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Allright, this is gonna be another post that I just throw up there and move on – so much to do, and increasingly limited time to do it. Hopefully I’ll be able to find more time for posts once in England!

The Big News

Housing is official, flights are official, hotel is official, London Eye (what the kids want to do) is official!!! Heart rate drops below 80 for the first time in 1.5 months. (That’s a joke. I don’t have a fitbit loosing its mind with concern.)

We also wanted to do the Sherlock walking tour and the Harry Potter studio tour, but apparently London is not open on March 13 and 14. Luckily, we’ll be back! And just being somewhere different after 2 years will be exciting enough!

And About the Flat

“No person or persons or children under the control of the Lessee shall be permitted to loiter or play in or about the entrance hall, stairs or passages or use the said entrance hall, stairs or passages other than as a means of access to or egress from the Demised Premises.” “Children must be accompanied when using any of the lifts.” And it goes on – smoke alarms must be tested weekly and cleaned with a vacuum brush bi-monthly. Windows shall be required to be cleaned bi-monthly. And on and on for pages and pages.

Were rental contracts this strict when I was renting 15 years ago? Did I just not read the fine print at that age? Or does this place just have foliage where the sun don’t shine?

Can’t Save Everything for When I’m Ready to Blogiate (That’s bloviating on my blog)

I have a bunch of ideas that I keep saving to write about, but this take on what freedom might mean struck me this week, and I don’t know that I’ll have time to elaborate on it anytime soon:

“His new book, “Dignity in a Digital Age: Making Tech Work for All of Us,” is a manifesto for a progressive capitalism that values both ambition and settled communities, both growth and fairness. He stresses that “freedom” means more than “restricting state action.” Invoking the wise economist Amartya Sen, who wrote the book’s foreword, Khanna stresses that “each of us should have the freedom to pursue the life we envision” and live up to our potential.”

Being able to pursue the lives we envision and live up to our potential… these are truly amazing opportunities. When I think about how differently my life might have unfolded had I been born a woman at the turn of the last century… Well, let’s just say that I would have had to fight a lot harder to pursue the type of life that I am likely to envision.

Giggling on the Floor

So often, it is hard to convey the things that absolutely crack me up. And this one is really only for fans of the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy. But it had me on the floor in stitches (I mean, I was already down there to stretch, but it was the most I’ve laughed all week.)

That’s such a build up – this cannot possibly live up.

While I was stretching this morning, I was thinking about packing, and wondering if the furnished apartment that we’re letting would include towels. And if they would be sufficient for all of our swimming and beaching needs. And I thought to myself, “Well, at the very least I should bring a towel.” And then I thought, “Duh, we should all bring a towel – what kind of hoopy frood doesn’t have his towel with him?”

Something about taking travel advice from the Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy just seemed so… appropriate… and that was utterly hilarious to me. I lay on the floor giggling, and knowing I could never explain that satisfactorily.

If you read that and want your money back, I understand.

England Business (Feb 14-19)

2/14 – Another really productive day. I also did a bunch of stuff yesterday as well. I emailed the lettings agency, and heard back from them this morning – they sent the Tenancy Agreement and payment details, so we will finally be able to nail this thing down – super yay. Enrique totally stepped up on the Minor Travel Consent form, so I was able to get that notary-ready. I looked at hotels and tours, since I had not heard back from the travel agent. (Update – she emailed me just after I spent time on it). I purchased our travel insurance. I had a bunch of info in emails that I transferred to Notes so that I have it in organized form all in one place.

And then the usual working through emails, calendar and desktop and crossing stuff off my list.

I’d like to get the phone and electronic stuff worked out this week. I organized my thoughts about what we need.

2/15 – Boring but necessary stuff – emails, schedules, reading through health insurance stuff, reading through tenancy agreement, looking for hotels again since I still didn’t hear from travel agent.

E hit a wall with trying to get the kids’ vaccination records digitally. It’s so dumb – Walgreens says contact NC, NC says contact Walgreens. What madness is this? However, we do have their cards (in their new protective covers) and can take pics for the phones, so it’s not the end of the world. Just stupid.

Staff meeting and cooking scallops with ridiculously inaccurate directions took up the rest of my morning.

Took all of the library books back (except Tiny Habits which I am stubbornly insisting on going through again).

