Proud, yes proud of my inadequacies

Our cats have made it clear that we are completely inadequate as humans. Failures in every respect. Not enough lap time. Not enough crunchies and too much wet food that's good for them. We banish them to the basement at night. We don't appreciate them singing the song of their people. We are stingy with the catnip. We don't have near enough cat toys for them, and we don't play with the ones that are here often enough. We don't pet and scritch them often enough, or in just the right spot. We don't let them out so they can hunt their mouse and supplement the completely inadequate diet we feed them. It goes on and on. We hear about this at length. Often. Frequently. In 2 part cat harmony, such as it is.

Now for reality. We poll other cats regularly, and we are assured we are the best humans ever, that that all these other cats would like to live the life of Curtis and Celina. Every other cat we talk to! Every time! There we are, out working our fingers to the bone to afford the best food ever for them, and we get no recognition. None at all. We provide the best windows, and more cat toys than they know what to do with. Even a laser! What more do they want?

So while they might think we are inadequate, I'm proud of it! PROUD, do you hear me you little fur bearers? Here they are, enjoying the life. One of my work buddies was fond of the phrase, "I aspire to the lifestyle my wife and children have." For me, it's the cats.

Today was the first day trying to swim the CSS thing. Look here if you've missed recent blogs.

That 1:52 is a pain in the patootie, and from previous experience I knew it would lead to trouble. So I rounded things off, and decided to try to swim 100 m (short course) in 1:50, with 10 seconds rest. It all went really well, so I think I'll stick with that for a little while and see what happens.

Today the first one was 1:45 without even trying. Then the next 19 were never slower than 1:51 or faster than 1:48. I'll take that for consistency. The first 1000 m was easy and relaxing. It got a bit tougher over the next 500 m, having to work a bit and think about timing. The 1:51 happened here when I had a sloppy flip turn. The last one was 1:49 but I was working a bit there.  By the end I knew I'd had a good workout. My arms were tired by not falling off, and my lungs had that well aerated feeling.

The idea is to be aerobic the entire time, and I was. Whereas 4 x 50 at 45 to 50 seconds, on 60 seconds will get me out of breath pretty quick, a 1:50 per 100 pace is do able. Heck, twice now I've swum 1K at that pace without stopping. Perhaps this will get me swimming further at that same pace.

The idea for the next little while is to do this once a week, on about the same timing. It's convenient at least. Trying to go a much quicker is going to get anaerobic pretty quick. One long steady swim a week. And once a week do what I feel like doing. I have a goal. I need to be in shape for the Calgary 70.3 swim leg as part of a relay team.

I had the pool to myself for most of the swim, which was very nice. I could see the clock easily and didn't have to worry about someone else in the lane messing up my timing. While sitting in the hot tub I was the only person in the building, other than the life guards. I love the sound of the pool when it's quiet like that.

Some days I think I need to build a house that has an indoor 25 m pool. That's 81 feet, and our lot is 150 feet long, but the back yard garden takes up 32 or 33 feet, and there's a utility right of way beside the house. Then again, at about $800 per year, I can buy a lifetime of pool membership cheaper than building a pool. But so much less convenient.