“One who conquers the sea today is ready to conquer the ocean tomorrow.”
Matshona Dhliwayo
This One is for Me
I’m gonna throw this one up here and move on – no open water swims this week. My life was the nitty gritty of getting things done and basic training, followed by a nice break for Thanksgiving.
On Saturday I took kids to and from practice. Then to Defy Apex (fun was had by them doing and by me watching). Then deck chat. Then Jimmy John’s (lordy, I love JJ right now). Otherwise studied Spanish and read.
I finished “Anxious People,” and I just love Fredrik Backman. His allegorical pleas for tolerance, not for any particular group but for humans – annoying, difficult, unbearable, wonderful, amazing humans – make me want to be a better person.
I don’t think we can ever have too many reminders that we have no idea what is going on in other people’s lives. And with the exception of psychopaths (and maybe even psychopaths, Zara) we are all mostly just trying to do our best.
“Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by incompetence.”
Robert Heinlein, sort of
Thanks!
Thanks this week to all of the family and friends who are being understanding about my priorities this year. As a long-time triathlete, I’ve been part of many discussions about how those around us can’t really understand why we want to spend our time doing these crazy things. My circle has been very understanding (or at least turn around before they roll their eyes).
Open Water
Did not work out. I had thought I might be able to get in a 6-hour qualifier on Monday (11/29), so I skipped out on doing a swim over the weekend, but the weather is cold, cold, cold. It’s looking good for Saturday (12/4) – M and I have it in pencil.
England Business (Nov 21-26)
11/21 – On Sunday, I went over to-do lists with E and the kids. It felt kind of futile, but at least gave me the chance to talk through things out loud, and them the chance to start thinking about what they might need to bring and do before we go.
11/22 – Got the bank info for A’s school and sent the wire transfer – man does it take forever (and having 8 browser windows open) to get all of the info in there.
11/23 – Heard back from the public school that wanted to accept the boys – the BCP council won’t let them do it because they don’t have an “established” Exchange Programme. I could think of some choice words for the BCP council, but instead I’ll focus on the fact that I’m about to go live somewhere that spells things so charmingly 🙂
I also put in more inquiries on rental properties in Bournemouth.
11/24 – Woke up to the invitation letter to A’s school. Great, except that we have to pay for the whole term within 1 week from today. My planning PTSD leaps to the forefront. [Note – and this was two days before the news about Omicron came out. What will I know tomorrow and tomorrow and tomorrow?] But in the end, there’s not much help for it – if you want to do things, you need to plan them and put down deposits, etc. … and accept that fate might slap you in the face again.
11/25 – J’s meeting with the headmaster went well – we really enjoyed talking to him. J will have to take a 2-hour assessment test tomorrow, but, dare I say it, the school situation is looking good (if pricey, but what can you do?).
He also suggested a contact to help us with finding a rental – good, because the first rental agent who emailed me back said how difficult he felt it would be to find something. I’m curious if that is a winning strategy for a rental agent?
11/26 – Rested
The Week at the Pool
Summary – Survival
Pool Yardage ~ 30,200
I don’t have much to say about it. I think what I wrote on Sunday sums it up pretty well:
“Boy was my right shoulder a mess this morning. Further leading me to believe that too little movement can lead it to tighten up just as much as too much movement. I do have the opportunity to loosen today, but it’s at noon and I coach at 3:45, so it would really break up my day. And I’m tired – I want to REST. We are tapering this coming week, so I think I’ll go with rest and take it easy on the shoulders on Monday. And keep stretching, stretching, stretching (and by that I mean pummeling myself with a tennis ball).”
The Gory Details
Monday 11/22 – Theme: The kids are starting taper hallelujah (~6300)
150 activate
Meet w-up:
- 500 fr
- 400 IM (kick/drill)
- 3×100 descend (1:16, 1:15, 1:09) on 1:30
- 100 ez
- 4×50 umm… drill/build? :50
- 100 ez
- 10×50 kick/build :55
- 25 ez
- 10×100 back on 2:00 (descended from 1:23 to 1:19 on the first five, then held 1:17/1:18s)
- 225 ez
- 3×200 IM on 3:00 (it was 5, but I spent two reviewing my videos with Besch)
- 200 ez
- 10×100 on 1:15 (we made 2 and then really, really didn’t make the rest)
- 200 ez
- 10×50 kick on 1:00 (alternated fly (:48) and free (:51)
- 300 CD
My shoulders felt (and feel) good. Hope it lasts.
Who knows if I could have made the 1:15s if I had led the lane – I decided not to push it.
