Hitting the Boneheaded Jackpot

I jacked up my knee this weekend.

Not in a cool training incident way either. A totally stupid, mundane embarrasing way. I was painting one of the bedrooms. I was going up on the stepladder and was slightly off balance and instead of stepping down and trying again I pushed through the weird feeling in my knee, knowing it was a bad idea as I did it.

That was about when I got the sharp, shooting pain. I spent the rest of the weekend in a surprsing amount of pain. I iced and IBd and tried to take it easy. There was much limping involved, wore a brace initially. Total boneheaded injury, still hurts.

So with all that it's probably for the best that I missed my run this morning due to a critical client obligation (Sidebar: To anyone out there who may, at some point in their careers, hire a professional writer. If you need a 40 page business plan polished, please, please, call said writer with more than 24 hours notice before it is due to be turned in to the investors. I'm begging you.)

I was inspired by the Kahuna's post and decided come hell or high water I was going to work out tonight, and figured a swim was the best way to go easy on my knee. I almost got sucked into American Idol, but Husband Type Person forced me out the door.

It turned out to be a pretty great workout, and for a specific reason. I no longer have to worry about counting the damn laps. Because... in what is quite possibly the longest running boneheaded streak, after 3 months of ownership I just realized that I can also use my shiny new Ironman lap watch to count pool laps. (Wylee, do I get a limerick?) This is a critical point in our dinky pool that takes 60 laps to go a freaking mile. I always lose count around, oh, 17.

That's when the conversations in my head start.

"Was that 17 or 18?"
"I dunno. Maybe it was only 16?"
"Call it 16 to be safe."

5 laps later.

"Crap! Was that 23 or 24?"
Replay last few laps in head, rewinding internal dialouge to search for clues. This never helps.
"Hurry up, only half a lap left to decide what lap you're on."
"Call it 24. Cause 16 was probably 17 or maybe 18 so I probably did extra anyway."

And so it goes.

If I'm really concentrating on counting, it goes more like this:

"16. What lap am I on? 16 Baby! Yeah. Sweet 16 ain't never been kissed... huh, that's the only lyric I know to that one. Who was the 16th President? Lincoln baby!"
"Ok, 17. Seeeeeeveeeeenteeeeen. Seventeen. Hey! Don't drop your elbow! What lap was it again? Oh yeah 17. Didn't I used to get Seventeen magazine?"
"18 and stroke and stroke and breath and 18 and life to goooooo your crime is time and it's 18 and life... oh crap wait now it's 19"

Gets old, yeah?

So I love my lap watch. It's amazing how much I've been able to focus on my form - and how much it's improved in only two sessions of doing it this way - when I'm not busy playing word association games.