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Collapse and Revival

OK, it’s Saturday, April 9, at 7 in the morning, and I’m feeling as if I have gobs more perspective than I have had up until this point in the journey. My state of mind has been quite changeable, especially compared to two years of going to the pool and back and sitting in my house, and it’s nice to have a chance to reflect.

Earlier this week, all of my months of preparation (both training and outside the pool), plus the hectic first three weeks of our England tenure came crashing down on me.

I suppose it really started last Saturday. I was super tired from my week of training (and, you know, everything), and finally slept in for the first time in England (if you don’t count the very first day’s time-lagged collapse). And by slept in, I mean until noon or maybe even later – I can’t remember for sure at this point. We had plans to take the kids to the climbing wall complex and then wander up though Bournemouth proper and have dinner. We cancelled, ostensibly (and actually) because at that point 1 in 9 area residents had Covid, but also because I couldn’t fathom getting dressed, much less walking.

But I had planned to take it easy that day, so I didn’t really twig that I had entered the gateway to collapse. On Sunday the 3rd I did my first ocean (sea) swim. I was really looking forward to it and had a good (if short) time. I ran there and walked back, happily grabbing a pasty (pronunciation corrected by server) on the way back. It was then that I really started to go downhill. I wanted to clean the bathrooms, and I wanted to do it before I showered. But I wanted to shower before I ate (from that alone, you can imagine my problems beginning). And then, in the middle of training the boys to clean their bathroom (and their attentiveness being irritatingly lacking – what, are you not entertained by my toilet scrubbing?!?), N let me know that her mom was here with a bike she’s letting me borrow. Super, super nice, and extremely appreciated by me, but I still hadn’t eaten or had a shower or even finished cleaning the bathrooms. (Which is a stupid thing to have to do. Bathrooms should have a button you push that seals off the room and chemically cleans and sterilizes everything.)

So I went out and chatted and then managed to bring the (extremely heavy) bike up through the (prohibited) tiny doorways and get it into the flat without making (too much of) a mess. From there I did all the other things, and eventually ended up clean, fed and collapsed on a couch. At which point even the idea of starting to go through photos to get ready for this blog post seemed laughably unachievable. So I just laid there.

As I’m typing, I’m realizing I should have made this more comically entertaining. But 1) I seem to have a bit of PTSD and it’s still too soon, and 2) It was less “funny” and more “the slow melting of a human being.”

I can’t remember what we did Sunday evening (probably nothing), but I remember the next two days very clearly:

Monday – Nothing. Like, literally nothing. I fell asleep about 7 times.

Tuesday – Monday on repeat, but with slightly less sleeping and slightly more doing crap.

On Wednesday I was able to get up and go swim again, and I have felt a lot better ever since.

As of now (4/9/22), my legs are pretty shot from upping my running (again), I took yesterday’s workouts pathetically easy, I have to wear a bandage on my finger continuously, hoping that the chunk I took out of it on a lane rope (reverse circle swimming) will reattach itself, and I’m getting a little concerned by how few weeks there are between me and July 12. But honestly, I’m feeling pretty good 🙂 We managed to plan trips to Oxford and Dublin, my training is coming together much more than it was before, and the endless details of moving really do have to end sometime. I swam in the sea yesterday and plan to again tomorrow – onward and upward!

PS – I made a note to use the term “monumentally exhausted” in describing my state at the beginning of the week. Y’all, I was monumentally exhausted.

PPS – It is entirely possible that it has been the shopping exhausting me, and I’m fine with everything else. There is far too much (any) shopping in this process. On the bright side, as of Thursday the boys’ school uniforms (heehee) are basically complete.

Harry Potter

I mentioned how close the date of my swim is starting to seem (I get a bit of a heart flutter just typing it). For a very long time, it has seemed quite far away. And it legitimately was. But suddenly, it seems quite close. And it legitimately is.

I could go on about it, but thanks to J.K. Rowling, there’s no need. I love the way she exemplified the “there’s so much time, there’s no time at all” phenomenon in Harry’s preparation for the dragon challenge in the Goblet of Fire. (“Where did they go, the last of the dragon-free hours?”). I would imagine we’ve all experienced this in the lead up to big tests, big events, big deadlines of some sort or another. It’s comforting to have been through it before, and to take Harry’s analysis to heart – that between fighting a dragon and the wait beforehand, he’d take the dragon every time. (I can’t find the exact quote, cut off from my books and with a 5-week wait for the online book through the library. Should be end of Chapter 20 or beginning of 21 if someone wants to look it up.)

