LASIK vs. PRK for grapplers

I spent the past few weeks agonizing over whether the laser vision correction I was going to get would be Lasik or PRK. I was 100% sure that I would get Lasik until I met with the doctor, who said that PRK was generally recommended for people in combat sports because of the very small chance that the corneal flap would come loose during training or competition. Perhaps due to an accidental elbow to the face, a shoulder to the eye when your opponent is half guard…

 

Ok, I thought PRK. That’s fine. I can deal with that. Then I read a little more about it and talked with a few people and I became completely undecided. There’s pros and cons to both surgeries; Lasik has the whole corneal flap coming loose thing, but the recovery time is very short and you can see well the very next day. PRK has the extended recovery time – basically a week where your vision goes to crap as the cornea heals, and from what I’ve heard, it can take months for your vision to really clear up – but there’s no risk, however small, of anything coming loose from a knock to the face. 

 

Ultimately, I decided to go with the Lasik. I’ve heard that there are plenty of people in combat sports (including BJJ and boxing) who have had Lasik and had no problem. 

I am interested in your experiences, though…have you had Lasik or PRK? Has either affected your training? 

I go under the laser next week – I can’t wait to get it done with. I am thoroughly sick of glasses at this point.

I’ve been tagged

Nerfydunk tagged me on her blog a few days ago, so, since I’m It, I guess I have to answer a few nosy questions. 

 

What is your current obsession? Swimming and Brazilian Jiu Jitsu.

 

What is your weirdest obsession?  I think BJJ counts as weirder than swimming. Swimming has it’s moments of weird, don’t get me wrong (especially the open water variety), but BJJ is truly strange. I voluntarily…no, I happily roll around on sweaty wrestling mats with sweaty, smelly dudes and sweaty not so smelly ladies who are trying to rip my arm off while I try to return the favor. 

 

What is the weirdest sub-obsession of the weird obsession you just described? 

Bruises. Punchdunk (aka, Sister) and I will return from our various training sessions and compare bruises. The really quality ones end up turning fascinating shades of green or purple. 

 

Coffee or tea? Both. Must have coffee in the morning, though. Must. Have. Coffee.

 

What was the last really exiting thing you bought and the next exciting thing you plan to buy?  A 2XU wetsuit (see earlier post). My next exciting thing to buy will be two ovens and a cooktop for our new kitchen! Woo! 

 

What are you listening to right now? Anything from Rob Zombie to Flyleaf to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. 

 

What is your favorite ice cream flavor?   Ice cream? Yes please!

 

What do you think of the person(s) who tagged you? Nerfydunk is creative, fun, intelligent, beautiful, and a certified aquabadass.

 

Which language do you want to learn? Russian, so I can eavesdrop on the translators gossiping in the office kitchen.

 

What is your favorite color? Depends on the application and the mood…I can’t just pick one!

 

What is your favorite piece of clothing in your own wardrobe? I have a gorgeous midnight blue cocktail dress that’s cut down to there. I wish I had a place to wear it. 

 

What is your worst habit? Procrastina…eh, I’ll finish it later.

 

If you had $1,000 now, what would you spend it on? Getting the 48 inch cooktop instead of the 36 inch, and I’d use the rest to upgrade the fridge.

 

Describe your personal style? Either simple with killer shoes, if I’m not having to walk half a mile from the parking garage to the office, or swimsuit, or BJJ gi.

 

What is your favorite fruit? Strawberries.

 

What inspires you? People who work their ass off and accomplish big things.

 

Do you collect something? Uh…Bruises?

 

What are you most proud of? The fact that I can make a guy tap. And that I can swim across the Chesapeake Bay. 

 

Cats or dogs? Both. I’m a sucker for a furry face.

 

What’s your biggest fashion mistake? Please don’t make me answer that…

 

Next victims…well, other than the aforementioned aquabadass, I don’t really know any bloggers that well personally. So I’ll throw a few out here, and see what sticks.

 

First, I tag Dalla’s newest asskicker, Elyse of Gringa BJJ fame.

