Another Nike Plus Challenge

You've gotta be kidding me! After just 2 short months of running with my Nike Plus pedometer, the sensor battery ran out. It's supposed to last a year. I'm pretty sure the receipt is gone, so I can't return it. Lame. Lame. Lame.

Now I've got to shell out another $30 bucks if I want to keep recording my runs. So, I've run 10 miles since the battery ran out last week, and I won't be able to add it to my Nike profile. I'm bummed.

But I'm enjoying my new goal. I love having a new training calendar to fill out. Today I got to enter 29 minutes of swimming, 750 meters.

Shut up! I know, I'm slow! I don't care if I swim like a turtle...on land. At least I'm out there.

Yeah, no way I'd beat a turtle in the water. I've seen them. I've swam with them. Hell, I even threw up next to one. That's right, 40 feet underwater, diving near the lava tubes off the west coast of Oahu. I realized that all the warnings about drinking the night before SCUBA diving were not unfounded.

My dive master saw the look in my eye. I did a little see-saw with my hand, universal SCUBA language for "I'm not doing OK", only because I haven't yet learned the SCUBA sign language for, "I'm going to spew". Then I pulled the regulator out of my mouth and threw up. The wierd thing is, being underwater, it wasn't really like throwing up at all. It was like throwing horizontal. The stuff basically just floated away.

These huge turtles were swimming close and I could see one of them just staring at me as he floated by. All I remember was staring into his eye as he passed and wondering, what could this turtle be thinking about me? I bet he doesn't see this everyday. I mean, he was so close, I could reach out and touch him if one hand wasn't on my stomach and the other wasn't on my regulator.

Believe it or not, I didn't even breathe in during the whole ordeal. I know you don't really think about it when you're kneeling to the porceline throne, but do you breathe in? I was able to do my business, put my regulator back on, do the extra blow out to clear the regulator of any salt water and then take a breath without any problem. I was like an old pro, like I've done it before.

It was early in the dive, and I thought our dive master, Mike, was going to take me back up - 'get this girl out of here'. But he didn't! He looked me in the eye, waited for my "OK" hand signal and proceeded to take us to the lava tubes, which were absolutely, AMAZING!!

All right, I've rambled from my Nike Pedometer to my triathlon training to my Lava Tube dive in Hawaii, but I'm feeling much better now, and not as bummed about the pedometer.

It's storming outside and I'm loving it. I don't mind the rain, but I love it even more when it's accompanied with thunder and lightning. I'm going to pour a second glass of white cranberry peach with a shot of ketel one and enjoy this rare rain in the desert. You know what, I'll make it a double. I'm not SCUBA diving tomorrow!