2/16 – Did thorough stretching, answered coaching questions. Conferred with E on phones, notarization, adapters (bought), tenancy agreement. Emailed lettings agent, called Enrique. Tried to call gym – phone not working. Spent a gazillion minutes on international phone plans. There are no good international phone plans.

Wrote down all of my contacts from the last year – will email to let them know phone will be unavailable. Realized that we should all take a towel (thanks Hitchhiker’s Guide). Contacted the gym again to see if someone will set up a dryland program for me. Phone stuff, hotel stuff, london eye stuff, blah blah blah. Going to get consent notarized and meet with John, Macon, and Amanda to hand coaching stuff off. Setting up lane rentals at Medfield for this summer, heard back from Susan on cupcakes, emailing Jon about turning over lap swim coordinator stuff.

Looked through statements to see if any regular services could be cancelled to save money. Sadly, not so much. Went through Master Timeline – crossed a few things off I’d already done, rearranged some others, got cash to exchange for crisp 100’s at the bank, etc. The list is looking good. There’s a lot of stuff still on it, but almost all time-sensitive that I can’t do yet.

2/17 – It starts early and goes quick. This morning I signed up for autopay and paperless billing for the water bill. Kind of wondering now why I hadn’t done that before 🙂

Cleared out emails – really glad to be done with the Minor Travel Consent form 🙂 And was happy to connect with Channel swimmer Brenda Swearingin on FB – this community is so full of people ready to be helpful! Sent an email to see if we can make J’s school re-enrollment (with class scheduling) easier.

Spent the bulk of the morning working on my coaching hand-off email. Should be able to finish it off tomorrow morning. That will be a big thing crossed off.

2/18 – Worked pretty much straight from 7 am to 3 pm. Got all of the coaching hand-off stuff done, woot. (I’m sure I’ll be answering questions and finishing details, but my work is basically done.)

E and I signed the tenancy agreement (woot!) and Martin and Co. countersigned it (double woot!). I’ll initiate the wire transfer and that will be a weight off.

I took A to REI and got him a good travel backpack. E will get one from Amazon, J and I will use ones we already have (mine is dubious, but couldn’t justify the expense). I also found a really cool tote that zips into itself and packs light – good for being able to leave our big packs when we’re just walking around. We also stopped at BJs and got PB and Nesquik to take to my parents to ship to me. (Thanks again to those who have volunteered! I’ll let you know when you’re up in the rotation 🙂 )

When I got home I had the kids take pics of all of the travel info on their own phones – covid vaccinations, passports (theirs and ours), travel consent forms, flight info. We made sure our info is in their phones and that their emergency stuff is set up (thanks J!). I also told them what an embassy is 🙂

After that it was the usual – going through a ton of emails, working on kids school stuff, etc, etc, ad infinitum. Now I have been on hold for an hour with Airvoice Wireless while I’ve been working on everything. I got a text that said I needed to order a new sim card. Instead of clicking on it, I called the company directly at the number on their website. But now it’s time to swim so I’ll have to try again. Finding out whether it’s a scam or not will have to wait for another day.

2/19 – So many details. Confirmed March 8 w/coaches and let Susan know we are go for cupcakes, cancelled airBNB now that we have signed the tenancy agreement, snoozed things to where they are now appropriate, etc. Now working on throwing up blog, so that my time can be spent calling the hotel looking for early check-in, finding power cords that will work in England, and, ugh, dealing with stupid Airvoice sim card. I’ve saved so much money only paying $10 for cell service for the last 10 years, but right now, it doesn’t seem worth it 🙂

Note to self: I didn’t really say – we sort of worked out phones – we will take extras and buy sim cards for them (or do dual sim cards if possible). Now that I type that, I’d rather have my phone stay as is and just use a different phone for my European stuff. I guess that will mean traveling with two phones sometimes… but if I have dual sim I’m not sure I’ll be able to access my usual phone stuff over wifi? Ugh. I keep going mentally round and round on this cause I don’t get how things work.

At least we can just turn off our google voice home phone and it will send us transcribed messages by email. (See, even the language is stupid – we won’t be turning it off, since we’ll still have service, we’ll be “turning it off.”

