They made me stop! and a snippet.

I was so disappointed. I was on a roll. Doing so good. Feeling so strong and smooth, so in the zone. Then I got a red flutter board in my face.

Let's start with the Monday swim. Only 500 m then a bunch of intervals. For some reason my nose clips weren't working very well, and my flip turns were floppy.

Good stretch session in the evening.

Tuesday, no run. No run at all. I was feeling blah about it, and while I was fairly sure I'd be happy I went, I didn't. It got really windy and cold while I would have been out there. I had a nice dinner instead, dealt with some issues, and did a bunch of stretching for my tight legs. I really enjoyed sitting in the chair with the heat and vibrating pad. Keeping the cats off so I could write was very difficult.

The swim this morning was awesome, until it suddenly wasn't. I knew getting in it would be good.
1 K , 18:50, feeling smooth and strong, thinking about various NaNoWriMo novel plot points.
1.5 K, 28:35 or so, really happy with how it was going, communing with my inner shark, thinking the walls were showing up awfully quickly.
1.75, K 33:15 or so, looking forward to first 2 K swim in some time.
And that's where I got the red flutter board.

They were nice about it, saying they'd given me all the time they could, but the incoming swim group was about to get started. I was disappointed at first, and wanted to jump into the other pool to finish. It was a bit of a zoo, then realized 2 K at a brisk pace might be a bit much for a first in a long time.

What I like about this is that I wasn't really thinking of my stroke. I wasn't trying to swim fast. But it was smooth and consistent, and felt great!

In more cerebral events, the NaNoWriMo novel is coming along well. I'm 15,500 K words and it's flowing fairly well too. There will be lots of revision, of course. Much of what I've written so far is an alternative take on what I've done before. I wrote a new, faster way for Dwen to meet a particular character, and I've made some tweaks in other things. Still, I'm getting into some of the meat here. The swim really helped. There is a little snippet if you scroll past the cat photo.

We don't let the cats into our bedroom for a variety of reasons. The main one has to do with the desire to sleep through the night. They are convinced that the secrets of the cat universe are stored there, or perhaps food we haven't told them about. Here they are trying to get in. I am having to work fairly hard holding the door open just a crack.

Snippet

“Well Dwen, not to jinx you or anything, but you seem to be well past that rough patch of no sleep. What did the trick?” Mitch asked. They had just got to the main control room and were going through the accumulated paperwork since their last set of shifts.

Dwen put down a stack of memo’s, her finger keeping place. “I’m not sure. I did take a hit of Ny-Quil and that’s what got me through that set of nights I was right out of it. But we all know where that road goes.”

Everybody nodded. The City had some people in the HR department that specialized in the issues facing people on shift work. One of the first things they told people was that sleeping pills were a slippery slope that got very steep very quickly. 

“I finally broke down and saw the sleep therapist that the City recommends. It sounds weird to get help to do something I’ve been doing almost every day of my life, but there you are. Mostly I was doing all the right things. We all are. I changed a few habits and that helped. But she thinks something is troubling me that I can’t admit yet, and until it comes out, I’m going to have periodic trouble sleeping. So that’s a bunch of whatever. What did work was they lent me one of those white noise machines. That worked so well I went and bought one.”

“I tried one of those. Turns out I’m a thrasher and wrapped the cords around my neck. That wasn’t so good,” Les said.

“She suggested I drape the cords over the headboard, rather than off to the side. I thrash too, they’re all twisted in the morning.”

“I might have to try that.”

“It seems to have worked. It’s nice to have you back to your usual self,” Mitch said. “This has been an example of what I was talking about when you guys joined the crew.” He nodded at Kent, Kate, and Blair. “Dwen was having trouble sleeping, and it affected her work. It’s happened with me and Ken over the years, and it could happen to any of us. We have to be here for each other, and you all were for Dwen. Thank you. But what’s important is that she didn’t let it go on. A word to the wise.” He returned to his paperwork.