Winter floral and cat reaction to Christmas

Linda did some lovely arrangements in the flower vases, using cedar boughs, evergreen branches, and all sorts of artistic odds and ends around the house. Then she did some smaller bouquets, here's one example.

The cats don't care that it's Christmas and the world is going nuts. They just lie there in a heap looking cute. I want to do the same, preferably cuddling them and listening to them purr. It's very soothing.

For the swimmers of you, BRBE is working to break some of the bad habits in her stroke. Now, the first thing to recognize is that stroke got her through the IMAZ swim like a champ, much faster than she expected.

But. BUT! (But not butt.) We both know she can swim faster and she asked me to help. I see no reason she can't swim as fast or faster than I do. So much better streamlined leading to less drag, higher muscle to cross section volume, to say nothing of younger with a still functioning metabolism.

As a general rule, most people have several things wrong with their stroke. Sometimes it's a muscle weakness, sometimes it's a range of motion issue, and some simply don't know better. But the big thing most people do wrong in freestyle is thrash their arm forward with a plop, let the elbow sink for a while, then try to grab a handful of water and drag it to their hip. It hurts my soul to see this happening, so I try not to look.

Of course, only the best is good enough for BRBE. She gets a detailed analysis of what needs to be fixed. The first thing to work on is elbows and catch. Then elbows and catch. Maybe something else and back to elbows and catch. She is going to get sick of me talking about high elbows, water feel, and the subtleties of the catch. We might go into the teach pool to swim in really shallow water and see if her manicure survives.

The plan is to take apart BRBE's stroke right down to the fraction of a second then build it up again to be more efficient, stronger, more friendly with the water, with a side of a Jedi swimmer mind trick. There is something to think about every fraction of a second, and usually multiple things going on at the same time. It makes for complex explanations sometimes. And people wonder why I'm never bored swimming.

Last week was the introduction, as it were. Today was the first working day. She says she's having fun and the big grin backs that up.

No, there are no current photos or videos of her swimming. Maybe later.

Advice on paddling

A buddy asked my advice on paddling. Once a week ok? With her kids I suggested daily, with applications of duct tape in between. Turns out I had the wrong idea. I still think it's good advice, in some circumstances.

She meant using the hand paddles in the swimming pool. Now that we're all on the same page I can get started.

Sometimes you see people with big flat paddles on their hands. Often they've got a blue and white floatie thing tucked between their thighs. Back and forth they go. What's the point?

First of all, swimming well is an enormously technical skill. There are a zillion subtle things your body has to do in a very specific sequence in a very short period of time, over and over. This is why the swim kids are in the pool swimming endless K after endless K practicing their stroke. It's how they can swim so quickly.

Second is drag. Water is ruthless about slowing you down. Every little thing you do wrong is punished by the water. Bubbles trailing off your hand? A waste of energy and an increase in drag. Hips low and legs trailing? HUGE drag! If I had a choice about having my drag in the water reduced 10% or getting 10% more strength in my swimming muscles, I'd take the drag reduction in a heart beat, any time.

Learning to swim faster is practically the definition of endless cycles of  continuous improvement. When you first swim your body is in there thrashing away, burning energy by the bucket load, and going nowhere. Gradually you figure out the stroke and you start to move down the pool. You work on body position, and kick, and you move faster, but then your stroke needs to change, which leads to kick changes, and so on.

You have to have the courage and discipline to let some things go temporarily while you focus on other things. At first it's trying to move your arms and breathe while the kick could be anything. Then you'll think about your kick, and your stroke will fall apart. Gradually it all starts working together, even if you aren't thinking about it particularly. Then you start watching the clock, trying different things with the stroke, tweaking this, adjusting that, seeing what works, as defined by the clock. Faster is always better unless you got there with a shitty brute force ugly stroke.

There are two points to using the paddles. One is technique, one is strength.

Paddles can help you tune your technique, or they can ruin it. They magnify what your hand should be feeling in the water. They can help you learn a clean hand entry and to feel the catch. You need to pay attention to what your hands are doing from the fraction of a second before they hit the water, right through to when they leave the water. If you can't feel it with your hands, the paddles might teach you the wrong things.

They can help you build your strength by letting you push against more water. Or you'll injure yourself just as surely as trying to pick up too heavy a weight in the gym. The stroke should be slower and mindful of the forces you are exerting. If you have a shitty windmill stroke, using paddles is just about guaranteed to injure your shoulder. If you can't do the stroke right, you shouldn't use paddles.