This is really E’s area, but, no offense hun, you’re being mysteriously recalcitrant about it 🙂

The Week at the Pool (Feb 14-19)

Summary

Pool Yardage ~ 36,000

OW Yardage ~ 0 (FTC State Championship)

Total Yardage ~ 36,000

I apparently had all the feelings this week 🙂 There’s a lot of commentary below – I’ll leave it with that.

The Gory Details

Monday 2/14 – Theme: Why are you looking at me? (~6100)

I was in the lane of people who didn’t make it to Champs. In the lane it feels like punishment – you didn’t make it AND you have to watch everybody else get a taper practice and get out early.

But, no longer being tethered to pool achievements, and wanting (mostly) plenty of distance, it was a good practice for me.

• 1600 normal w-up
• 200 ez
• 5×200 on 2:40 (2:34, 2:32, 2:32, 2:29, 2:27)
• 100 ez
• 10×100 with fins and paddles on 1:30 (1:04, skipped a 50 to go first, 1:03, 1:04’s, 1:03)

Need bigger feet, fins are simply the best

• 200 ez
• 3×300 on 4:30 as fast as you can; middle one stroke (3:46, foot cramp (backstroke), 3:45? Did 50 extra, but saw 3:44 on the clock as I went into my turn)
• 200 ez
• 400 IM fast (5:25 with free instead of fly) Fun racing R
• 500 ez

Tuesday 2/15 – Theme: I do not suck (~6700)

Didn’t get a chance to stretch today. Next time, prioritize stretching over dishes. We can have a clean kitchen in August 🙂

Also didn’t get there in time for a pre-warm-up. These fell by the wayside while E was in the hospital, and I’ve been so busy that I’m working right up until time to go. (Or so tired that sometimes I’m having trouble regaining consciousness when the alarm goes off.)

But neither of these seemed to affect me poorly today – I had a pretty satisfactory practice.

I also finally remembered to drink pickle juice before I left.

• 1600 w-up (missed 150 jibber-jabberin’) (and then another 50 tying my suit)
• 10×75 k/d/s on 1:15 (I did IM order)
• 8×125 rotating IMs on 1:45 (bit of a fail in lane leadership – missed a 50 or so)
• Ez swim while waiting for the taper kids to get out. I didn’t count, but it probably made up for the stuff I missed up until this point

• 4x:
• 400 IM on 6:15 (~5:45s)
• 200 Fr on 2:40 (2:31, 2:26, 2:27, 2:24)
• 100 ez on 2:00

• 5×100 swim/L arm/R arm/swim on 1:50
• 100ez

I was really happy with this. I remember doing a set of 400IM/500 free repeats on 6:40 during x-mas training. Besch then took the interval down to 6:15 for the fast lane, and I remember thinking – phew, not me. Now, the hard part of that is the 500, but I remember thinking that the IMs wouldn’t be recovery enough. Today, it was enough. (All of this is just to say that – sometime I feel like I haven’t improved. But I have.)

In addition, I was pleased with the 200s, which are what I focused on. Holding new stroke is still tricky as I go faster, and I was especially happy that after I fell apart a bit on #3, both going slower and feeling worse, I was really able to bring it back on #4. It felt easier, and I had no idea I had gone that fast. So yay.

The one arm drill went a lot better than it did the last time I did it as well. My shoulders and core feel so much stronger now.

Oh yeah, and possibly best of all, every time my foot started to cramp, I thought, “pickle juice” and smiled. It worked. Yoda’s got nothing on me.

Wednesday 2/16 – Theme: And… I suck again (~7200)

I did stretch today, but did not get a lot of sleep (weirdly – wasn’t tired, and then woke up early and wasn’t tired again. It’s 9:47 PM… can’t tell you how tired I am now)

I was glad to see this practice – nothing too hard, just a lot of aerobic. But I always get ambitious. I feel like I shouldn’t be struggling to go 1:09s and 1:10s… but I did today.

There was nothing wrong with my performance today. I made everything and felt pretty good. I’m just not as fast or efficient as I want to be, and it bugs me.