 People advised me not to postpone my swim until this year, and it was indeed a very, very long time to train at the level I’ve been at, but it’s the only thing keeping me from freaking out at how quickly this thing is coming towards me now. To myself I always think of it as the paper-writing process. You work on it and you work on it, and you finally turn it in – not because anything can ever be “done,” but because you’re so sick of it you can’t look at it another time 🙂

On Age, and thanks, yet again, to H

I have not been someone who pays a lot of attention to her age (other than jokingly). But in the past 3 weeks, it has been tempting to think, “I’m getting too old for this.” But then I think of H (and others), kicking ass years ahead of me, and I ditch that as nonsense and get on with it. Thanks to all of you amazing women who are out there blazing the trail of excellence (and making 6 foot tall 20-something men worry about getting chicked)!

Finding the Funny

In my increased downtime this week, I read another hilarious post by Allie Brosh (from a long time ago, but new to me – don’t get too excited, Brosh fans). 

http://hyperboleandahalf.blogspot.com/2010/06/texas.html

So many questions! So very many questions! And Allie is not (as far as I can tell) currently accessible, so I’ll just have to satisfy myself by posting here what I would ask her if I could.

• Why were you taking Flintstones vitamins in college?
• How did you overdose on Flintstones vitamins? Did you mistake them for candy? Was it a purposeful training aid? Were you Flintdoping?
• Is ‘insufflate’ really a word? If so, cool! If not, it should be!
• They don’t have fireflies in Montana? Or Idaho?
• Where were your coaches?
• Did you not get along with your teammates? Would they not have kept you alive (in lieu of random strangers in the hotel lobby at 3 in the morning)?
• Did the hotel not have juice?
• And, like, seriously, where were your coaches?!?
• How do you still have mullet-appreciating abilities when delirious?
• There seems to be a theme here – Why do you not seek help when sick? Did you have some sort of experience as a kid that we will learn about in a later book?

And a comment – 

I love that you tried to punch the volunteer who dragged you off the track. I once semi-lost consciousness after catching a frisbee and crashing to the ground during a pick-up game of Ultimate (I’m not very coordinated), and in my semi-conscious state I refused to let the guy trying to help me up have the frisbee. We wrestled for it briefly before I lost.

And Finding the Funny as Procrastination

I swear, I really have been doing a lot of things (with the exception of Monday and Tuesday when I became energetically incapacitated and did, like, no things), but I just went to look up how Allie Brosh spells her name, and for some reason, instead of just googling it, I went to her blog. Where, interestingly, her name is not prominent. Somehow, my brain decided that clicking on one of her links to “Internet Things that Make Me Laugh” would be the solution.

I found this: https://strangerthaneviction.tumblr.com

Which was a fairly hilarious waste of… let’s say 30 minutes. That doesn’t sound embarrassingly long, right?

And now it is my gift of time wasting to you.

I’m Famous!

https://wrightsvillebeachmagazine.com/flash/2022-4/page_34.html

No reflection on the reporter, but only on me – I don’t remember saying some of this, and if I did, I think I got some things wrong. I am, however, truly and verifiably glad I don’t have to drink brandy during my crossing. Who knows how quickly Captain Webb could have made it, had he only had access to some Nesquik.

Small Town Reflections

I’d be interested to hear from others who also grew up in small towns, but I think that when you do and are (what I’ve heard called) a joiner, you just think it’s sort of natural to be in the paper and on the news. I think I was on the news 5 times my senior year, although one of them was because I was at the mall and got interviewed about some thing they were doing with balloons (and I sounded idiotic), so that hardly counts.

Interestingly, you can also be a joiner (captain of the swim team, district governor of Interact, president of the French Club (oh, wait, vice – sorry Carrie), etc. etc. ad infinitum and still be unpopular. In fiction, those are the popular kids (unless you were president of the A/V club – I was not). Presumably because when you join things, you meet people, giving you a chance to become known and liked. But in a small town, everyone already knows that you are …. whoa, almost revealed the middle and high school nickname there. Anyone telling my kids will be dealt with appropriately. Anyway, everyone already knows you and knows what they think of you.