I also tag BJJGrrl, who manages to chronicle her BJJ exploits minutely…not a procrastinator, like some of us. 

And finally, I tag Georgette, because you know a redhead’s got something interesting to say!

Ladies, feel free to add, delete, or change the questions however you like!

 

Rolling blind

I’m not allowed to wear my contacts for the next several weeks due to impending Lasik, which means either wear glasses or go blind. While inconvenient, it’s not a huge deal except for in several instances. Swimming and BJJ. While swimming, I can’t see the clock. While training BJJ, I can’t see the techniques we’re being taught. 

 

On Monday, my first day of BJJ without contacts, I brought my glasses with me to the side of the mat. I wore them to watch the technique, then took them off to drill. That worked fine for the first few times, but as the room started to heat up (this was Woodbridge, with no AC or ventilation) my glasses, which were on the floor – i.e., cooler- would fog up when I put them on. Joy.

 

The good news is that team Dalla has a new purple belt! Elyse joined us from BJJ United and is ready to start kicking ass in the DC area. Sweet! We actually had four girls training last night; a white belt, two blues, and a purple. I think that’s a record for me, at least in a non-all women open mat, regular class type situation. 

Race Report: Great Chesapeake Bay Swim 2009

The Chesapeake Bay Swim is a unique race. How many people can say they swam between the spans of a huge bridge, across a major shipping channel, and to the other side of the Chesapeake Bay? That’s just one reason it’s one of my favorite races (except for a certain point in the race when I HATE it. But more on that later). The huge, looming, elephant in the room question for me before the event was whether or not to wear a wetsuit. The water temperature was at that borderline stage where I could go with a wetsuit and get the advantage of increased buoyancy and reduced drag, but risk overheating. Or I could go without and not have to worry about overheating but then face a somewhat tougher, slower swim. I haunted the Weather Underground marine report page and watched the temperature fluctuate for a whole week before making my decision when I saw it hit 74. There was no way I would make it across the bay without a catastrophic meltdown if I wore a wetsuit. 

 

So, skins it was. We got to the race a bit early because Nerfy and Sister were doing the 1 mile, which started earlier than the 4.4. After the trip back over the bridge to the start, I set up camp under a tree, got in line for packet pickup and numbering, then settled in to wait. Until a non-swimming family decided to fire up a grill five feet away and smoked me out. I pulled up stakes and found a a couple fellow CUBU swimmers to chill with, and was able to relax a bit before the final scramble to get in a warmup, hit the bathroom, put on my fifth layer of sunscreen, pack all my stuff, and take my bag to the bag drop before the start. During the wait, I had a few interesting moments when two guys in short succession approached me and asked if I was Grappledunk. Why yes, I am! It was nice to meet you Ruffwater and Rich! I hope to see you at some more races in the near future. 

 

My favorite part of this race has always been the start – the sight of hundreds of people lined up along the water’s edge, all in bright red or yellow caps, the sounds of cars and trucks crossing over the bridge and honking their support, the excitement of the countdown, the air horn start, and the mass of bodies surging into the water to start their adventure. Since I was in the second wave, I was able to enjoy the first wave’s start before crossing over the timing mats (someone was writing down the numbers of non wetsuit swimmers – sweet!) and beginning the ritual goggle fidgets. Ah, yes, the goggle fidgets. Some of you may have the same problem. I have to endlessly fidget and fuss with my goggles until the very last minute because they never sit right or feel right, or I know they’ll fall off. Then we start, they’re fine, and I forget all about it. Or maybe that’s just me.

 

 

Not my picture. But you get the picture.

