Training Journal #25/ An Open Letter to Goodlife Fitness

Today was my last swim before the big day. Which is a little risky because if I don't swim Sunday or Monday then I'll have been out of the water for debatably too long. But let's be optimistic and say it'll be fine! Today's swim brings this week's mileage up to a whopping 10km. Okay body, time to go into charging mode, and save up all that energy!

I got my blood results back. Iron levels at 14! Spectacular! Christine hasn't even asked so I'm not even going to tell her. I'll be fine, even Taliano thinks I'll be okay. Some research says that women's iron levels can be in the normal range at as low as 12, so maybe that's me! Too late to turn back now.

I also switched gyms this week. I'll be 24 in the fall and my YMCA membership was going to go up in price. So I checked out Goodlife Fitness and made the switch. Perks include: a pool that is still unreasonably warm, but totally empty most of the day, AND open 24 hours. Also massage chairs. But man oh man Goodlife, even though I'm still convinced I made the right decision, you made me second guess myself today. So here is my open letter to Goodlife Fitness.


Dear Goodlife Fitness,

I recently switched over to your gym from the YMCA. I was greeted by friendly staff, given a great tour of the facility, received a free book AND a free duffel bag! In addition I noticed that the average age of members was well under that of the YMCA, and because I'm 23, I find this is quite nice... for so many reasons. Well done, good start!

Then, I sat down at one of your little discussion tables and was taken through your intro package with a personal trainer. You asked me about why I joined the gym, and what my fitness goals are, and what I'd like to see change in my body. This should have been my first indication that things were headed south. But instead I continued naively, answered all your questions, and even agreed to a follow-up session. This session would be with a different personal trainer who would do a workout with me, and a bunch of health assessments to give me my numbers (BMI, Weight, Body Fat% and composition etc). Well that sounded exciting! After selling out all my closest friends and family in order to get a free water bottle, I left the gym, looking forward to returning the next day for my personal training session.

So I arrived at the gym today and was greeted by a higher ranking personal trainer who took me through a workout which I actually found reasonably informative and challenging at certain parts. I had never used the squat bars before outside of a lifting class, and she corrected my technique in a few exercises. Over all, not a bad session! Next came the health assessment. We went back to the little discussion tables and got started.

Something you should know about me Goodlife -- I'm going to swim across Lake Erie in 4 days. Its approximately a 20km double marathon swim. I can't guarantee you that I will make it across, but the important thing to know is that I've trained for it. I've trained hard for it. For 7 months now I have been working out 8-9 times per week, for usually about 2 hours at a time. I am the fittest I have ever been. I am an athlete.

This was not kept a secret from the personal trainer I was working with. (Could you keep it a secret if you were swimming across a Great Lake in 4 days?!) I thought it was kind of odd that this personal trainer had almost no reaction to this piece of information, but I quickly took myself off of my high horse. I'm sure many more-impressive athletes than myself have walked through those doors, and I'm sure Goodlife has been the training ground for much more impressive athletic feats. So we plowed onwards as if I wasn't any different, which, I reasoned, was true. I was again asked questions about my fitness goals and what I would like to change. But we got really specific this time, and I felt myself start to get defensive. When I wasn't providing very detailed answers, (ex. I guess I'd like to continue to see more muscle tone), she tried to suggest some for me;

"Where would you like to see more muscle/less fat? What parts of your body do you feel uncomfortable with? Would you like to lose inches somewhere specific? Is there a dress size or pant size that you're aiming for?"

Now, I'm going to give my one-off personal trainer the benefit of the doubt. I'm sure these questions are scripted and its not her fault that they're terrible. I'm looking at you corporate Goodlife - those are NOT good questions!

I actually took a few moments and a couple breathes before I answered. I said, "You know what, I'm probably never going to be 100% satisfied all the time with how I look, or how I feel my body looks, and I think that's normal. But right now I just can't hate on my body. Right now that actually feels wrong! I have been pushing my body to its physical limits, I have being seeing tangible evidence of myself getting stronger, I've been asking for a lot, and my body has been doing absolutely everything I've asked it to! I'm very happy about that!" And then I asked if we could move on.