For anyone as life-inept as I am, it’s nice to go out and find people who only know the version of you who is at least good at concealing that. (Oh no, now I’ve let the cat out of the bag!)

My Swims

Truly, not much to report – short swims, with the overriding them of COLD. I love everyone I’ve met so far, and look forward to swimming with them again.

Swim 1 (Sunday the 3rd) – 1K, 47ish degree water, 41ish degree air, sunny

Swim 2 (Friday the 8th ) – 1.2K, 49ish degree water, just a rotten day degree air, sunny after it was any use to me. But I got a nap.

National Differences

As only one lone person, not even well-versed in her own culture, my observations are not worth a lot. But they are fun for me. And really, how do we ever get outside our own selves and our own bubbles, unless we go out there, take a look around, and then give it some thought?

Which Wore it Best?

I’m starting to keep score. Here’s what my homeland and my (briefly) adopted country have going for them:

America – Vaseline in tubes and widely available spray sunscreen 

England – soured creme, shrimp, grocery store cakes (and at least one other thing that I can’t remember because I didn’t write it down and my brain is so full right now that it spills over constantly).

I would also credit the England column with a general mindset of being left to figure things out for oneself. There is not as much signage, hand-holding, etc. (In America, Pittsburg’s road signs were all over this in 1998 – the city’s attitude seemed to be, “If you don’t already know where you’re going, it’s not a place you need to be.”) Here it’s right down to the merchandise – the label simply says“Ba-wham!” Am I looking at laundry detergent? Dishwashing liquid? Or a particularly enthusiastic shampoo? I don’t know, and whoever designed the packaging is not going to make it easy for me to find out.

Of course Britons recognize the brands (and the different packaging for the different types of products within brands), and I know that there are examples of this in America as well. But if you look around, I think you’ll find that things generally say “Tide Detergent,” “Scrubbing Bubbles Bathroom Cleaner,” etc.

Sometimes it’s nice to have your intelligence respected, you know, nationally, but sometimes it’s nice to know if you’re buying body wash or conditioner.

Exemplary Doggos

And more on well-behaved British dogs – they are allowed in restaurants here. And they just sit there, being good boys. Well, our new friend Basil the dog did almost pee on a decorative tree stump in the restaurant last night, but that hardly seems like Basil’s fault.

Rude or British?

And the people – The people whom I’ve actually met have all been lovely. And many people are charmingly polite in a way that I’ve rarely, if ever, seen Americans achieve. But the random person on the street can seem a bit dour. So I’ve come up with a game: Rude or British?

One of the most noticeable differences about being in a different country is my lack of familiarity with a slightly different social contract. I honestly don’t know sometimes if I have encountered a rude person, or if my interaction is part of a different code. This week’s was at the gym. The employee pushed the button to open the gate for me. I said “Thank you!” She said, “ ‘kay.” It felt weird, but maybe I was overenthusiastic?

I am trying to adopt the appropriate response to “Have a good day,” which is “And you!” which I love. I haven’t yet figured out if anyone here says “Have a good one,” which I apparently do. A lot. More than I ever noticed before.

Britain Wins Again

I would also put language as a checkmark in the England column – I love the way they say things here. One woman in the locker room reported that her lap swim, “had been a nice plod.” I had also plodded nicely that day, but would never have expressed it that way. (Since plodding is a bit of a specialty for me, I should probably adopt this as well.)

The Importance of a Good Cap

The final national difference this time around – The masters team gave me a cap (Thanks Swim Bournemouth!) and it stays on my head a lot better. We should get these caps. They also seem to have almost completely moved on from latex here – I approve.

Journal

3/29

A bit of a rough morning. Dropped my new helmet, couldn’t get the Beryl bike to unlock, had to ride in the rain (thankfully not too much), thought I missed my bus, actually almost missed my bus, had another talking to from a driver (not really – he was helping, but after all that it seemed like it).

I’m sure at least 80% of my bad attitude this morning stems from the fact that I got up at 4:35 AM, a time that my body thought was 3:35 AM 2 days ago and 11:35 PM 2 weeks ago.

3/30

Much more sleep had me much more ready to laugh about how incompetent I feel all the time right now. I don’t know if everyone who takes on a new country feels this way – probably not, I’m a bit of a life klutz, even in my own country. But if everything else continues to improve as quickly as my reverse circle swimming, I have hope for myself 🙂

I’m also wondering how much the time shift is impacting… everything. Being so tired all the time doesn’t help… anything. I feel better today.

