Growing Lungs
Growing up my grandfather visited the library every Saturday. He would catch up on current events, stocks and study the topic he had chosen for the year. He instilled in me a love of learning. I LOVE to research topics and now with the wonderful world wide web information is a goggle search away. I still do enjoy the library, all those words, pages and ideas in one place. The internet I find frustrating sometimes because there is so much information, everyone is an expert. However the links I clicked on for swimming and yoga moves were good ones.
It is time for me to swallow my pride and let someone else set up training sessions for me to follow. I need to learn how to build stamina, endurance and obtain perfect form. Why I don't find exercising as a fun learning experience I don't know, but I'm working on it. I found some very interesting yoga articles about practicing breathes to release stale air in the lungs. Yuck, stale air and old sticky mucus is about the worse picture in my mind. It's a variation on breathing through your nose for a certain count and breathing out your mouth for a certain count, building up in seconds while you rotate from sitting to lying on your back.
I looked up all the different yoga inversion positions because my friend told me inversions, like shoulder stands, downward facing dog and bridge were excellent for my lungs and my heart. My heart rate right now is 120 bpm, due to the oxygen demand and my low muscle tone. Hopefully I'll see that go down the more I swim. A couple of years ago I was in the 90's, also albuterol, contributes to high heart rate. By getting my head below my heart, the blood easily flows and takes the pressure off the legs, lungs and heart. This will also help with fatigue, which hasn't been a problem recently, but giving my heart a break sounds lovely.
I swim in a Jr. Olympic size pool, I consider a lap to be from one end to the other, so I swam 2 freestyle and 2 breast stroke. This was the first time in about a month that I did full laps. I tried to go slowly, but it took me about a minute to recover after each one. I've been kicking and then sitting on a kick board and moving my arms. Instead of growing fins, I am growing lungs! Now if I could only figure out a way to be paid for exercising, it would pay for my weekly prizes and just get me to the pool faster!
I finally figured out my ultimate prize for obtaining a weight of 130lbs and an FEV1 of 66% or higher. A trip to Germany and France!! One of my best friends from college is visiting one of her friends who works in Germany in September. Just the time that I should be at my ideal weight. ;) The lung function numbers will be behind but I have confidence I'll get there. Heck, I've told you all about, I would hate to disappoint. I love to travel and I love to research travel. I could see being a travel agent in my future, once everyone gives up on trying to figure it out over the internet. Planning is just like learning, a step by step process from point A to B....Hmmm sounds like I should remind myself of that about exercising. But walking around Paris last summer was way more fun than getting my butt into swimming gear. It has been one year since I accomplished my second biggest goal, traveling to Europe. Finishing college was first. I went with my best friend from high school and we went to Rome, Florence, the Tuscany countryside, Venice, and Paris for 2 weeks. We followed Rick Steve's travel books, a hand full of websites and our own desires to see history and art. I had set in my mind that I would be in England for my 25th birthday, which is next year, but this Germany/France trip has popped up and I'm grabbing this opportunity. Training just got a little bit easier. There I'll be on the French Riviera with my rock solid abs and super strong lungs.....