Then after the race, Courtenay ripped Chris’ towel off while he was changing in the middle of transition. The money should help Chris feel better about being picked on, right?

I’ve been running through Lincoln Park in West Seattle. It’s really beautiful and there are a bunch of trails (well, a couple trails) with good surfaces. There are also day camps for little kids in the park, and a few days ago a little girl told me that a plastic bottle filled with dirt was her “baby” and that “he’s hungry" (As she shoved more dirt down the top). Are all little kids weird like that, or is it just the ones that walk up to sweaty strangers in short shorts?

My dog died. That’s not a funny update, but it’s true. She was 15 years old plus a couple months, was blind, deaf, had heart disease and arthritis, and was a great dog. I didn’t even mind so much when she pooped in my lap last week. I just told her she was a good dog (which she couldn’t hear) and gave her a bath.

The wind turned northward this week, and fired up some cold weather. My mood turned southerly this week and fired up some cranky attitude. I also am back to the training hours I was used to prior to my last racing block, and the energy expenditure is taking it’s toll. Here’s my week so far (in a very rare move for me to blog about actual training):

Sunday, an hour on the bike, 45 minutes of running, and an evening sail after dinner.

Monday, 7400 yards in the pool, and hour on the bike, an hour of running, then off to Inewmed for some acupuncture (helps with the recovery), back home to meet up with Courtenay to go with her to the pool where I coached her in swimming for a bit.

(I normally don’t like to “coach” a girlfriend because when I tell her things like, “that’s not working, you look like a plastic bag trying to swim…” I have to hear about it for much longer than with a paying customer who goes home to their own significant other without ever taking my words personally (right Kelly?). After her last race, however, I agreed she needed some better help than the occasional tip from two lanes over, or the apathetic idiot coaching the masters practice. So until she finds a team to swim with, under a coach that can tell that left and right are not the same as front and back, I’ll have to make a little time each week to give some advice.)

Tuesday, ran in the water, road my bike at Inewmed, where Neal Goldberg did a bike fit for me on both my raod and TT bikes, then went to pick up Courtenay from work so we could swim in West Seattle.

We didn’t make it to West Seattle, however, because by the time I got to Amazon to pick up Court, my head had started throbbing, I was coughing so hard I thought my lungs would fall out, and I generally wanted to curl up in a ball. We went home, she left to go swim on her own, and I’ve been laying down wishing the would would stop spinning.

The last month my training volume was quite a bit lower than before my leg bone decided it no longer wanted to be quite so attached to the hip bone. Now that I’m back on my feet and getting back into the swing of things, it’s becoming obvious that my fun level will have to decrease in order to make time for the life consuming training regimen that I have chosen as a lifestyle.

For instance, tonight after dinner I decided the wind was perfect for an evening sail with Courtenay. The wind was steady and strong enough to blow us around the lake a few times. Now, however, it’s 9:15 and I still need to stretch, self-massage, and do the rest of my pre-bed routine.

The road to health is sort of like a vacation, only with more productivity. I had a birthday party last Saturday (I turned twenty-something), built a bike for my mom out of the frame that I broke in a Thursday night crit last year (which in the meantime I had a friend “repair”), cleaned two boats, coached a 6 week long triathlon clinic (put on by Seafair and Raise The Bar) and swam in a swim meet. The real time drain is all the physical therapy appointments. I’m going to this guy, Neal O’Neal, who beats the crap out of me in a good way, but he has very few appointment times at his main office in Redmond (fairly close) which forces me to drive to Kent (not close at all). I’m thinking I need to find a PT that can torture me so methodically in a nearby place. Or maybe I need to hire a personal PT to live here with me (wait, isn’t Aaron a PT? Why did I let him move out?)

All in all, I don’t think I lost that much fitness. It will take a couple long rides to get back some of my endurance, but the water running has kept my leg strength up, and I seem to be adjusting quickly to a regular training routine.