Hello Old Friend

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I'm quite sure that I am still on an endorphin high from Saturday's butt kicking.  I still feel great.  Sore, but great.  I had told Brutus on Saturday that I wanted him to keep tabs of how often I swipe into the gym and if I am not there at least once a day, that he has full permission to beat the snot out of me on Saturday's.  With the newfound fear of Brutus to keep me motivated, I headed off to the pool this morning.  Lifetime apparently still hasn't gotten their ISH together, and the water in the pool is STILL(!!)  Frigid!  Now I remember what caused me to stop swimming in the first place - previous to getting sick and school getting in the way.  What the heck is the deal, why on earth has the pool gone from tolerable, to cold but tolerable enough, to slightly cold, to FRIGID.  It's ridiculous.  I jumped in and started swimming right away because, well, what better way to keep warm.  I was really nervous that I had lost a lot of ground, not being in the pool for a while, but to my surprise, I was still able to do a 1400 this morning. Which-  wow-  its amazing how far I've come.  At one point during this journey 1400 was on my "one day I'll be able to do that"  and now 1400 is a "light" day (or what I can usually do when I havent swam in a while)  -  a mile (or 1650) is my "medium" day and a "Hard" day is a 2000m.  I love that I have come so far in the pool.  Oh- which reminds me, I'm behind on loving myself!  I have to go and meet a friend for dinner, so I will love myself when I get home (wow three posts in one day, aren't you guys lucky!)

Anyhow, I realized today and I was doing my laps, that my stroking has changed over the past year or so.  I wasn't stroking incorrectly before, but, I was not engaging all of the muscles needed, which resulted in my body drooping under the water creating underwater drag to pull against.  But, with a stronger abdominal core and back muscles, I am able to skim just beneath the pools surface, creating less drag, and less effort per stroke!

We are really in the full swing of Triathlon training.  All of the Tris are back in the water from Ironmen all the way down to the sprinters.  (want to learn how to scope out your appropriate lane?  Check out my earlier post Public Lap Pools are Like High School Lunch Tables )  This created a very choppy morning of swimming.  Lots and lots of Ironmen in the pool today!

And, surprisingly-  one Ironman was actually a really nice guy!  We talked in the Hot Tub after the workout.  He was telling me about Ironman Wisconsin and how hard it is (He said, much harder than Kona because of all of the hills on the bike route- with no rest or reprieve) and that he's has a Half Iron man in about six weeks in California.  I was shocked.  If I keep meeting all these nice Ironmen, I'm really going to have to append my blanket "Iron Men Are Arrogant AHoles" statement.  Though, I must say, they really aren't *all *  aholes.  I have a friend George who did IM Wisconin, and he's a great guy.  Not arrogant at all.  But the ones that train at Lifetime-  the majority of them are definitely jerks.

Oh my, I'm running late! I'll post a bit more later and talk about loving myself!