Once your stroke is pretty good (clean entry, good catch, early vertical forearm, strong pull, relaxed recovery) then you can start thinking about paddles. Then think about them a little longer. What more can you do with your stroke? Have you tried faster turnover? There's a little clicker thingie you can tuck into your swim cap to help you make your stroke more regular. If you normally swim at say, 50 strokes a minute, try turning it faster, and swim at 55. Then 60. Then faster. Learn to turn your arms over faster and still get a good stroke. Find the stroke rate that suits your bodily build and cardio engine. It's different for everyone, and it might change for you over time as you get better. (I goofed on the stroke rates in the first edition. Oops!)

The other end is a slower stroke where you count strokes per length. Today I was swimming 19 or 20, sometimes 21 per 25 m at the very end of a 2 K swim. That's kind of typical for a good recreational swimmer, but it's not a magic number, it just happens to be my number. Whatever you swim at now, (What do you mean you don't know how many strokes it takes to get down the pool? Count next time. It's an important number.) try swimming 25 m with fewer strokes. Lots fewer, and not just by doing only kick. I can fairly reliably do it in 13 long slow strokes.

Then you work on both at once with your golf score. Swim 50 m and keep track of time to the second. Count every stroke, each arm. Add them together. Lower is better. If you aren't at least thinking about puking at the end, swim faster. This is at almost all out, as fast as you can swim clean. Once you've made some improvements here, you'll know your swim is improving. I haven't done it for a while but was usually around 80 when my swim mojo was happening. Maybe I'll do it next swim.

Now lets talk about the pull buoy, that hourglass shaped thingie I was talking about. What it does is add some flotation to your lower body. Ideally your body should be moving through the water like you were swimming down a narrow (just wider than your elbows), shallow (water as deep as from your elbow bone to your fingertips) trench, moving through the water like a spear. Your head should be low, your spine straight, butt right at the surface, and your heels and toes just splashing the surface. The buoy helps you get there so you know what it feels like. Then you build the core muscles and learn the body mechanics to get that position without the buoy. Don't tell me you can't float. If my tall skinny female buddy can swim flat in the water like a torpedo, you can too, at least the flat part.

I'd suggest the buoy first. That will help body position so you swim a bit faster with the same stroke. Pretend your big toes are tied together with thread. Some people put a band around their ankles to keep from kicking. Once you are swimming faster you can tweak your stroke, then try to do that without the buoy. You can't injure yourself swimming with the buoy. Hint, once that is going well, tie a towel to the band while using the buoy, then try band without the buoy, then try band and towel without the buoy.

And this is without even talking about drills to improve stroke (fist, and many others), breathing (3, 5, 7, 9), core (dolphin), or the biggie, getting someone to video your stroke. There is no better way to improve your stroke.

Get the idea there are lots of ways to improve without risking injury from using hand paddles?

In other news my swim this morning was excellent!
500 m warmup, 8:55
5x100 in 1:38 on 2
1000 m 18:15 nice and relaxed.
(No hand paddles or buoy.)

This photo is similar to one the other day, but is a panorama of 4 shots stitched together. I hadn't noticed the dog walker when I took the shots.

Swimming and writing

And I'm off to the races!

Before the swim I was hanging out in the bleachers watching the swim kids kick their brains out because it was really busy and I wanted a contemplative swim. Lots of them can flutter kick down the pool faster than I can swim it. Whoosh! Still, I was watching their feet, and started thinking about ways to change up my kick.

Several times during the swim I thought I was swimming faster. I started in a lane with the other people swimming slower than me. Soon two of them left, and I didn't even have to pass them. Two others joined and I later learned they were a Rob and Sara that recently did the Germany Roth Challenge. I swim a little bit faster than she does, he swims a lot faster than me, and looks more relaxed doing it.

1000 m, 19:30 long course, nice and easy.
4x100 on 2, 1:35 to 1:45, then 100 really strong, 95 seconds. All of this was with me concentrating on my kick. For most triathletes our kick is lazy. We know our legs have to power us through a long bike and run, so we let our arms to do the work in the water. I'd read that you should kick from the hip with a straight leg. That doesn't get me anywhere. But it looks like the swim kids are bending their knees a bit and the flutter has a bit of vertical whip in it. So I tried that. Hmmm. So far so good, though I have to think about my roll now. There's always something.