 

Mile 1: (Soundtrack in my head: “I Don’t Wanna Be in Love” – Good Charlotte)

The start was not quite the violent scrum it has been in the past, but the scrum part lasted longer than usual, at least where I was swimming. We were crammed pretty close together for a while after clearing the north span and turning east. When the bodies finally spread out, I tried to lengthen my stroke out a bit. I made sure not to get sucked into the ‘sprint the first 1000 meters’ mentality because I knew my training wasn’t what it should have been and I’d be sorry later if I wrecked my arms now. The current felt light, and I tried to maintain a position at the center of the bridges until the bridges began to curve. Then I moved a bit north and cut as much of the curve as I could without getting too close to the span. Believe it or not, I think I actually caught some first wave swimmers within the first mile. They started fifteen minutes ahead of us, so I think they were in for a long day.

 

Mile 2: (Soundtrack in my head: “Dragula” – Rob Zombie) 

When I hit the first mile marker, I tried to pick up my stroke count a bit and ramp up the effort. For about half a mile, I and a non-wetsuit guy went stroke for stroke about ten feet apart. We were eyeballing each other when we breathed the same direction. He’d pick up the pace and pull ahead, and I’d speed up and catch him. Then I’d pull ahead a bit, and he’d speed up to catch me. That worked well until the swells really started to pound us, and it was hard to keep track of where people were. I’m not sure if he eventually dropped me or vice versa, but it was nice to have the company for a while. Toward the middle of mile two, I could swear the ebb tide started pulling me toward the southern span. That surprised me because the ebb tide wasn’t supposed to kick in until later in the race – but then, maybe I was swimming lopsided. Whatever the reason, I remember I looked up at one point and realized I was much closer to the southern span than I expected. Some diagonal swimming rectified that, and I was much more mindful of the current for the rest of the race.

 

Mile 3: (Soundtrack in my head: “The Beautiful People” – Marilyn Manson)

During mile three, there were some interesting moments of large rollers, heavy chop, or both, and a few moments of relative calm. During those moments of relative calm, my stroke felt good, my arms were holding up, and my back, which tends to hurt from all the sighting during open water, didn’t. It was an effort to keep my stroke count up through the rough water, however. There was one notable instance of inadvertent water consumption that gave me a few moments of concern – salt water never goes down well, especially in the midst of athletic endeavor. Thankfully, the water didn’t re-enter the bay. Unfortunately, because I am never able to find the feeding boats, that was all the water I had the whole race.

 

Mile 4: (Soundtrack in my head: “Never Gonna Stop” – Rob Zombie)

At this point I thought I was never gonna stop because the mile markers seems farther and farther apart. I still tried to keep my stroke rate up, but the waves were taking their toll. Finally, about halfway through mile four, I hit the wall. This was a hardcore, sudden, physical reaction that hit me like a ton of bricks. My arms froze nearly in place, and I could feel my blood sugar plummet. I felt weak and slightly dizzy, and it was a chore just to lift my arms out of the water and put them back down again. The combination of no feeding during the race and insufficient training beforehand all came to bear here. This is the part where I wonder why I’m doing this to myself. What possible reason could I have for torturing myself like this? I remember clearly thinking, “I’m not doing this again. This sucks. This absolutely sucks.” In spite of that, there was no way I was going to stop. The sight that really kept me going was seeing the bridges descend closer to water level. I wasn’t there yet, but I was getting there.

 

Mile 4.4: (Soundtrack in my head: “I’m So Sick” – Flyleaf)

Although the saltwater I swallowed hadn’t returned to the bay, it was making it’s presence known. The bright orange buoy that marked the end of mile 4 was thankfully followed in relatively close succession by the multicolored beach ball buoys that marked the right turn to exit the bridge spans to the south. Once I made the turn, the water warmed up remarkably (not the best thing for me) and the swells and chop subsided (a good thing for sure). With the end literally in sight and the conditions easing a bit, I made an effort to pull my stroke together and not look like a drowner as I approached the finish. I dragged my carcass across the timing mats in 2:04. Yikes! Not so quick. 

 

Yet, looking at the times of the other competitors, and figuring that with a wetsuit I’d gain a few minutes on my time, it wasn’t really all that bad. Not great, but not bad. I finished the race, didn’t need to visit the medical tent, and I *gasp* placed second in my age group. Really? After posting a two-hour-plus time? Yep, I guess so. Go figure.

