The Y. And other things.

As I've said from the beginning, I'm not going to pretend to be an intersting person when I'm really not. That means I won't always have weekly posts throughout the indoor training season because honestly, it's pretty routine. We are still in our first mesocycle which will last until around Christmas I think. I still am not swimming and I don't know when I will. I am continuing to see different people and trying new exercises and things to hopefully solve this problem. A few weeks ago it was all about the stretches. Now it's about stability. Everything is connected. So even though I have shoulder issues I also need to deael with my lower back and neck right now. But apparently I am fixable so we'll just keep hoping. I went to watch the rest of my team swimming this Saturday. It's crazy how bad you want to get in that water when you can't. Anyways, right before that on Saturday I came from the Y. I think that's what I originally meant to blog about but who knows.
So I've mentioned it before but I think it's time to explain what I do from 8:30 to 10am on my Saturday mornings. And it isn't sleeping in. Since last winter I have been volunteering at the EK YMCA with Ashlyn and Bryn. We coach a group of kids under the age of 13. We have a waiting list but usually anywhere between 10-20 kids show up. Before we took on the program it was more of a babysitting service, a place to dump kids and hope they somehow became athletic. Or not. Sometimes the instructors wouldn't show up and the lifeguards were told to look after the kids. Sometimes they did show up and they sat on spin bikes while watching tv. You get the idea. We have transformed it into a program where most kids actually want to be there and the parents sometimes even get involved with their kid's activities. We try to promote the Kids of Steel Series and the Manitoba Youth Team, and have actually had some success with this.
I have realized I love coaching kids. Sometimes I am a very nice coach:
"Great job today guys! You made some awesome improvements, see you next week." or...
"Just try the best you can, you're doing great."
Other times those crazy kids get on my nerves:
Kid: "I don't want to do this. I ate cookies for breakfast and now you expect me to do flipturns?! Do you want me to throw up?"
Me: "Sure, that's fine. As long as you get out of the pool first." or...
Kid: "I don't want to do those warm-ups they look dumb. I'm going to just sit here and stretch." (the "stretch" part should probably be in quotation marks based on what they do sometimes)
Me: "Get up and do the dynamic warm-up right now. Or else I'll give you the whole lecture explaining why, scientifically, dynamic warm-ups are better for you than static stretching."
You get the idea. Anyways, I wouldn't be doing it unless I loved it. I think that's about it going on right now. There were some cross country races going on this weekend that friends did well in, which is exciting. Oh and on our Friday off I hung out with the triathlon girls and we baked a cake. It had a unicorn on it. Mmm, unicorns...