500 easy, 9:30 or so, to top off a really good swim day.

At home after another coffee and second breakfast I buckled down to NaNoWriMo. After a bit of setup, and figuring how to get italic text to show up in my document to indicate what a person is thinking, I got a good start. I think there's going to be a lot of this character's thinking. So far his inside voice is a bit of a potty mouth. See the stats below. I might write more tonight, or I might watch Fargo the TV show.

Lastly, I clicked the camera shutter 2178 times in October. Of those, I liked 182 images enough to process in Lightroom and save to a separate folder. That's 8.3% which is a fairly high percentage of keepers as these things go. Then again, sometimes I develop things just for the practice.

Without further ado, here is the October image of the month. Ta da!

The young and the dead

Winter is still coming. The bit of snow and cold and fog is just a cold down. (Opposite of warm up, get it?) Part of enjoying a garden is knowing that it doesn't last. One of the Cana lilies was putting out a beautiful blossom at the beginning of October. We had hoped to have it make till the Thanksgiving long weekend, when the plan was to put the garden to bed. Covering the plants works for frost, but not prolonged cold.

Here's what's left of the Dahlias and the Cana lily.

There's still a few flowers going strong.

The plan this morning was to swim. We looked that the schedule and it said there were lanes open. We get to the pool and it's holy doodle! The parking lot was full. The only reason we found a spot is because they reserved some of the lot for us members. The pools were full, FULL! of kids warming up for a meet. The place was busy, but there were 4 lanes, as advertised.

I slipped in with a guy doing 50 m intervals in about 30 seconds, and stayed out of his way. Normally I wouldn't join such a big dog, but the other lanes were full and much slower. Another girl joined us and did much the same. After about a 300 m fast warmup I settled into the 50 m intervals as well, though they weren't strictly on the clock. My best was 40 seconds and most were 43 seconds. The main thing was trying for good form, and working on water feel, tuning my arm stroke, and trying to encourage my swim mojo.

Part of what makes swimming tough is that the water never lets up. It's always there, and in a pool theres never a current to push you along. It's almost 800 times as dense as air, so the slightest imperfection of stroke or body position is going to get punished. It becomes a mental game to keep your focus on your stroke, to keep doing the same thing again and again.

There's a trick where you hold out your hand palm up as if you're handing someone a piece of pizza. Your elbow bone is pointing down. When most people turn their hand over they rotate their wrist and the forearm bones, but the elbow bone is still mostly pointing down. It's impossible to get your forearm vertical in the water, out in front of your body where it will do some good. You need to rotate your hand until your thumb is pointing down, or even further if you can. Now feel where your elbow bone is pointing. It's mostly to the side. Leave it there and rotate your hand back to palm down. Now you're ready to do a stroke, and get your forearm vertical in the water so your paddle is bigger. As Michelle has said, it doesn't feel the least bit natural.

It was a good swim. I did another 300 cool down after everybody left the lane. From there it was the hot tub, and watching the kids. I love watching them swim! Clearly I am not doing the same thing they are doing, and I watch to try to figure it out. The guy in my lane, for example, his stroke was a bit more splashy than mine but he's going a lot faster. Coached swimming several hours a day for nearly 20 years has nothing to do with it, I'm sure. High elbows, rhythmic, reach, catch, strong pull. Sigh. I'm sure his kick is better too, but I couldn't see any of that.

The kids are wandering around, many in team T shirts. Some were wearing what looked like a hockey jersey. Some are wearing parkas. There are a bazillion of them, all milling around chatting to their buddies, warming up on deck, cheering on their team, getting ready to swim, whatever else is involved with a swim meet. I'm glad I'm not the adult trying to keep track of them.

The vibe is amazing. I wish I could bottle it. Most are keen to race and want to do well. They are eager and excited, and it shows. For some it seems to be old hat; they are going through what appears to be an established routine.

It was a great start to the day. I did a bit of puttering with getting things ready for winter.
After looking over the failed roses photo below, I was out for another bunch of shots today, trying to be more careful about focus. I'll see how they came out.