The next part of the health assessment was blood pressure. I know what my blood pressure should be. I used to take it all the time, ever since I was 12 in Shoppers Drug Mart. I have used my brother's cuff for at-home monitoring, and I have it taken every time I donate blood. You know what it says every.single.time? 110/70. OCCASIONALLY 120/80. Resting heart rate of 60bpm. Suffice it to say that my pulse and blood pressure are fine. Sometimes low, like so low that workout machines give me an error message because they can't find my pulse, but nevertheless, perfectly healthy and fine. This was not what the machine at Goodlife found. My numbers were through the roof! I was initially shocked and for a split second I was truly worried. I waited to see what the trainer would say, but she didn't react, just wrote the numbers down. I mentioned how odd that was, and what my normal range usually is, but she didn't seem to think it warranted a re-test, or that anything strange was afoot. Now I realize that my pressure and pulse were so high because my blood was already boiling at this point but I was bottling it all up inside of me! I had just had my healthy body- image assaulted and was forced to defend it, and now we're going to see what my heart is like in a calm, resting state?!

Next, I allowed the personal trainer to wrap a measuring tape around certain body parts and then I stepped onto a fancy scale that was going to tell me my weight, my body fat percentage, and the break down of my body composition (fat mass, bone mass, muscle mass etc.) For a moment before I stepped on the scale I was self-conscious. I knew what the scale was going to say, and I knew I wasn't going to be thrilled with the number. I knew I had gained over 10lbs since the beginning of my training and had never weighed this much before in my life. I also realistically had continued to tell myself that most of that weight had to be muscle, that I still fit into all of my clothes, some even better than before, and that no matter what the number is, I am not defined by it. So I stepped onto your scale, and was greeted by the expected number, and I came to terms with it. Then the scale gave my personal trainer a print-out and we went back to the table to enter the last numbers from my assessment into a computer and go over what it said.

It said that I am made up of 35% fat. To MY credit I didn't react to the number, "What do I know about body fat percentage, I'm sure its fine!" My personal trainer however, was more than happy to interpret the number for me. "35%, well that, along with your blood pressure results puts you in the very unhealthy zone." She then pointed to a column on the computer for me. I scored 62/100 on my health assessment and it was concluded that significant lifestyle changes needed to occur. In addition, 35% body fat puts me in the obese column of every body fat percentage chart. What?!

My personal trainer smiled at me, handed me the package of paperwork, detailing how unhealthy I am, and how I am at a high risk for heart attack and stroke, and then she tried to sell me 8 different personal training packages ranging from $1000-$6000, all of which I declined, before she said goodbye and left for her next appointment.

Goodlife, I am afraid. I am not afraid for me. I am not afraid that I'm going to die young from heart disease or stroke. I'm not even afraid of what 35% body fat means for me, my swim, or my overall health. What I AM afraid of is how your personal trainers are interpreting your health assessment results. If your employees can sit for an hour with me, do a workout with me, listen to the details of what my training has included over the past year, and at the end of that can point to a chart telling me I'm considered obese -- that's terrifying!! It's terrifying because I'm not obese! I'm not even close! And if you can look at a high performance athlete and ascribe that word to them without any qualms, I shudder to think what is being told to the men and women, especially young men and women who do not have the knowledge of how strong they are to fall back on. What about your clients who may not have my amazing support group and people in their life who consistently tell them they're beautiful and help build up their self-esteem?? What are you telling to the other people who look like me but might look in the mirror and actually think they are obese, and then you CONFIRM their deepest fear?! It's possible that 35% of my body is fat. I'm skeptical, but its possible. Even if that IS true, clearly in my case that number does equal an individual who is living an unhealthy lifestyle, clearly 35% does not always equal obesity.

Here's my point. I am not against your health assessment. I am not against your gym. I am actually very happy with almost everything I have experienced at Goodlife. What I AM against is the blanket, one size fits all, black and white way in which my health assessment was explained to me. Healthy doesn't always look like 18% body fat, 120lbs, and a size 2 waist. It certainly doesn't look like that for me. Healthy looks different for everyone, and that's why it's really difficult to make any kind of judgement calls based on a person's appearance. That's why fat-shaming is so problematic!

As an organization whose goal is to "give every Canadian the opportunity to live a fit and healthy good life", I'm asking you to please redefine the way you see people, and the way you're telling people to see themselves. Please stop telling healthy people that they're obese. Please stop forcing people to tell you all the things they hate about their bodies. Please stop viewing the numbers as absolute truth, to be weighted as worth more than the story of the person sitting across from you.

Sincerely,

Krista


Update: December 23rd 2015. I made it across Lake Erie! I am still a regular Goodlife Member. I am still 35% body fat. And that is still okay.