3/31

I’m tired, I’m sore, and my stroke is not pretty right now.

Who knew that a great way to train for the Channel would be to have a training program that was really working for me… and then change it all. It is mentally and physically much harder than anticipated – right in line with my tough-as-nails training philosophy.

I haven’t broken yet, just bent quite far.

On the other hand, all of my bus interactions went well today 🙂

4/1-4/8

OK, I broke a little. But I’m back.

Channel Prep

Week 1

Checking the FB swimming pages daily – no one seems eager to swim in the sub-50-degree water 🙂 I will be swimming on Sunday for sure, if not sooner.

I’m very much thinking that I will substitute ocean swims for T/Th 5 AM practice (get up at 4:35) as soon as possible.

Week 2

Now that I’ve reached full-of-perspective land, and figured out the kids’ school transport, I think this is what it will look like once school starts:

• Monday: Rest day (I need one, I just do)
• Tuesday: Ride to pool, swim 5:30-7:30, bus home in time to get A to school
• Wednesday: Run to pool, swim 7-whenever, run home (If E can take A)
• Thursday: repeat Tuesday
• Friday: repeat Wednesday
• Saturday: OW… lots
• Sunday: OW… lots

I’ve also made more connections this week, and am really looking forward to swimming with people and around the area!

The Weeks in the Water

Week 1 Summary

Pool Yardage ~ 27,300 M 

OW Yardage ~ 1000 M

Total Yardage ~ 28,300 M

OTHER:

 miles of running – 9

 miles of walking (plus, you know, a lot more) – 2

 miles riding – 2.7

Hopefully the hardest week I’ll do – not by yardage but by being up against it. Already being exhausted, adding in the time change, ramping up running and swimming, still having a lot of moving crap to deal with, homeschooling, and I could go on. Glad I got through it.

On Lap swimming

OK, let’s just say this, for this and all future work in the lap swim lanes – sometimes, I have to go off the intervals. I’m not going to worry about marking down which times, unless it’s really essential to understanding my speed or pacing. Other than that, just assume it did not proceed as linearly as it looks in this blog.

Week 2 Summary

Pool Yardage ~ 15,000 M

OW Yardage ~ 1,200 M (+ whatever I do on Sunday)

Total Yardage ~ 16,200 M + Sunday

OTHER:

 miles of running – 14

 miles of walking (plus, you know, a lot more)

 miles riding – 0

The week of burial and rebirth – a bit early for Easter.

The Gory Details

Mon March 28 (~6000 M) – 2 h

Oh the dubious joys of training during lap swim. It’s been a long time. The disadvantages are 1) You are alone, and 2) There are other people there.

You have no one to train with and help push yourself, and yet you have obstacles in your lane. I used this as yet another “well, it’s not as hard as the Channel” mental exercise.

Masters Swim (1 h) ~2800

• 2x:
• 100 free
• 150 bk (kick/drill/swim)
• 150 br (kick/drill/swim)
• 4×25 fly

• 200 ez on 3:30
• 2×100 on 1:25 (1:20, then… not)
• 200 ez
• 4×50 on :45 (:40?)
• 200 ez
• 8×25 on :25
• 200 ez
• 200 “all out” (2:45)
• 200 ez

Lap Swim (1 h) ~3200

Besch’s Pi Day practice

• 3×100 on 1:35
• 1×200 ez
• 4×200 IM on 3:35
• 1×100 ez
• 5×50 on :45
• 9×100 alt IM/Fr on 1:40
• 2×100 ez
• 6×25 on :25
• 300 ez

OK, let’s just say this, for this and all future work in the lap swim lanes – sometimes, I have to go off the intervals. I’m not going to worry about marking down which times, unless it’s really essential to understanding my speed or pacing. Other than that, just assume it did not proceed as linearly as it looks here.