This other one I nailed the focus. The little window on the left is the whole photo. The big plant is about 2 inches across. In the lower left is a small square, but you might need to embiggen the whole image to see it. What's in the small square is what's showing on the big screen. I'll bet you didn't know hens and chicks were hairy.

swish, swash, crickle, CRACK! A naked patio.

Last you heard, my swim sucked, but but I didn't despair. I know these things come and go. Within a couple strokes of my Saturday swim, my inner shark rejoined me and I knew I was going to have a good swim. We had the choice of joining a sloppy breast stroker taking up a whole lane, or a slow crawl who was at least circle swimming. Within a lap of joining him, he went off to swim with the breast stroker and Michelle and I had a lane to ourselves.

I settled into the 18:30/k groove and actually finished the 1000 m a bit faster than that. Then 5x100 on 2, all 1:45 or faster. A bit of easy swim playing with my stroke a bit, then a blistering fast (for me) 88 second 100 m. Yay me. Another 200 m cool down, then HOT TUB!

My inner shark comes and goes, in the way of inner sharks. He was all about trying to keep up with the swim kids in the next lane. As if. But what it did do is help me keep my stroke clean, and that leads to a faster swim. I certainly wasn't putting any more effort into the swim, and if anything I wasn't breathing as hard. But that subtle difference in water feel made for a swim that was a minute faster per k.

I tried finding out what my inner shark has been up to, but he was a bit evasive. Secret shark stuff, no doubt. Maybe he's part of a team working on laser technology. He was more talking about the sloppy prey in the other next lane.

Michelle wasn't feeling the swim love so we worked on flip turns a bit. I'm puzzled by how she be simultaneously so buoyant, and so heavy in the water. She comes from a running background so it's no surprise her legs are heavy in the water as she swims. I have the same problem, (she has run muscles, I have a lead butt) and it's a subtle balance thing to fix, along with finding the right kick, and engaging the core, body balance, and a side of Jedi mind trick. I'm still working on it. But then when she wants to sink, as in an initial push off the wall, or to pick something off the bottom of the pool for good luck, there is no sink. I'm a bit puzzled by that.

Team aquatic had a swim sale, and I know you all will be devastated to learn that I did not find a skimpy little speedo I could model for you. Try to restrain your grief. All I got was some body wash. (Of which there is less to wash, I found out after a brief visit to the scale.)  Michelle was in there trampling and elbowing looking for the deals, and scored!

Later, the CRACK happened. We went to a bike swap/sale, but it was pretty picked over when Linda and I got in. I was a little intrigued by a recumbent, and thought I would give it a try.

That photo catches the exact moment I tried to relax on the bike only to find the back of the seat and headrest was too low. I think if the room had been quieter, people would have heard the echo, the crack was that loud. It didn't hurt at the time, and nobody has mentioned me screaming. You could be forgiven for thinking so. I pedaled around the parkade, amusing people by going under the mostly empty bike racks. Getting up was a bit of a trial. They wanted $1700 for that bike. It was interesting to ride, but not that interesting.

Later during ice cream, (chili chocolate and guide mint) I tried to sneeze and thought someone was stabbing me in the right shoulder. Holy doodle! That was very painful, and essentially ended that day's activities. Some careful rubbing against a door frame, some gentle stretches on the yoga mats, a pain pill, and a good night's sleep and I'm feeling much better.

Friday was a 5K, 34:22 run in the warmth. This is only slightly faster than my last run, but it felt way better!

Lots of puttering around the house over the weekend working on a ginormous to do list. Which leads me to these before, during, and after photos. We put up this flimsy diagonal lattice because we had no other choices at the time. The old one was falling apart. Last fall we found a source for some good quality lattice, and decided to replace before the flowers got too big. I was thinking June...

The climatis on the right is already intertwined, and we had to cut the lattice apart a bit to keep it. This one used to live on the back fence. When we did the backyard renos a couple years ago we cut it off that lattice, back to the roots basically, and gave it another chance here. It seems to be doing really well. The other one, on the left side of the same box isn't doing so well. I think it's a grump old climatis that doesn't believe it's spring, and wants to snooze a little longer, and take it's time getting going. Lots of days I feel the same way.

The naked patio.

Now the new lattice. I think it looks much better!

The rescued climatis is gently hooked on with little clamps till it regrows it's own. If the light was better you could see the purple blossoms.

And just because, some of the flowers in the side garden.

