Vacation, as promised

Yesterday was really the first day of my vacation, only being in the office a couple hours and all. It started with an odd swim. For the pool with the open lanes, there was no pace clock, so I did a bunch of drill, playing with ALL the toys. I'm getting used to the centre line snorkel, and it works really well when doing kick drills. I've been watching some Katie Ledecky swim videos, and holy doodle can that girl swim! But I was watching one of the other girls, how her arm bent at the elbow to get vertical in the water. I was thinking she must be a mutant, because my arm sure doesn't bend like that,  even doing the arm rotating thing.

I did a careful inspection of the lane rope plastic disc thingies as I kicked my way down the pool without fins. It took the better part of forever. I was seriously thinking of counting and naming the discs, wondering if I had enough time to do them in alphabetic order. I see other people doing this, and they go way faster. Some even do the breast stroke kick with a flutter board, and go down the pool. I wouldn't dream of trying that. The bit of free style I did felt strong and fast, but remember I have other delusions too.

Shoveled the driveway more, doing a better job than the pre-dawn lick and promise. Ate some lunch, and while drinking wine, my lap was invaded. Both cats were determined to be in my lap. There was a bunch of subtle cat shoving and aggressive licking.

Meanwhile, I finished the wine, and was so warm and comfy, lulled by stereo purrs, I drifted off. I'm told I didn't snore.

In the evening I drank more wine, and explored the iTV offerings. I got all excited when I found Childhood's End, and The Expanse! I'll be buying both of those and watching. The first is an old favourite from my early SF reading days, and I'm dying to see how they adapted it to the screen. The second has been getting rave reviews, some calling it the best science fiction show since BSG.

It was lovely sleeping in this morning, and having the time to enjoy the coffee, and the lap cats. They were totally there, of course. I love how Curtis's face emerges from the shadow, and wish the photo could do justice to his beautiful eyes.

I was out shoveling again, putting snow on the flower boxes, and cleaning up after people that walk beside the sidewalk, kicking snow onto the neatly shoveled walk. What sort of perverted criminal does that? Plus some photos. The sculpture is even prettier dressed up in snow.

Anyone want to join me for Christmas drinkies? I found the chairs.

Since that got me all warmed up I hopped on my bike for a good spin session. 60 minutes, with the main set being 2.15 watts/Kg for 15 minutes. I was hoping for 20 but my spin was starting to fall apart and I didn't want to push it. Heart rate was about 150 or so, which is about as fast as I want it to go for any length of time.

What this means is that the cheat sheet I did up a few years ago, giving training ranges for recovery, endurance, tempo, and VO2 Max paces are pretty close. My legs aren't quite there yet, but my heart and lungs seem good to go. This is reassuring.

Some of you might now want to scroll quick past this picture, me all sweaty after that big set. It used to be I felt icky getting sweaty. Now I love it, and the bike is the best way to safely get the effort up to max sweaty.

Lunch, in a few minutes. Wine. Maybe another nap.