Friday 28 February 2020

#ThankYouFriday

My thanks this week go out to my Masters Team, a wonderful group of caring, funny, and supportive individuals. To a man (and woman), they have been so interested in and excited about my English Channel plans. Even though it will take me away from the team for 6 months, they could not be more enthusiastic and supportive.

Aside from anything EC related, every time I coach this group I feel better about the world. It can be a depressing place sometimes, but these swimmers embody everything you’d like to see spread in the world – readiness to learn, optimism, a sense of humor (especially about themselves), a lack of ego and an internal locus of control. There is nothing these people can’t do, and I am privileged to help them do it.

And wider thanks are due here as well – to ALL of the adults I’ve coached over the years (FOG City, OneStepBeyond, RAM, and all of my private clients) – you share the same qualities mentioned above, and you have made my life so much richer for the last 20 years. Thank you.

Swim Stuff

Wednesday – I’m not sure what happened, but utter collapse was the result. I knew I was tired from Monday and Tuesday, and planned in some time to read/nap, but I got my work done 1 minute before it was time to leave to go run errands and swim (does anyone else hate the new parking garage for the new Cary Library?). I didn’t feel great from the get-go, but was having a pretty good practice, easily keeping up with my lane for

100 (1:35) 200 (2:55) 300 (4:25) 400 (5:50?) 500 (7:05) 400, 300, 200, 100 same intervals.

But when we finished that set and went on to 10×200, everything stopped working – my headache got worse and I felt really weak. I tried to recover for a while, but eventually just climbed out. I came home and (after very reluctantly getting in my faceblind training while getting a bite to eat) went to bed. I couldn’t really sleep, I just lay there in pain – everything hurt. I did doze off for a while, and when I woke up I felt chills and hot and my throat hurt. I was convinced it was the ebola (I’m always convinced it’s the ebola in the middle of the night). But when my alarm went off at 5:30 I felt totally fine. So weird. I got in over 5000 even with getting out early. Hopefully Thursday will go better.

Thursday – Was so much better than Wednesday that it was almost unbelievable. Despite working from the crack of dawn until past my bedtime, I felt OK and had a good workout. It didn’t hurt that it was a “sprint” w/o, which to me usually just means a great deal more rest. Trust me, I would sprint if I could. Of course, if I could then the Channel might not make nearly as much sense. At any rate, I still got in almost 5000, even with getting out early to pick up the kids for practice.

My shoulder and neck continue to bother me just a bit. E has been tennis balling the shoulder/neck (he just calls it balling) and yoga Thursday morning seemed to help all the body parts a great deal.