Second thoughts, third thoughts.

Yesterday I agreed to take part in the 365 Days of Sweat project with Katelyn and Nicole.

Great, I thought.

Sounds like fun, I imagined.

And then I woke up this morning and the magnitude of what I've gotten myself into hit me.

It's true that I've been pretty active since I was a kid. I played hockey in a girls' league for a few years as a young kid, ran track (badly, slowly, terribly) for a couple of years, and then moved on to synchronised swimming. With the exception of a few short breaks, I've been active in synchro ever since, at the recreational level starting at age 8, and then eventually at provincial and national levels. Every synchronised swimmer will be recruited onto a water polo team at some point; naturally, I played water polo throughout high school. 

Solo free competition in Gothenburg, July 2010

In 2009-2010, while completing my masters thesis, I trained with SyncTO and competed at FINA World Masters Championship in Gothenburg, Sweden, while also swimming and competing in the Canadian University Synchronised Swimming League (CUSSL), Canada's intercollegiate synchro league. It was a busy year, and I often doubled up on practises during the week, to the point that I might swim 9 or 10 practises each week, including masters and varsity team practises, masters solo practices, and extras. While my skills weren't quite equal to my ambition, my body quickly adapted to training intensively.

Then came fall 2010. Cue medical school.

Sedentary, in a sling, and drowning my sorrows in San Pellegrino

Med school has been a disaster when it comes to staying active. In my first year, I gained 40 pounds, despite swimming on a varsity team. During my second year, I had a pretty big shoulder surgery, during which my left shoulder capsule was pleated, plucked, and tucked into a new, smaller shape to prevent daily dislocations. I spent a couple of months before the surgery mostly in a sling, and the sling stayed on for three months post-surgery. I had a hard time adjusting to my new, sedentary lifestyle, and continued to gain weight. Three months after surgery, my enforced rest was up, but I still wasn't cleared to return to swimming. I learned to love running (which I had previously hated!) since it was almost the only activity I could do with relatively little pain and little risk that I would somehow destroyed my yet-to-heal shoulder capsule.

Still smiling after 21.1k with Katelyn, September 2012

Katelyn convinced me - even though I hadn't even run a full 5k at the time! - to sign up for a half-marathon, which we ran in September of this year. My time was terrible, but I reached my goal of completing all 21.1k without stopping, and it felt like I'd reached a major milestone.

But then clerkship started, and everything changed. Clerkship marks the end of time spent in the classroom, and the beginning of time spent in the hospital. It looks a little bit like the first episode of Grey's Anatomy (am I dating myself here?) - you know, the one where Meredith gets lost wheeling the pageant contestant around the bowels of the hospital? Except clerkship is way less sexy. And, well, we're way more fumbling and confused. And we have even less control over our lives and schedules.

So, while I agreed to this challenge eager to get moving on a regular basis, I'm wondering now how it will fit into a schedule that includes the complete destruction and dissolution of both my circadian rhythm and any illusion of control over my own life. Not to mention, of course, singing in a choir, learning Greek, and swimming on a varsity team.

Monday, you're too close already.

 

Sarah