Michelle had some specific stroke questions. We worked on that, and she says she made significant progress. She is swimming faster, and looking more and more like a swimmer. Not a swinger. We were working on some of the subtleties of arm recovery, where the fingers point during the stroke, and where elbows point. When you're first learning it's all thrash and flail and trying not to drown. As you learn the stroke you start moving forward more, and can rely on your body doing some things without thinking about them. Then you can start tuning things up.
I've done the math elsewhere, but the time differences from the time your fingers enter the water, you reach out, catch the water, get your forearm vertical, move your body past your arm, then pull it out are all small fractions of a second. Until you can feel the difference between too soon or too late, and reliably see the difference in your swim time, it's going to be a struggle. Even though I swim a bit faster than Michelle, I'm going through the same thing, trying to tune my stroke to go faster yet. Otherwise she will catch up, keep up, and then pass me and I'll never hear the end of it!
I got my shoulders stretched out, carefully. There were some interesting clunks in them shortly after getting out of bed. I was sure to warm up carefully before working things. It was all good.
There was a swim meet happening as we got started. Zillions of kids. After our swim I timed some of the guys, maybe mid teens or so. They were swimming 100 m freestyle in under a minute, and not looking like they were trying too hard. Maybe it was qualifying heats. In comparison, I'm really pleased if I break 90 seconds.
It's odd to walk directly to the locker and dry off enough to get into run pants. Which are hard to put on if your legs are damp, in case you were wondering. Not shorts; it was about 4 C, just after dawn. We ran downstream along the Elbow path, curving around Stampede park and up to the new pedestrian bridge over the river beside 9th Ave. Then back along the same path, doing a fartlek game. Lots of fun, even if it took most of the run for my legs to feel light. 6K, 41 minutes.
I was thinking of all the runs I've done on various parts of the pathway over the years. Maybe I should get a paper version of it, and highlight where I've run, and a different colour for where I've biked. You might be surprised to know I've run on the Nose Creek path north of 64th Ave, which is a very long way from here. That might be a fun thing, to plan different runs to cover the entire network.
A couple photos along the way.
I've often looked out these windows, but never in. There we are, both of us taking a photo of us looking like we're standing in the pool.
I hadn't known Michelle took this shot, me peering in at the swimmers warming up.
Back home I decided it was time to clean bottles. One of the great pleasures in life is giving someone a case of wine and having them rave about it. In this case it was our wonderful financial advisor. The joke is that the wine is free, but the bottle deposit is $10. She nicely rinsed out the bottles.
All I had to do was deal with the labels. Some of the labels have been long gone from my cellar, so it was fun to see them again. Cleaning is a periodic thing. I typically let about a dozen bottles pile up and do them when I'm in the mood to be soothed. Cleaning bottles, and hand washing dishes can be a very soothing activity. With all the returns, and being a little behind there were 36 to do, but Curtis helped!
As some of you so astutely noted, I'm still at work. One of my long time buddies there, hired shortly after me, has resigned. One fewer person I know well enough to take to coffee. The tech loaned to us from a client company has gone back as well, though she might return. There are now 3 people there I know well enough to chat to over coffee.
Breaking up the ginormous 50K row xl is big enough that I actually drew a little map on my whiteboard to keep track. The last thing the world I need is to lose track of exactly what I'm manipulating while I'm in the middle of it. I've got about half the squares filled in with file names. Then covert them to CSV. Then manipulate more in notepad. Sigh. Maximo, how I love thee.
Who doesn't love a cat snoozing in the sun?
Thank you for patiently showing me a better arm/hand position. This was a real AHA! moment. Thrash and flail like Bambi on ice. Yes. That's exactly what it was like starting out. Slight correction: You swim much faster than "a bit" faster than me BTW. ;) How cool would that be to see a heat map of all your runs? I think RunKeeper can do it by city but I don't know how to do it by individual.
ReplyDelete