swim, blood, run

Aside from the mass confusion in the fast lanes at the pool, I had a great swim. One lane had two really slow, really wide breast strokers. The other had one reasonable swimmer, one very slow swimmer that takes up a whole lane with is wide recovery and arm going into the water producing a huge splash, and one guy doing something weird with a flutter board. I wanted no part of any of it.

I shared a medium lane with a guy that I thought swam slower. I passed him once in the first couple laps, then he picked up the pace, and essentially disappeared. Never passed him again, and ended up having a nice peaceful swim. Not fast, mind you. A little over 30 m for 1500 m. Some drill - fist, one arm, catchup. Core work in the dive tank. 1 hour overall.

Canadian Blood Services called last week, and begged me to come give blood. I used to give, many years ago, till the president of the Canadian Red Cross flipped Parliament and the Courts the bird over the Hep C lawsuits. Screw them. But things have changed. I have a fairly rare blood type (A neg, only 6% of people have it) so they're pretty happy to see me back. All went well.

Per their instruction, I had a lazy day. Still, I went out for a run this evening. Ran 15 min easy, 30 min doing 30 seconds hard strides every 5 min or so, and another 15 easy run. My heart rate monitor was a lying waste of time; it was reading way too high. I should not be breathing lightly, able to chat, and think about running faster, when my heart rate is 140. So I ignored it and went by how I was feeling. It was a nice evening for a run, cool and windy.