Water is not your friend, but it isn't trying to be your enemy.

I didn't go to tri class yesterday because we were driving back from visiting Sarah in Chattanooga, which was a blast. We white water rafted while we were there, and the river was really high and rough. Rafting brings my thoughts into relief (much like running does), I discovered: when approaching a really big rapid that could potentially flip the boat (and will either cause your butt to fly off your perch or slam you in the face with water), I would get scared, clinch up, scream, and think the worst was going to happen. Oh, and lean back--leaning back doesn't help one's balance, ever, in any situation.

Sarah fell out of the boat on one of the pretty early rapids. I didn't think this actually ever happened, and it scared the shit out of me. I thought my friend was getting hurt and scared, and this idea to go rafting was a bad one, and it was my fault for dragging her out here. Then when Leif pulled her back into the boat, it didn't take her long to laugh about it, and she didn't cry or curse or anything. It turned out that the guide pretty much saw it coming and even probably thought it would be fun for her (since right before we hit the rapid, he said "you're going to want to hang on--especially you, Sarah."). The boat was, after all, completely sideways. This was like one of the other scary moments when we did a "double suck" where the boat get sucked under some water, then spit out, then sucked back under. We had to "get down" in the boat and put our paddles in the air while water rushed in and over. Sarah lost her paddle and then some other boat immediately picked it up and threw it to our guide (I'd briefly thought she was going to have to go the rest of the way with no paddle). I'd thought the "double suck" was just us fucking something up, but when I asked our guide Cole "Has anything we've done so far been a fuck up," he smiled and said no. In fact, he'd hit paddles with us to celebrate that fact that we'd just "surfed" and "done a pretty wicked double suck." Reid and Leif told me later (they were in the back of the boat closer to the guide) that Cole did that double suck shit on purpose. Because he thought it would be more fun for all of us (and him). This was an alternate reality compared to the one I'd thought was going on (i.e., we have less control than we think we have and something could go very wrong at any second and we didn't sign a waiver for nothing).

I tried, for the latter half of the course, to appreciate the "wee" factor. It was, of course, more enjoyable and more effective to lean right into each rapid as it came and just paddle through, enjoying the feeling that you're on a wild bull. Plus, the scary rapids are the fun ones--if none of them had the capacity to make me at least a little nervous, the whole excursion would be less fun. "Think less, feel and enjoy more" seems like an appropriate lesson for me right now (or at least one that keeps rearing a persistent head).

Chattanooga was a lot of fun, and besides enjoying the company, urban and rural landscapes, and local food and drink (microbrews, breakfast, tapas, sushi, pizza), I had the usual feeling of wanting to pick up and move out of LA. I still feel a continual conflict between the feeling that I'm not done here and the feeling that I want to dive into something completely different (aside from all the pragmatic particulars that I tend to prioritize over vague dreams). And I'm still wondering how I can get fiction writing back into my life--perhaps there's a writer's circle in the area. That would do for now.

Now for news in fitness:

Friday we went in the big scary indoor pool. 50m lap lanes instead of 25, which means you only get half as many opportunities to push off the wall and glide, which means you are relying on your little sputtery kicking and arm pulls to do the job. It was hard, scary, tiring, and I got a lot of water in my nose and throat, but I finished the 350 m time trial in 10 minutes and 13 seconds. The fact that I finished without stopping is the real triumph, but 10 minutes sounded a lot shorter when Mandy said it than I was expecting, and she was encouraging and said it was "awesome" in her cool accent. I breaststroked a lot of the way, and I was dead last partly because we went in five second intervals (in a big train) and partly because I am a slow swimmer, but I made it.

Then we did a grueling exercise of kickboarding. Then we were doing some kind of interval training where we swim to the middle of the pool and stand up, then sprint back or only take three breaths or something. First of all, I am the only one who wears earplugs, and I can't hear a lot of what Mandy tells us to do. Second of all, I was the only one at one end of the pool for most of the exercise. I'd look up and the whole class was at the other end. I wanted to quit--everything past 350 m feels like driving on empty. Instead, I did my own version of whatever she said to do and focused on not stopping for too long. At the end of class, when the rest of the class sprinted from the middle of the pool to the front, I swam one more 50 m lap from the front to the back and figured out that I can kick on my side with one arm extended and take a really long breath when I get tired during freestyle. Then I'll have just enough gas to flip over and do three or four decent arm strokes.

I swam for almost a whole hour with only a few breaks, so I felt really tired and awesome at the end. I'm still worried about what the actual race will feel like and how tired it's going to make me, but I'm starting to believe that I'll make it okay and not be in too much pain. And I know for a fact now that I can swim 350 m, even in a pool with 50 m lap lanes.

Today I did my two-mile neighborhood run, this time with music (good advice from Jeanne). Last week I created a playlist on my Zen for running (it was surprisingly hard to find songs with an appropriate tempo). Music definitely helped me to think less and feel more. It was still really hard because I finished at 9:30 and got uncomfortably overheated. I know my body can make it because I did it, but it was still extremely hard to finish without walking. When I came in, Leif looked worried and asked me if I was sure I was okay while I paced and panted around the living room trying to "cool down."

Here's today's playlist. I finished somewhere in the middle of Kanye.

• "Burning"--The Whitest Boy Alive
• "Declare Independence" --Bjork
• "The Distance"--Cake (hehe, I felt cheesy running to this, but the tempo is perfect.)
• "Change Clothes"--Danger Mouse's remix of Jay Z and "Piggies" by The Beatles
• "Disposable Parts"--Enon
• "Ok"--Talvin Singh
• "Touch the Sky"--Kanye West