OTHER: Ran to practice – 2.3 mi (28 min by time – the watch doesn’t agree that I start running when I think I start running 🙂

Tue Mar 29 (~6400) – 2 h (with some downtime in the middle talking to Ian)

• 800 w-up (100swim/100kick/100swim/100drill, twice)
• 9×50 fly/bk, bk/br, br/fr on 1:00

• 2x:
• 4×25 on :25
• 2×50 on :40
• 1×100 on 1:20
• with fins and paddles

felt good

• (I took a 50 ez)
• 4×200 on 3:15
• 4×400 w/fins and paddles (I ditched the paddles – shoulder) on 6:00 (5:35/5:40 ish) – felt quite bad and took it easy. bookish?
• 4×200 on 3:10 – felt much better all the sudden, Held 2:55 – slow? (Swimming world says it’s about a 2:37 – if so, fine. It felt just a little faster than my workaday pace, which is about 2:40.
• 300 ez

• 1150 with the lap swimmers

OTHER: Biked to practice 2.7 mi. (20 minute rental, according to Beryl – the run up the hill was obliterating. Those bikes weigh an absolute ton)

Wed Mar 30 (~4500 M) 1.5 h (Recovery day)

Masters swim (1h) ~2600 M

• 6×100 fr/IM kick/fr/IM drill/Fr kick/IM
• What in the name of god did we do here? About 400 meters (Actually it was 6×100 with some fly in there – remembered much later)

• 3x:
• 100 ez on 2:00
• 100 on 1:30
• 100 on 1:25
• 100 on 1:20

My goal on this set (in keeping with recovery day) was to see how efficiently I could make the intervals. I would say it went pretty well.

• 6×25 on :40 – 2 fast, 1 ez
• 1:00 rest
• 3×50 on :1:15 – 2 fast, 1 ez
• 100 all out (not all out)
• 200 ez

Lap swim (~1500 M) (30 minutes)

• 10×50 on 50 (held :45ish)
• 100 on 2:15
• 100 on 1:25 (didn’t quite make it)
• 100 on 2:15
• 200 on 2:50 (almost made it)
• 500 CD

OTHER: Run – started watch when I got outside – 2.3 mi. (26:24)

Thurs Mar 31 (~6200)

Masters swim (1h 23 min) ~5000

• 400 swim
• 400 swim w/fins and paddles
• 400 IM drill/swim

• 2x:
• 2×25 u/w kick on :30
• 50, 75, 50, 25 all on 1:00
• All with fins

• 8×400:
• 400 ez w/fins, 2×200 on 3:00, 4×100 on 1:30, 8×50 on :50, 16×25 on :30 (some faster at the end when I joined lap swim

Lap swim (30 min) ~1200

• About 1200 meters of lap swim

Other: Run – 2.32 mi. (26:41)

Felt pretty rough – sore everywhere.

Fri Apr 1 (~4200)

Masters swim (1 h) ~2800

• 400 – 150 fr/50st

• 2x:
• 3x: 2×25 sprint on :40, 50 sprint on 1:00
• 3x: 2×25 sprint kick on :40, 50 sprint on 1:00
• 3x: 75, 50, 25 on 1:00
• Round 1 choice (a lot of back), Rnd 2 fr

• 200 CD

Lap swim (30 min) ~1400

• 300 ez
• 100 on 2:00
• 100 on 1:25 (made it solid this time)
• 100 on 2:00
• 200 on 2:50 (made it solid this time)
• 100 on 2:00 
• 300 on 4:15 (made it)
• 200 CD

So, couldn’t make the Sieben set on Wednesday, made it on Friday and added the 300 – at least I’m starting to go in the right direction 🙂 Looking forward to being in the OW on Sunday.

OTHER: Gave myself a break and took the bus both ways

Sun Apr 3

First OW swim (~1000 M) – about 30 min. Air temp 41, water temp – a person and the internet both say 9. (And yes, I know I’m mixing my unit systems here. You’re going to have to deal.)

OTHER: ~ 2 mi run / 2 mi walk 

———————–———END WEEK 1————————————

Mon Apr 4 (~0)

Nada. I cannot over-exaggerate how much nothing I did.

Tue Apr 5 (~0)

Likewise

Wed Apr 6 (~4400)

Today I learned that no fins or paddles are allowed during lap swim. On the one hand, this may not seem like a big deal… no fins and paddles are allowed in the channel. But swimmers will realize how boring it may be, if I am swimming on my own for 3 hours a day and cannot even vary the workout with fins and paddles. And those who have had shoulder problems (at least ones like mine) will realize the huge value of being able to still get a good workout in while at the same time saving your shoulder by putting on some fins. It was a little bit crushing. (And also silly, especially with the fins. I don’t think I have ever heard of or seen anyone hurt by fins.)

