Communing with liquid and solid water

What wonderful workouts today! I forgot to wear my watch in the pool, but sort of looked at the hour hand on the pace clock so I know I swam an hour. What's important is that I tuned into the water like I've never done before. Julie's gonna think I'm on the really good drugs that I'm not sharing with her.

Started my warm up feeling a bit tense and tired in the shoulders. Switched to dolphin kick, and somehow I got my hips going a bit better than usual. Then I realized I was going a bit faster than usual with much less effort. Started my pull, and oh my goodness! I relaxed into the water, my catch started working, I could feel my core doing it's thing, and it seems that I was gliding along without even trying. My shoulders and arms were relaxed on recovery. This went on for a long time, at least 1000 m, maybe more. Somewhere in here a girl joined me and I lapped her a bunch of times, though I think she was stopping briefly doing 100 m intervals. If it's who I think it is, her swimming has improved.

After the pull I went back to front crawl, and while it wasn't quite the same, I was still communing with the water, feeling it slide past me, holding me up, not holding me back. By the end of the hour my back muscles were starting to complain a bit. I think the lats, but I'm not sure.

Then coffee with my buddy LD at Bumpy's, which was pretty darned good, even if the parking is a bitch. We had a great chat. She's going to see if the aerobars will work for her. She's tall so she might have the same issue with them as me.

Once home I stirred around putting things away, then did my leg exercises and stuff getting ready for a run. It was about 5 C (41 F) so it's almost warm out, but I didn't go for the shorts. Probably just as well, there was a bit of a brisk wind along the bike path.

Started off easy, and very quickly got into the groove. My legs were happy, so I let them run at whatever pace they liked. Once I was fully warmed up I realized I was doing a gradual speed up to where I was starting to breath hard, maybe mid to upper zone 3 at most, then I'd back down to zone 2 for a bit, then gradually speed up again. All this was where the snow would let me. There was one long stretch where all I had was a narrow one person path packed into about a foot of snow, wandering along mostly on the paved pathway. That got a bit tricky, but my balance was good, and my legs were liking the challenge of landing squarely under my weight and adjusting to small variances in footing.

I was doing what I think of as my C route, down the bike path, up the hill, past the school, and around the curve up to Anderson. I've done the start of this a bunch of times recently and have turned back early. Today I finally made it up to Anderson, running easily, in just over 38 minutes. Back in May 2008 doing it in 44 minutes was just about a max effort. So I guess I haven't totally lost my cardio fitness.

I didn't come back the same way though, since I only wanted to run an hour. My theory is that if I leave my legs wanting more, they will stay happy about the workouts. Walked at the end, and stretched. Legs feel great! It was a perfect day for running, not too hot, bright sunshine, the snow is still pretty, so I really enjoyed myself. I wish all runs felt this good.

Yoga tonight. Maybe I'll commune with my mat.

I have received encouragement to rant about the weenies who close schools simply because it's cold, and my take on temperature being a Darwinian process. She knows who she is.