So what was important today?

I MADE COOKIES!!!

For some reason it has been some time since I made cookies. Linda has been on a real tear lately, so I haven't been able to get my spoon in, so to speak. These are pretty good, an 8.5 to 9 on Keith's cookie scale. And as some can tell you, I'm a hard marker when it comes to cookies. There isn't quite enough mint in these, and I didn't get the shapes right on all of them. I put in just a hint too much flour.

So what else? Oh yeah, workouts.

FOMC was almost empty today. I had a lane to myself. 500 m warmup, with no complaints from my left shoulder. Good. Did some drill. Golf scores are better, very low 80's. I'm swimming the 50 m faster, but taking more strokes. Did some front crawl to relax, and discourage a slow one from jumping into my lane. More drill and golf. Cool down. Stroke is feeling pretty good. All in all .75 hr.

Did some yoga and stretching. Went out for an easy .75 hr run down the path toward Fish Creek. With strides. An interesting thing happened here. Interesting to me anyway, since it's the first time. Maybe it's old hat to you fast runners. Just so you know, I'm a really slow runner. Considering that I'm overcoming the sloth of 30 years of not running, and my first priority is not to hurt myself, I'm pretty pleased with my progress so far. I think that if I put it together just right, I could do 10 K in an hour. I think. But there'd better be a bucket at the finish line.

Anyways. For the very first time when running faster, I could actually feel some of the muscle interplay in my legs. I could feel my calves, hams, and glutes working together to pull me along. There was even some sympathetic vibrations and resonance in some of the flabby bits at the top of my butt. This is just below where I jiggled when trying to pedal faster on the bike a while ago. I think one session of the strides is just about as fast as I can run just now. And it felt good. During one of the easy periods between strides, I suddenly noticed I was actually running quite fast, certainly no longer at an easy pace. Fast by my standards.

I stretched for about 15 or 20 minutes after, paying particular attention to my achilles tendon, top and bottom on my right leg. That's a bit sore these days. Weather was nice, sunny and cool, just above zero, so the path was wet.

I was reading about the 'Strong like Bull' camp in Spain next Feb. It sounded very attractive. Till I saw the hill climbs. I somehow think that even with another year of conditioning, I'd still be the designated coming in last rider. On the FAQ they have 'How fit do I have to be to enjoy the camp?' but they don't have an answer yet. Uhuh. That tells me what I need to know. You know the phrase, if you have to ask how much, you can't afford it. Yeah.