Training Journal #24

Georgian Bay was beautiful! We were camped on a Native reserve which was a bugger to get to and I think I destroyed my car, but the location was lovely. There were two islands really close to our site that we swam around and the waves were lots of fun! I've always loved playing in the waves at Sauble beach and maybe I just naturally know how to swim in them. In theory I shouldn't have to swim against the waves on Erie. I can swim N to S or S to N. My preference would be S to N so that I can end at Crystal Beach, but at the end of the day its not up to me. So the waves should be behind me, or slightly to the side of me. The important thing to remember is to brace your core when you're swimming in waves so that you can hold your line and stay on plain. The other thing is that sometimes the waves will mess up your breathing. I breathe every 3 strokes, but if I turn my head into a wave or get hit in the face, I need to be able to relax and just wait to breathe a little later. Some of the drills we used to do in practice required us to breathe only every 5 or 7 strokes, so again, in theory I should easily have the lung capacity to deal with unpredictable waves. We'll see. I'm feeling good though.

Mileage is way down this week, only 12 km. It hasn't been that low since February I think! One freaking week left!! Still not sure about the whole boat situation. Christine isn't freaking out yet so I guess it'll be fine. Erie is high 60s which is all I can ask for. Please let conditions be prime for the 12th!

Training Journal #23

3 weeks to go! I'm up at camp, I brought Trin and Michaela with me, partly to give them a crossroads experience, and partly so they would help me focus on continuing to train. I've been teaching Bronze Med/Cross and on the break times I've been swimming in Black Lake. The girls have done some of it with me and some of it on paddle boards beside me. Yesterday we went across to the far side of the lake and back, and then to pine tree point and back twice. It was funny to see the staff reactions. For Bronze Med/Cross they all have to swim to pine tree point and back (round trip 600m), and its a real struggle for some of them. So to see me, with a 15 and 13 yr old beside me just doing the lake like its nothing seems crazy, and then to know what my actual goal is, and what Trin has already done. I don't actually need people to be amazed at me, I really really don't. This is a very personal goal, and I'm doing it for me and nobody else. But it is nice for people to be able to understand what I'm talking about and to have some perspective on it.

I'm bringing Trin and Michalea up to Georgian Bay next week where we'll meet Christine and I'll camp with them for a night. Apparently there's some good spots to swim there, and waves! That would be the only thing I feel unprepared for. I've never training in actual waves. The canal is flat, even when its windy its flat with a bit of a current.

I sent in blood work one last time before leaving for camp so I'm curious about those results!

Mileage this week: 20km.

Training Journal #22

30km this week! This is the peak of my training. From here on I'm tapering til the big day. Its looking like July 12th will be the first day we shoot for. If conditions aren't what we want then we try every day after that. I'd really like it to be the 12th though. Its a Sunday and so way more people are available, not just for my cheering section at the end, but also to be part of the crew. Paul is going to join us as a back-up boat driver. Mom will be in charge of feeding the crew etc. Christine and her girls will be there too. Trin and Michaela have been so great to me through the whole thing. The rest of the crew, (other than Miguel) is kind of up in the air for now.

I had a really cool swim today. I've been in KW for the weekend visiting friends. Its my last free weekend before the swim and I've definitely prioritized my training over pretty much everything else, so it was nice to be with people again. But just because I'm not in Niagara doesn't mean I can take extra days off. So I found a pool here at the Moses Springer Centre, and its awesome. Its outdoors, and its 50m! I've never swam long course before. The temp was like 75 which was the best!! Since swimming in the canal I've really struggled swimming at the YMCA because I find it SO warm! 65 to 85 is just not ideal. Anyways, I did 4.5km in this pool and it was both challenging and a lot of fun. You only get to push off the walls half as often, and that totally changes your times for 50s, 100s, 200s. I don't think I've enjoyed a workout that much in a while.