Masters Swim – 1 h – (~2800)

• 400 ez
• 2×150 25 fly/50bk/50br/25 fr ez
• 4×25 kick
• 4×25 half kick/half catchup
• 4×25 half u/w dolphin/half fast
• 4x (2×25 no free on :35; 50 free on :45)
• 6×100 on 1:30 (missed 3ish – took out a chunk of finger on the left lane-line)
• 5×100 on 1:25
• 4×100 on 1:20
• 200 ez

Lap swim – can’t remember how long – (~1600)

• 5×100 free IM descend
• 1000 swim (pretty ez)
• 100 ez

OTHER: Ran both ways – 4.6 mi

Thur Apr 7 (~7400)

Well, at least I’m energetic enough again to be frustrated by my times. I’m pretty sure I should have been able to nail this. I’m convinced that SCM 1:20’s are within my grasp – Besch?

Masters As written: (Actual ~ 5000) – about 1h20m

• 400 w-up (100 swim / 50 kick / 50 drill, I think)

• 10×500
• Odd – ez with your choice of equipment
• Evens-
• 2 – 200, 200, 100 – 20 s rest
• 4 – 200, 3×100 – 10 s rest
• 6 – 5×100 on 1:20
• 8 – 3×100 on 1:20, 4×50 on :45
• 10 – 10×50 on :45

• 300 CD

I got in late, missed the 400 (though I think I’ve solved the getting to practice at 5:20 without getting up at 4:30 and with no car problem – I’ll let you know if my plan works next week). I did most of number 2, but then stopped to see where the fast 2 swimmers were. I’m pretty sure I did number 2 again, and then went on correctly from there, except that I did 400’s instead of ez 500s in order to give myself a chance to take of my fins and get ready to try to keep up. Except for the last one – I knew the 50’s on :45 would be no problem.

I made 3 of the 5 on 1:20, but then did a 50 for number 4. So I was like, cool, I’ll make the next ones and cruise the 50s on :45. I failed on number 2, started number 3 late, but gave up and just did a 50. Ugh. I can do this!

Anyway, by my count, that makes it about 5000 for that one

Lap swim – (~2400) – 50 min?

• 400 ez
• 800 ez
• 600 ez
• 400 every 4th lap “fast’
• 200 CD

Mostly did 75 fr/25 bk

So 2400, 7400 for the day. Good, but gosh that set of 500’s was right up my alley. Next time.

OTHER: Ran both ways – 4.6 mi

Fri Apr 8 (~3200) Band-aid problems 

So, there’s really no way around it, by each Friday I feel like I’m kind of sucking at training. The bright side is, each Friday I feel it a little less. The downside is, I am not adapting to a longer, different pool in which I swim the opposite direction as quickly as I’d like. Thank heavens the Channel has no lanes or walls!!

I just went easy today, trying to focus on adapting to the minutia of, you know, not running into things (or people) while I swim.

Masters – 1 h – (~2900)

• 400 w-up (100 swim, 50 kick, 50 non-free)
• 4×25 IM kick
• 4×25 IM drill
• 4×25 IM swim
• 5×100 on 1:30

• 28×50
• 3 fast, 1 ez (ez always on 1:00)
• 1 – 1:00
• 2-1:10
• 3-1:20
• 4-1:00
• 5-1:10
• 6-1:20
• Last round all 4 all out on 1:30

He writes these as :70, :80, etc. It whigs me out 🙂

• 300 CD

Then I had plans for a thousand easy (I didn’t want to take too long, since I’m swimming in the sea at noon). But after 300 my bandaid (plaster) (that was holding the chunk of finger in place) fell off and I thought it best to get out. I did rescue the bandaid – both to try to put it back on and also not to be a pool bandaid litterer.

Łap swim (~300)

My legs (and my knees) have had it from running, but no more running until Monday, so hopefully I’ll recover. Shopping yesterday was the worst – it turns out that’s what’s been taking it out of me, not the workouts. Luckily, we got 95% of the kids school stuff, so hopefully shopping is coming to an end. Or I’ll send E 🙂

OTHER: Ran both ways – 4.6 mi (OK, some of my running on the way back may have looked like walking).

OW Swim ~1,200 – abut 30 minutes. Air temp 40s with a blistering wind. Water temp debatable – I’m going to say around 10 degrees. And yes, I’m mixing units again. Word.