 

Post Race: (Soundtrack in my head: “Who Let the Dogs Out” – I don’t know who sings it. But the DJ played it over. And over. And over. Holy crap. Play some Audioslave or something. Please??)

Sister and Nerfy were waiting for me by the cattle chute that the organizers herd the swimmers through at the finish. They had considered bringing me a beer at the finish but decided against it. Drat. The orange slices, however, were heavenly after 4.4 miles and a large mouthful of bay water. The GCBS team pulls off the best post race spread of all the open water races I’ve been to. The family camped out under a tree until the awards were handed out. I had a nice chat for a few minutes with a former swim coach from my age group days, then it was off to Middleton’s in Annapolis to celebrate my dad’s birthday. 

 

The organizers posted non-wetsuit results this morning, which I think is the first time they’ve done that. I feel a bit better about my race after seeing where I finished among the skins crowd and after a night to sleep on it. The thing about this race is that you tend to forget the pain, but the sense of excitement, fun, and accomplishment remains. And in spite of what you might have heard me say during mile four, lottery gods willing, I’m going to do it again next year.

Bridge Porn -or- GCBS, here we come!

Only a few short days until the Great Chesapeake Bay Swim, the 4.4 mile festival of water, waves, currents, and neoprene. My training hasn’t been ideal, but honestly, I do have a life. So I’ll make do with what I’ve done, and will enjoy the ride.

The GCBS view from above. The race start is offscreen, top right. At the bottom of the photo starts the shipping channel, where waves and current are at their worst.

The water temp is looking a wee bit warm – low 70s – so I’m undecided about the wetsuit. I know that the majority of the swimmers will be wearing one, but I tend to run warm and can easily overheat like that ’90 Ford Taurus in billowing smoke in the slow lane on 95 southbound on a Friday afternoon. You know the one. So the jury is still out, but I’m leaning toward skins rather than suits.

Race start is on the sandy beach in the left foreground. Yes, we do have to swim the curve. Stay between the bridges or you're out!

 

 

A swimmer's eye view looking back toward the start. No turning around now!

 

 

The waves were posted today – I’m in wave 2. Nerfy and Sister are waves 1 and 2 for the one mile. The results apparently will be posted live on the Lin-Mark web site, so keep an eye out for me!

 

Spectators waiting for the swimmers...

The promised land!

That’s What She Said at Vanguard Gym

That’s What She Said, a NoVa sports show, stopped by Vanguard Gym a few weeks ago to film a segment on MMA/grappling. 

Pretty cool stuff!

Race Report: Jim McDonnell Lake Swims

I didn’t do any grappling this past week, since the Jim McDonnell lake swims were this Sunday. After the Nanticoke race, in which I was still really sore on Sunday from a hard class the Wednesday before, I decided to give BJJ a rest for a full week before this one. I had some good swim workouts, and I was optimistic that I’d beat my times from 2007 in both the one mile and two mile.

No dice. In fact, I was considerably slower. So much slower that I actually wondered if the course was measured differently this year. I suppose it’s possible. but it’s also completely possible that I tanked spectacularly.

The water was just about perfect, about 71 degrees. I definitely didn’t need a wetsuit for this one. I ended up warming up late and getting to the start line late for the one miler. In fact, everyone had piled up at the start so that I had to jump over several ropes to get past the scrum and into the line for my correct wave. Then, as soon as I stepped in the water, my timing chip floated free from my ankle. Ack! I was furiously treading water and trying to knot it into place (I had no idea where the velcro part was) and praying they wouldn’t start us before I had it in place. I didn’t kick with my right leg pretty much that whole race.

 

Site of the McDonnell Lake Swims

 

 

The two miler was an exercise in pain. I had stiffened up pretty well after the one miler, and I couldn’t seem to get into any kind of a rhythm for about the first half. The second half, I found a rhythm, but it was a slow one. I also found one heel jammed into my right eye at the first buoy first lap – my eyeball just about popped from the socket, but at least the goggles would have caught it if it did! That one was accidental, so no hard feelings. But I also found, second buoy, second lap, one elbow, hard, to my solar plexus. That one pissed me off. Seriously, think of stroke mechanics. You can’t elbow someone in the solar plexus like that unless it’s deliberate.