The canal is fine but its not always the most pleasant experience. Its basically a giant trough with big cement walls and plants growing all up the side. Because the canal is shared with rowers and other non-motorized boat activity, the swimmers are supposed to stay close to the edge on the left side. The issue is that there isn't just plant growth on the walls, there's all sorts of growth underwater too, so you have to swim through seaweed at certain points. There are fish too...big fish...big gross fish...I think they'e called carp. I've seen a few of them, and I have a scratch in my goggles that sometimes looks like a fish out of the corner of my eye. I'm glad I grew up swimming in lakes and playing with seaweed and fishing with Dad. This stuff doesn't freak me out or make me not want to swim, its actually kind of interesting to see everything....like going snorkelling with the world's nastiest selection of wildlife. I just don't want to touch any of it. And that's the problem with the warm weather. As the sun is out more, the seaweed starts growing and reaching for the surface, so where it used to be 3 ft under me at the end of May, its now only 1ft beneath me. When Christine isn't with me I move further out into the middle of the canal, but its frowned upon so sometimes I'm forced to get all up and personally with the seaweed. That isn't the worst of it though. There's also this algae stuff that floats on top in big globs. Since I'm only supposed to breathe sideways you never see it coming. I've thankfully never breathed the stuff right into my mouth yet, but I've stuck my face into a bunch of times, and its like swimming through phlegm. I'll take my suit off after a canal swim and I will find the stuff everywhere. Everywhere. Christine's WPAC swim team has been training in the canal too, and they are really vocal about their hatred of the stuff. So when I swim with them I try to be a big girl about it and set an example, but its totally all show. Lake Erie should be cleaner, so that's a plus.

Training Journal #21

Holy Moly what a day!


Ability to move my neck comfortably in all directions -- CHECK
Final Trial Swim -- CHECK!

Up at 6am today to get to the canal for a 7:30am start. Dad and Christine came with me and paddled a double kayak. I've been feeling kind of off the last few days, like cold symptoms. We were in KW all yesterday for Ingrid and Paul's 25th anniversary, and I could tell by the end of the evening that I was gonna be feeling it the next day. So this morning I had the aches and the sniffles and all that good stuff. But the canal doesn't care how I feel, it was sitting at 65 degrees and my health is irrelevant, I already made it wait a week for me. I couldn't push it another week because you're not supposed to do anything big when you're within a month of your swim date. So I had to do some major psyching up this morning. I think my most effective piece of motivation to myself was, "If you can do 10km when you feel like shit, then you can totally do 20km on a good day!"

Well, I managed to do 11.2km, so we'll see if the second part comes true in a month from now.

We started from the South Niagara Canoe club dock and went right in the direction of downtown Welland. I had never swam in that direction before so that was a good way to start. At least I was looking at new trees and new slabs of concrete. Then it got way more interesting because I was swimming under cool bridges and seeing actual buildings and parks and people. The plan was to go further in that direction to another bridge in our sights, but then we realized that it was the weekend of the Welland Triathlon. There was a swimming course set up right in front of us, and luck would have it that it was starting right as we approached it. I couldn't see the swimmers, but Dad and Christine could from their kayak vantage point. So I quickly swam up and touch a big green inflatable buoy that marked their course, and then turned around and swam away. I swam all the way back to the place where we started and then Christine told me that I'll now have to swim out to the 406 bridge and back. Quick pee break for the kayak crew.

Side note: Christine wants me to be able to pee as I swim so I don't waste time by stopping. EASIER SAID THAN DONE. Try relaxing enough to pee while still moving all your limbs. This will not happen. She's convinced I'll figure it out in the next month. I will not. I have no intentions of doing that.

On that second leg of the swim I was really glad for the kayak beside me. Its just a nice distraction. Its not like I can talk to them while I swim or hear what they're saying, but its something to focus on other than my stroke, and I haven't had much luck with singing to myself or doing much else on the long swims so far. Every so often Dad or Christine would smile at me and give me the thumbs up. Sometimes Christine would have this really concerned look on her face which would give me a heart attack and I would launch into self-assessment mode: "Am I kicking? Is my hand entering the water straight? Am I doing a full recovery? I'll do a few obnoxiously full strokes and splash some water up behind me just so she knows I'm not tired yet. Is my elbow high enough? Am I rotating my body enough?" I asked her about it afterwards and 99% of the time she wasn't thinking any of that, I think it was just her resting face lol. When I turned around at the 406 I was starting to get tired and I was starting to feel the cold. At some point on the way back my hands went completely numb. The last 2km was tough mentally. I'm glad Christine didn't make me do the trial swim in Lake Erie. I think if I swam out into the middle I would just want to get it done once I'd come that far.

The important thing is I did it. I'm not even sure what my time was, but its done, and Christine is happy, which means I'm allowed to be happy. I felt the after-drop on the way home, I'm glad Dad was driving. I went immediately into our hot tub and it took me a good 30 minutes in the tub before I got even close to the point of feeling too warm. For the first 10 minutes I couldn't even feel the heat, I still had goosebumps on my skin!! Then I went to Julie's bridal shower right after that. Can't stop, won't stop.

