Road to Nepal, you flirt you

I am playing hooky from work right this minute. Yay me! Though since I'm the one that sets my hours, I suppose that's not as cheaty as it sounds.

It started with a swim this morning. The training pool was closed, and only four lanes were open in the other pool. We watched my buddy Katie navigating the complete GONG SHOW going on in the four open lanes. I couldn't believe it. Two guys standing there, watching the chaos, decided to add to it. One fell off the ladder going in, and nearly landed on someone. The other jumped in and headed up the middle where the lane rope would be, dodging people left and right. What an idiot. I was wishing for a long shepherd's crook to haul them out by the neck.

We slipped off to the dive tank and practiced technique till the swim club cleared out of the other lane. I love swimming in the dive tank. It's so big, and well lit, and is such a fun place to play. No wonder the snychro swim girls always have a big smile.

Then we were into the other pool. Michelle is really looking like a swimmer now! I churned along, mostly doing technique work, but busted out some good stuff. First was 2 hard 100's, 87 seconds and 91 seconds with a 30 second recovery. Then a bit later after some drill, 5x100m on 2 minutes, at 99, 100, 100, 99, 100. I'm really pleased with that, though I was getting close to the retaste zone on that last one. By my normal interval rules I should have tried for number 6, but I knew better.

I was having fun focussing on my technique while chatting with my inner shark. He showed up in the dive tank, and followed us to the other pool, though he wasn't so thrilled with the cloudiness of it. My swim was feeling quite strong, and he was encouraging various elements of my stroke. Today was mainly recovery and catch, working on my roll and breathing out the whole stroke. I'm still not sure why that's supposed to be faster, or if it's making a difference for me. It turns out my inner shark has been off hob-nobbing with my book characters. Who knows what they are getting up to? When I asked, all he gave me were hints that could be called lurid and cryptic.

The novel has been on a bit of a pause lately, as other workout stuff has picked up. And taxes. It took a bit of doing to get it all together, and I missed the one slip that details how much I paid last year as installments. Oops! This weekend I must, I simply must get my desk tidied up and get started on organizing business taxes. What fun.

It's such a beautiful summer day out there, mid to high teens, sunny and lovely. I haven't taken Estela down Road to Nepal in several years now, and I could hear the road calling to us in four part harmony. For those who haven't done it, it's a fabulous training ride. All hills, all the time, nice pavement, not too much traffic, and a parking lot at the top. Once down and back (37 tough K) is a good workout, especially if you push on the hills. Two is a super workout. I've never done it twice in a row.

I listened, and bailed out of work at lunchtime, using up some extra hours from last month, so I'm not behind on billable hours. It didn't take long to get ready. Wow. Even more wind once I got out of the neighbourhood. It was straight from the south and strong. It normally takes me about 20 minutes to do the 7.5 K down to 22X. Today was 30 minutes even. That is the slowest time ever, I think.

Then down the first hill, slowly. Up the other side was brutal. I was going less than 7 kph for much of it. That hill is normally 10 kph or so. Remember what I was saying last week about being a week and feeble reed? On the way back there were several times I was going 50 kph, in a dead calm. Let's not talk much about the little gusts from side to side.

After taking stock at the top of the hill, and watching my bike computer tick over 40 minutes, I decided it would be smart to head back. I think if it hadn't been windy I'd have gone further. Maybe. 40 minutes out, 20 minutes back. Yes, twice as fast. That's what a bit of wind will do. After all the slow bits, I prefer to remember the max speed, 75 Kph, per the bike computer. 1 hour, 20 Km total.

Here's the graph of the ride.

And garden things are blooming! I don't know what these two little blue things are, but they're growing already. We're going to try to get out into the lawn and garden to start cleaning up after winter, even though we've got another month where it could quite possibly snow.