Tuesday 11/23 – Theme: Crushed (~7100)
- 900 with Seniors. Nice to know I can keep up with them if they’re going slow 🙂
- 1600 meet w-up (the 50’s are drill/build)
- 10xDirty 30’s (you better believe I’m counting these as 50’s. I personally think they should count as 100’s)
- 25 ez
- 9×100 back on 2:00 (1:20, 1:19, 1:18, 1:17, 1:18’s… 1:17)
- 225 ez
- 5×200 descend on 2:45 (2:41, 2:40, 2:39, 2:37, 2:35) 🙂
- 200 ez
- 9×100 on 1:15 – led the lane this time. Didn’t make it (see below)
- 200 ez
- 20×25 12.5 u/w dolphin, 12.5 sprint (or our best approximation of it after all that) on :25 – alternated free/back
- 300 CD
It irks not to make a set I know I could make. There’s no denying that its a hard set to do late in a practice like that, but grrrrr. Today I came in at 1:15 for the first one – never a good sign, since it takes at least a second to get turned around. But then I proceeded to push off under the lanerope, catching my cap on it and having my head yanked backwards. I did not recover sufficiently to make #2. So I just put them on 1:20 for myself and held 1:16’s and 1:17’s. Not bad, but I know I can do better.
That practice after yesterday’s practice was really soul-crushing. (And shoulder-crushing – I’m already sore). I had planned to stay for at least a little mini-annihilation Tuesday, thinking I’d decide once I saw how much yardage we had done and how my shoulders felt. Instead, I legit considered getting out early 🙂
Wednesday 11/24 – Theme: Hell is combined practices… but I need to put on my big girl pants (~7000)
I spent some time whining to myself about the fact that it was crowded, wavy, hard to see, I had to keep looking forward to make sure I wasn’t crashing into people, they can hit me all they want but I have to try to be careful not to hit them (self-imposed), and that the sunlight was screwing with my already questionable depth perception on the turns… but then I reminded myself that any adversity is perfect training. I’m not training to go back and forth in a pool, and heaven only knows what will transpire to annoy (and more than annoy) me in the Channel. After that, I was able to, if not enjoy it, appreciate it.
I was bummed that I couldn’t do the DPS kick/fast feet kick set properly – I found that really helpful when we did it before. But all in all, could have been much worse.
- 500 w-up
- 12×100 IM on 1:40 – fist, open hand, 5 stroke cycles or less, fast. I couldn’t get under 6 stroke cycles (well, 5.5 on free)
- 100 ez
- 10×125 on 2:00 – DPS kick/Fast feet kick/put it together kick/50 swim with that kick. Just trying to stay out of the way however I had to. (Alternated free and back)
- 8×150 on 2:30 – Odds 25 sprint/25 DPS; Evens 100 free w/in 10 seconds of best time and a finishing 50 choice (I did backstroke). These actually went pretty well for me, and I went 1:10, 1:10, 1:09, 1:08 on the 100s. There are advantages of not having raced the 100 free since you were 12 🙂
- 6x(100 breathe 1-2-2-1 on 1:45; 75 fast on 1:45. Odds stroke (bk), evens free). I did not think I could make the breathing pattern, but I did on the last 3.
- 4x (100 pull (I swam); 100 swim) Odds stroke (bk) on 1:45, evens free on 1:30) Working on going to the legs on the back half of a 200
- 50’s on :55, :50, :45, :40, :35, :40, :45, :50, :55
- 300 CD
Thursday 11/25 (Thanksgiving!) – Theme: Fin Frenzy (~4100) – Got out early for J’s meeting
- 200 pre w-up
- 500 w-up
- 400 IM kick/drill
- 3×100 descend (1:10, 1:08, 1:08 w/fins)
- 100 ez
- 4×50 drill build (IM order)
- 100 ez
- 5×200 50 DPS/50 overkick/100 all out (2:40)
- 225 ez
- 7×100 back on 2:00 (held 1:13 avg w/fins)
- 225 ez
- 50 ez
- 100 ez
My shoulders and back were so sore that I didn’t sleep well last night, so I wore fins for today’s practice. That, plus the fact that I had to get out after an hour and 10 minutes for J’s meeting with the headmaster (hee hee – being even a little bit British is fun), have me feeling better, at least for the moment.
Glad the next practice isn’t until tomorrow afternoon. Worried about having to sit coaching a practice afterwards while my muscles freeze up. I am learning to bring warm things and keep moving – learning the hard way.
Friday 11/26 – Theme: The blissful end of combined practices (~5700)
We did a bunch of stuff – Coach John added it up for me as 4400.
Notable – we did swims of the blocks at the end, and I was shockingly slow (i.e., slower than the paces I can hold in the middle of sets from a push
200 free 2:21
100 free 1:08
100 back 1:17
My shoulders felt good enough that I didn’t wear fins for any of the practice. But when I headed to the pool I did have that feeling of bone-deep tiredness. Surprising, since I don’t feel like there’s been anything wrong with my sleep (other than a kid who likes to still set his alarm during vacation so that he can go back to sleep. Guess who generally doesn’t go back to sleep.) and I had spent the day pretty much sitting, reading, etc.
A 1300 cool-down with the gold group while I waited until it was time for me to coach Masters did seem to help a lot, and I feel OK today. But those times are definitely indicative of being pretty broken down and make me worry about overtraining. The kids are tapering hard core next week – we’ll see if that helps.
I had a 6 hour qualifier tentatively planned for Monday, with Mike to kayak, but the weather is not cooperating. Maybe another day…