All that aside, the best part of the race was the fact that Sister and Nerfy did the one miler as well. Sister placed second in her age group (hardware!!), and Nerfy, in her very first ever open water race not only finished it, but flew past the people in her wave and several of the waves that left before her.

 

 

Sister, Grappledunk (sporting the drowned rat look), and Nerfy post race(s). Note those still finishing in the background!

 

Next stop, Bay Swim! I’ll need try to figure out what happened with this one and get back in gear, but no matter how fast or slow I go in the Bay Swim, it should be a blast.

BJJ blue belt defeats Leo Dalla!

You heard me right!  I, a lowly blue belt, whooped up old school style on the famous black belt Leo Dalla. After a tough class with a lot of hard rolling (that is, I rolled hard. Dalla rested up.) Dalla and I threw down for the right to be named champion. 

 

So what if it wasn’t in BJJ? I still whooped him.

 

Check it out:

 

 

Race Report: Nanticoke River Swim – 3 miler

The Nanticoke River Swim and Triathlon was held Sunday in a little place in southern Maryland called Bivalve. It was almost worth the trip to say I was in a place called Bivalve! I traveled down Saturday afternoon for packet pickup and to take a peek at the river where the three mile swim would be held. The water looked a bit choppy and rather murky, and the race organizers said there was a slight salinity due to it’s proximity to the ocean. Current, tide, and chop would all be a factor in this race.

 

The course was a triangle loop done twice – that was a last minute change. It was supposed to be one three mile circuit, but apparently last year (the first for this event) the buoys were too hard to see and everyone went off course. I applaud this change because, shorter course though it was, I still managed to have trouble finding the buoys. More on that later, though.

 

The morning of the race, I got there early, or so I thought. It turns out that triathletes are early birds. The walk from the parking lot to the check in area was a bit hairy, with bikes weaving and darting everywhere. I went to the body marking area, and the very nice but overly enthusiastic volunteer marked not only both my shoulders, but both my quads with my race number, and then put my age on my left calf. I can understand the logic of that for the triathletes, but I was swimming. In a wetsuit. Nobody was going to see my legs.

 

Sufficiently decorated, I settled in with my bottle of water and a banana to watch the kids triathlon, run to the port-a-pottie at fifteen minute intervals (partly nerves, partly worry that I’d put on my wetsuit and suddenly have to go), and worry about which buoys we were supposed to swim between at the start. 

 

After the kids tri finished, we were able to get in the water to warm up a bit before the pre-race meeting. Details taken care of, we were herded over the timing mats and into the water for a partial water start. I say partial, because the water wasn’t very deep at that point, and I was able to get a good push off the bottom. Full in water starts are a bit more stressful, since you start swimming from zero- no momentum, arms and legs flailing all around you. I was well positioned and didn’t suffer too badly during the Cuisinart start; a couple of cracks to the head and a few tangled arms, but by the time I got to the first buoy to turn right and start our first loop, we were already spreading out a bit. 

 

 

 

The start of the Nanticoke River Swim 3-miler

 

 

 

 

As I mentioned earlier, the course was a triangle; the first leg was parallel to the shore line, the second out into the middle of the river, and the third headed back toward shore.  By the first 500 meters, I knew I was going to be in for a long swim. For the two weeks before the race, due to one reason or another, I hadn’t been able to train. I’d gotten in a couple of BJJ classes, but because I swim in the morning, and work had me coming in early those two weeks of employment hell, I was really behind in my yardage. I trained BJJ on Thursday and swam a sprint-focused masters workout on Saturday, so by Sunday, I was feeling the pain. 

