Some fitness babble, and flowers to reward you

Let me rewind. 3 weeks ago I ran the Millarville Half Marathon. It didn't kill me, so I guess it made me stronger. I've been a bit of a slacker since then, only running and swimming occasionally.  But first, to get everyone's attention, here is the awesome Michelle (#BRBE) after a one hour swim, and a 2:15 run. I was along for part of it. A little over 3 hours of workouts, and still smiling!

She was a total champ supporting me along the way to the half. Now I (and others) are supporting her  on her training for Calgary 70.3, and then IMZ in November. For those not in the tri community, that's Ironman Arizona, 3.8 K swim, 180 K bike ride, and a 42.2 K run, all one right after the other. There will be a watching party, time and place to be announced.

My hips are feeling less cranky, and I think my shoulders are doing better, and I'm trying to build a retirement fitness routine. Both my swim and run are a bit slow now, and being on the bike has been almost non-existent.

I knew going into today's run that if I made 10 K I'd be really happy, but didn't really think it would happen. I knew that running the whole 2:15 was right out. We hit the pool first. That felt slow and clunky at first, then settled in. Then it was down to Fish Creek to run in the (mostly) shade, before it got really hot.

8K nice and easy came up with my hamstrings talking to me a bit, so I decided to have a nice walk to cool down (such as it is), rather than push through. The next little while is going to be lots of that. Swim or run till complaints happen, then cool down. With any luck the distances will increase gradually. The plan is to get on the bike periodically. I will need to do some research to figure out what time/distances I should aim for.

No races in mind. I was sort of thinking of pushing for Chaparral, but then got asked to do the photos for it. That was an easy yes, and I've done a bit of research about getting better race photos. Maybe I'll race it next year.

The retirement groove is settling in. No rush. I figured I'd take a week of "vacation", then start "retirement." Stay tuned to see how that's going.

Here's some more of the recent photos. The questing H&C blossom from a different view. This gives you a sense of how small an area the macro photo from yesterday was zoomed into. As a hint, I could print that one in superb detail (better than what you seen on screen) 18x12, or even 24x16. Just saying.

The peony in the back has the most amazing full blossoms. I caught the morning light just right.

Yet another lily. I'm quite taken with this shot for a bunch of reasons. I remember it being a bit more orange than that, but I'm not going to complain about the purple. There was almost no tweaking in Lightroom for this.