Last week's mileage: 21.5km (that doesn't include today :)

Training Journal #20/ FRIG AGAIN

Something I am learning about this sport of open water swimming is that I can plan and train and decide when something is going to happen, but at the end of the day you are not in control. If the elements are against you, if the water isn't warm enough, if the waves are too big or too strong in the wrong direction, then you change your plans.

Not only can I not control the weather, I also can't control my own body! This week I had tapered in preparation for my big official 10km trial swim in the canal. But on Wednesday morning I woke up and started to get dressed at which point my neck seized. Really painfully I might add. I couldn't move. I called both Christine and my chiropractor in tears. I went in to see Rebecca 3 times this week plus a massage. I had electro-pusle therapy on my neck. One of the more bizarre things I've experienced. Its this machine that forces your muscles to tense up and then release. By the third treatment I was doing much better, but not to the point where I was going to do a 10km. I was worried about the breathing aspect where I have to rotate my neck a thousand times. I have to stretch like crazy and I still don't have the full range of motion back. I guess I'm glad this happened now and not any closer to my swim. My mileage this week was 18km because I took 3 days off for recovery. Today I did 5km in the canal which was pretty ambitious considering my week but no issues. Christine wants me to do another good canal workout tomorrow, but then I still need to do my trial swim next weekend so hopefully I'm back to normal by then.

All my Masters programs finished this week. It was actually pretty sad, I really felt like part of a team by the end of it. It was a good end though. My last workout with them was 20x100m and I held 1:25 the whole time. It was exactly what I wanted :) I even beat Dave!!

Started from the bottom now we here. ;)

I feel like I might consider doing Brock Masters again in future....probably not in the fall, I'm gonna take a break from swimming after all this. Its not that I'm sick of swimming, but sometimes I'm just over being wet all the time.

5 weeks out. A lot more planning has been happening about the actual swim. Miguel will be joining us as Swim Master (the person who makes it official and enforces all the rules). We're going to take our boat, and we need another one, preferably bigger, so we're working on that. Christine will be in a kayak beside me. We've been practicing that. I'm not supposed to look forward while I'm swimming, as tempting as that's going to be. I'm just supposed to look at the kayak when I breathe and make sure I'm staying the same distance away from it, and if the kayak changes course then I need to adjust my direction also. At first I only liked sighting to the right, but now it doesn't really matter. There are all sorts of other rules I've learned about too. The kayak thing isn't a rule, but I'll wreck my neck and probably mess with my own head if I'm constantly looking to see how far I've gone/how far I have left to go. But outside of that, for a swim to be recognized:
-- I can't touch a boat at all during my crossing
-- I can't touch a person at all during my crossing
-- I can't wear a watch, or use a waterproof ipod or anything else that I might use to pace myself
-- I can't have anybody in the water with me for the first 5 hours. After that I'm allowed a pacer.
-- The pacer cannot be ahead of me at any point
-- The pacer cannot be in the water for longer than an hour
-- If there are multiple pacers they must be an hour apart (an hour gap between them where I'm by myself again)
-- I cannot wear a wetsuit
-- My bathing suit cannot be one of those speed suits they wear in the olympics, no material past the shoulder or groin

Most of this stuff isn't a surprise to me anymore, but knowing about pacers is important. I might ask Dave to be my pacer, its really nice to see a familiar face beside you when you're pushing yourself. There are obviously points where I want to be by myself, like for most of it. But especially at the end I think.

Training Journal #19

We opened the pool. Dad has been heating it up to 70 so I can swim tethered. I broke the tether twice before finally swimming for the equivalent of 1km. I really don't like doing it, but Christine says its important, even for me to mentally have to endure something I hate.....just like kick sets!

A couple big workouts this week, 5.2 and 5.6. But most significantly this week I got into the old Welland Canal today which will be my new training space now that we're heading into summer. I did 2km with Christine and the girls beside me. No wetsuit, and the water was again around 60 degrees. I felt really good afterwards even though Christine said I should experience an "after-drop". Basically that's where your body temperature actually reaches its lowest point (potential hypothermia) after I'm already out of the water. This is dangerous if you're not used to it, especially if you're alone, or driving. I was neither this time, but felt fine anyways. Christine was pleased and impressed by how I handled cold water, so those are the feelings I'm choosing to have about it to. Now I'm off to a Car Wash to raise money for Jumpstart Kids Campaign which is the charity that Christine's family and the WPAC relay have chosen to support, and which I will be sending a donation to after my swim.

Mileage: 29km!!!!