Astonishment is an empty pool this morning!

Imagine my surprise pulling into the FOMC to see about the normal number of cars in the lot. Imagine my further surprise to see one person in each of the pool fast lanes. To say nothing of hardly anyone else in the pool at all. I had expected to be over run with resolutionistas that need to be taught the ways of the pool in general, and in particular who has an inner shark.

"Some people have an inner child
Some people hear an inner voice
Some people have inner calm
Good for them!
But me I've got no choice
Some people have an inner cop
Some people hear an inner clown
But I've got me an Inner Shark
And it's hard to keep that Inner Shark calm!"
(Courtesy Christine Lavin)

Todays swim was still slow by my standards, but I'm feeling stronger, and cruised with my inner shark for a bit. I was trying to lengthen my stroke by reaching ahead, and working all the way to my thigh, and the roll and pull. Oddly enough the lengths that felt good still weren't fast particularly, but felt at home moving through the water in a way I haven't felt for a while. Since I wasn't paying attention to it, my kick was feeble. 1000 m ended up being 21:06, with my arm feeling fairly strong throughout. Time to get back to intervals I guess.

I even did an open turn right handed by accident once, and it didn't actually send shooting stars of pain up my arm through my eyes into my brain. So I carefully tried it several times for turns, when it worked out that way. As long as I'm careful, and don't really pull to tuck my feet, or push to finish the turn, it's ok. Still not strong or comfortable yet, but progression is happening.

Then into the dive tank for core work. This morning's workout is an honest half hour. This was actually the first morning where I could have done more in the pool, so maybe later this week I'll try to ramp up to 45 minutes.

This evening was a beautiful night for a run. Let me paint the picture here. It's dark; the sun went down an hour and a half before my run. There's a mostly clear sky, with about a half moon just bright enough to throw a shadow on the snow. It's warmed up considerably, being only -1 C or so, but that warm air is blowing in on a pretty strong wind, about 30 Kph. It's strong enough to blow the snow around, and there's some new drifts already.

Tonight's run instructions were to warm up, then change speeds every 2-3 min. Have fun in other words. My kind of workout. No looking at the watch, no tracking heart rate ad trying to run slower, no trying to figure out where I am on the run walk cycle. Walked then ran easy for not quite 10 minutes, out to Anderson and the 37th St pathway. Started the stopwatch so I'd know when to turn around, then ran a bunch of different paces. I changed speeds more often than every 2-3 minutes; it was probably more like every 30 seconds to a minute, depending. Ran fast to get my breathing almost to a gasp, ran slow, ran medium, tried different gaits, tried leaning forward to speed up, some longer bits, some shorter bits. About the only thing I didn't do was run hard downhill; the footing isn't that good. The slow recovery portions were just long enough to get my breathing back under control. Turned around at 21 min and some seconds, and got back to my starting place at 42 min and some seconds, then ran hard across 37th and up the hill for 45 min exactly. Walked briskly back to the house. Stripped off my shoes, hat and hoodie, then stretched for 15 min.

I'm really pleased at how it went. There were the faintest of twinges from my left calf; the first in a long while, so I paid calves special attention during the stretching. Once I shower and finish eating I'll stretch more. I'm going to call this a solid 1.25 hr workout.