Regularity is good

Friday, after struggling with a merged spreadsheet that had nearly 20,000 lines of data on one side of it, and 2,000 on the other side, joined by location, looking for things that might match, I was ready for a big glass of wine and a night off.

Well, the wine and the off came after researching and buying a lockset. Three lock sets. Then I went to bed early. Really early. There were 4 year old children still awake, but probably only because they were still wired on candy. I went to bed at 7:30, and was out like a light.

Unfortunately, I woke up at 2:30, wide awake. So I got up and started a busy day. A big day starts with a good breakfast. Then some blog surfing. Cross fit videos. I've been getting more interested in cross fit video. That inspired me to head into the basement to do a core workout.

Then to the pool even before it opened. There was a small herd of adults waiting to get in, and a much bigger herd of kids. There was a swim meet happening. Even so I had a lane to myself, and ended up having a really strong swim. 1600 m in 30 minutes. Actually it was a really strong flip turn. Such a swim has 63 flip turns, and I powered through them all, really working my core and hams. Then a bit over 30 minutes of varied kick and pull drill, not working the flip turns so hard. I was feeling really good about it.

I've been trying to get into the pool 3 days a week, and that seems to make the difference. Two days just doesn't cut it. I've been on the bike 3 times a week pretty regularly, and that makes a lot of difference. Running isn't quite so regular. I only ran 8 times in October, but the run seems to be going fairly well.

After the swim I hung out with a coffee and watched the kids swim. Us adults are such weenies. We complain if there are 3 people in a lane. These kids were swimming 15 or more to a lane. They passed at will. At one point I saw four kids side by side in one lane. There was a bunch of bumping and jostling, but none of them seemed to mind. It was essentially one big draft fest. I've never been in a swim meet, so I'm guessing there is a method to the madness, and that someone is keeping track of everybody, and that the right people are on the blocks at the right time. To me it just looked like a huge herd of kids of various ages milling around.

Our friends G&G dropped by as planned and we scoped out our two favourite farmers markets, which G hadn't been to. There were some goodies picked up and some other stuff that made it's way to the BBQ for a late lunch. Then a long chat. It's so nice having the time to chat with friends.

Then I was on the bike for a hard 90 minute ride. Longish warmup, 30 minutes at 190 watts or so, then some easy. Then some spin ups to past 300 watts to hold for 30 seconds. Cool down. Stretch. Felt really strong on the bike. Nice.

Back to the cross fit thing. I'm really impressed by these people. I know for a fact I can't do most of that stuff. Not even close. I tried a pull up today and almost made it. I'm pretty sure I couldn't do a muscle up. But what really, really impressed me were the one leg squats. The really, really low one leg squats. Holy cap! I've been doing one leg squats for a while, and the limitation is my knees. They start squeaking at me if I go too deep. I suspect that if I went further they'd give up and I'd fall on my butt, and possibly never walk again.