 

I focused on working myself into a solid pace on the first leg and tried to ignore the aching in my arms. By the second leg, my arms had gone numb, but I had acquired a hanger-on. I don’t know if it was a guy or a girl, due to the wetsuit factor, but for some reason, they were unable to swim a straight line. I had a good, solid bead on the third buoy, and every time I sighted, it was exactly where I thought it would be. However, every time I sighted, this person would be either pointed to the right of the buoy (away from me) or to the left of the buoy (on top of me and pissing me off). I was forced to throw a few elbows to get them to pay attention, but it didn’t do much good. By the time the third buoy came around, I was seriously irritated. Thankfully, I managed to pull off a sweet buoy turn and dropped him/her by a full bodylength.  

 

The second loop came around quicker than I thought, which was good. The wind and waves were picking up, however, which was not. I tried to up my pace a bit to try to catch up to a group of swimmers I could see ahead of me. I was holding pretty steady with them and may have been gaining a little ground when I started having sighting issues. On the second leg, second loop, I would sight for the buoy, but it was nowhere to be seen. Since it was easy to spot on the first loop, this freaked me out a bit. Had I suddenly gone off course? Was I heading for the wrong buoy? What the hell? Where was I?? My speed fell off a bit because I was so focused on finding the little orange blip on the horizon and Not. Losing. It. Dammit. 

 

By the third leg, the weather had definitely picked up. The rain hadn’t started yet, but the wind was here. The buoys were so far apart that between the higher waves were obscuring it. That, and the helpful kayaker would drift into my line of sight and block it out. It took me several full stops (and I never pull a full stop in a race!) to figure out what was going on. The last leg was depressingly slow and rather stressful. By the time I got to the last buoy and up to the jetty for the last sprint in to shore, I had a hard time swimming straight with a jetty on one side and a line of buoys on the other. I staggered up the beach and across the timing mat in 1 hour 13 minutes and 26 seconds. I finished third in my age group, fifth place woman, and twelfth place overall, men and women. 

 

Honestly, not too bad, all things considered. I’m pleased that I felt like I wasn’t terribly drained at the end, but I wish I could have stayed on course a bit better. However, this won’t be a problem for the Bay Swim. If I lose sight of the bridge spans, I have bigger problems to worry about! All in all, I think it was an excellent event, especially for one only in its second year. I can’t speak for too well the triathlon part of it, but the swim seemed well organized, well supported (they had food/water boats at each buoy and support kayaks everywhere you looked), good post race food and drink, good DJ, and best of all, the event is a non-profit event to raise money for charity. Nice. I definitely recommend this race for anyone looking to tune up for the Bay Swim or just get a longer open water race under their belt.

 

The wedding with the perverted bear

Last weekend was spent in Harrisonburg, Virginia at my cousin’s wedding, which accounts for part of the lack of swimming and BJJ that I mentioned in my last post. The wedding was held at an old country church with a beautiful view of a lake and meadow out one side, and a farm on the other. Nerfy, Sister, and I had fun spending time with the family, wrangling wedding guests, and being badly behaved. As Nerfy rightly noted in her comment , I have been remiss in my reporting on the weekends activities. There are two important events to record.

First, we foiled the bride and groom’s attempts to circumvent our plans to detail their car before leaving the reception. One minute, we were sitting at our table, busily comatose with too much food and wedding cake. The next minute, when we heard the rumor that the bride and groom were about to leave, we sprang into action and made sure that any and everybody who saw them drive past that evening would be in no doubt of what they had been up to that day. 

 

Grappledunk and Sister with art in progress. Due to wind, skirts heading north of the equator.

 

Whipped cream is not good for decorating cars

 

Troublemaker. I can respect that!

One of the most defining moments of the trip, however, came courtesy of the local Shoney’s. There was a small area off to the side of the lobby which had the usual candy and toy machines, video games, etc. Somebody at the Shoney’s had the brilliant idea of providing children with lollipops. That’s fine; I completely understand why you might want to offer candy at a place that markets to families and children. However, I don’t understand the manner in which they did it. Are we wrong in thinking there’s something not quite kosher here?

 

Nerfy filled with unholy glee as she grasps the bear's lollipop