• 1600 W-up (missed 150 doing the Masters coaching handoff stuff)
• 10×100 kick w/fins on 1:30
• 100 ez
• 500 on 7:00 (6:35)
• 5×100 on 1:25 (1:14, 1:15s)
• 400 on 5:20 (5:15?)
• 4×100 on 1:20 (1:15s)
• 300 IM on 4:30
• 3×100 IM on 1:30
• 200 back on 3:20
• 2×100 back on 1:40
• 2×100 all out (1:11, 1:10)
• 200 IM on 3:00
• 2×100 IM on 1:30
• 200 back on 3:20
• 2×100 back on 1:40
• 2×100 all out (1:11, 1:09)
• 500 ez

Thursday 2/17 – Theme: A Needed Break (~6700)

I arrived at practice wiped out. Not from swimming, but from the unceasing England preparations. No stretching today, just a crap-ton of work. I was loopy tired, even though I collapsed into a decent nap between coaching and swimming. I considered that I might get out early.

But then it turned out that it was one of those days where I felt better getting out than I did getting in. Didn’t hurt that Besch was at age group champs and there was less yardage and more rest (Love your practices, Besch, but wasn’t up to it today 🙂

• 500 loosen
• 125 ez
• 2×75 on 1:10
• 6×50 on :45
• 100 ez
• 2×75 on 1:10
• 4×50 on :45
• 100 ez
• 2×75 on 1:10
• 2×50 on :45
• 100 ez

(There were pacing instructions – I ignored them. I did 2x50s of each round backstroke)

• Lots and lots of standing around

• 200 broken off the blocks (75 / 15 s / 50 / 10 s / 50 / 10s / 25 (allegedly went a 2:14 – I might have left a couple seconds early total. I seriously was so loopy it was hard to keep track. The first 75 felt surprisingly good. I had a really good dive after teaching dives all day 🙂 )

• 150 ez
• 225 ez
• 500 – 25 drill/75 swim – I concentrated on the Wellbrock catch-up
• 3×400 on 5:40 descend (5:15, 5:11, 5:00)
• 4×300 on 4:15 descend 1-3 then hold (4:00, 3:54, 3:45, 3:45)
• 5×200 on 2:50 descend 1-3 then hold (2:40, 2:39, 2:31, 2:31, boys swam in front of me and I had to turn around, but paced the rest at around 2:30)
• 300 cool down

So, that’s a reasonable amount of holding 1:15 pace with new stroke when I’m really tired. Not enjoyable, but good prep.

Friday 2/18 – Theme: Just. Done. (~5500)

• 300 w-up
• 5×50 kick on 1:00
• 5×50 swim on :45
• 100 ez
• 10×125 rotating IM on 2:20
• 100 ez
• 100 IM 1:30
• 100 Fr 1:20
• 200 IM 3:10
• 200 Fr 1:45
• 300 IM 5:00
• 300 Fr 3:55
• 400 IM 7:00
• 400 Fr 5:10
• 100 ez

• 6x:
• 2×50 race
• 1×50 ez
• On 1:00

• 300 CD

Well that was a hot pile of rotten soup.

I forgot to eat before I went and didn’t get a chance to stretch today. No pickle juice either 🙂

I phoned it in, pretty much, just making the intervals. On the last 50’s I tried to see what I could hold without going hard. Started at :37’s, then a bunch of :36’s and a :35. On the last 2 fast 50’s I tried a bit (basically just added kicking) and went :33s. If only I could do the English Channel on intervals 🙂

I feel pretty good now, my brain is just full and needs a break. Not sure it’s gonna get one though… the list never ends, and I’ll be spending Sunday at the FTC State Championship.

Putting computer down now. Where’s my Jimmy John’s?!?

Saturday 2/19 – Theme: Optimist Combined Will Never Be My Favorite (~3800) 1.5 hours

• 150 w-up (had trouble finding a lane)
• 8×50 – u/w for 5 lines, easy rest of the 50 (these felt good)
• then I think we watched two guys race 100 back
• 6×100 on 2:00 odd – sprint kick / ez swim / sprint arms, drag legs/ ez swim; even – sprint/ez put it together
• then we sprinted a 50 off the blocks. 30.2 with a missed flip turn. Thank god I never had to race at Optimist.
• 20×100 on 1:20 – meant to just draft, ended up holding a bunch of 1:30’s when I got annoyed at the kids’ lane etiquette skills. Maybe they swim by a different code at Optimist. Anyway, this set was fine and got some yards in
• 300 cool down
• 2×75 ez while waiting for my kids’ practice to finish

I think there was some other stuff in here, but I don’t remember. I’m padding the yardage a little.