Real Meal

So over Thanksgiving, I blew off the dieting for a day and ate a real meal - SOOO good. Can't even tell you how good turkey tastes when you've been dropping pounds from your 5% body fat frame for over four months. But man, that chemical that makes you sleep hits you HARD when you are on a diet.

And BTW, it's below freezing every morning when I wake up and I've got to bundle up and get my body awake and get out on the water. I'm getting more and more used to it... but seriously. 29 degrees and barely light and we are going out. I've realized I can't really stop to think about because it's not rational.... amazing what you can get yourself to do when you turn off your common sense.

Lactate Testing

I gave a bunch of blood the past few days. Not as in donated, but had a bunch of blood samples taken to measure my lactate. We flew some doctor out from San Diego to follow us around during workouts, and take blood samples during the sessions at various points (after hard work, medium level work) to measure the amount of lactate our body is generating - lactate is what your body produces while you are working out, and you can only tolerate so much of it before you go to muscle failure. I've had this done at least10 - 15 times over the course of my career. I realized this time around I have no idea what it really means. I measured a 2.6 milliloule (sp during our medium level workout - no clue what that's all about. I was told I was working too hard, that I only want to generate 1 millilloule (sp). I actually don't even know what a millilloule (sp) is. I'm sure it would be helpful to know.

What I did learn this weekend is that I am a bleeder. I got sampled with a pin-prick on my finger in the middle of practice, and then again at the end. I never stopped bleeding (it didn't hurt after the initial prick), and managed to not have to get pricked again. I now have a personal oar - thanks to the blood staining I gave this particular one. I wonder if I should be concerned about the lack of clotting...