After that was a lovely 11 K 1:21 (7:20/K pace) run along the WID canal, starting at 50th Ave, down to Glenmore and back. My heart rate was nice and steady about 130, which is a little bit higher than I'd like. We found a little picnic spot along the bike path, several tables and a little fire pit, trees to shelter from the wind. The only problem is access. This is pretty much a ride access only. No place nearby to park and carry in picnic stuff. We didn't get rained on though the wind was picking up and the clouds getting darker. It started raining about an hour after getting home and a good thing too. It's dry here.

All in all a very busy weekend. For things crossed off on my to do list, I'm batting about 74%, that is 17 of 23 things listed.  One of those things is a big huge complicated thing, and I was pretty sure it wasn't going to all get done. I should break it up into sub-tasks. One of the tasks (tidy desk and put away tax paperwork) is pretty much the fifth labour of Hercules, and I'm well started. Nowhere near done. I might yet get one more done, and one task is dependent on another, in that if I do the other within the month, I don't need to do the first.

And your weekend?

Forward at inner shark speed

Today was a good swim day. At first I wasn't sure I'd go. We finished season 2 of House of Cards last night, not late, but late enough and me tired enough from the spin yesterday that if I was asleep I was going to stay asleep. It's quite different than the BBC version, but equally good. I liked Ian Richardson (playing Francis Urquhart) and the way he broke the fourth wall. Kevin Spacey doesn't do it so well, but you see more the scheming and counter-scheming.

But no, habits die hard sometimes. I was up and ready. Talisman had only 4 lanes for us public, but Deb, Michelle and me got lucky and scored a lane to ourselves. Well, it started out that way, then another woman joined us. At first I was a bit worried, I was coming in for a turn, and she was floundering around at the end, right in the middle of the lane. Someone else was there too, so the turn was careful. Then we sorted ourselves out and it was all good with the 4 of us.

Then my inner shark came out! I was having a fairly strong swim, 500 m warmup in 9:05 or so, even with some waits to pass. It was the surges to pass that brought out the shark within. I could feel the water on my hands and forearm. Swimmers know what I mean. I'd slow down slightly, waiting for oncoming traffic to clear, then accelerate hard to pass, then relax again. Some of my 50 m times were amazing for an ongoing pace! One was around 45 seconds, then back to my normal pace. I don't know if fartlek applies to swims, but that's what it felt like.

What was interesting was that I didn't really have to look to know where people were. A part of me was keeping track of where the prey , I mean, where the other swimmers were. It seemed to be easy to time the passes. For a while a guy in the next lane was trying to race me, flailing down the lane, splashing water everywhere. Then he'd stop to rest, and I'd keep going, periodically passing my lane buddies. It made for an interesting swim, and a really good workout. They seemed to be having a good time as well. Hot tub, but no sublime moment like the other day.

I'm not sure of the exact numbers. 500 m in 9:05 or so. 500 m pull about the same time. 500 m mostly kick, lots slower. 500 m nice and easy, working on stroke mechanics, thinking really hard about the water feel on both the front and back of my hands, what my shoulders were doing, and body position in the water. Played some drafting games with Michelle. A bit of this and that, with a bit of chat, in the water a little under 90 minutes or so.

On the way home I got to thinking about the state of the world, and my place in it. Part of it was fueled by watching Frank scheming his way up the ladder in House of Cards. I have known people like that in real life, and will go to significant effort to avoid them. Part of it is getting used to having more time for me, and what I want to do with that time.

There are things to accomplish, but I need to be careful I don't bite off more than I can chew. I'd like to say there is a step by step plan, with goals, and milestones, and targets, but that's corporate bullshit. I'm trying to do this day by day. Get up, do stuff, go to bed. Eat good food. Hang out with interesting people. Go places I haven't been.

Some of that happened Friday. The sunrise was beautiful, and one of our plants is looking out at the winter landscape in a blossomy sort of way.

We did a bit of a date day, starting with breakfast at Blue Star Diner. Awesome food. Bridgeland has become quite a hotbed of good restaurants. Then out doing some shopping for the house, with a side trip out to the deep SE to pick up the stuff. I'm very please I didn't walk off the truck dock. Then some errands along the way home, buying a The Nightingale, by Kristin Hannah for the book club. Into the Italian Centre to check it out.

Along the way in the SE I was looking over all the various buildings. Manufacturing plants, warehouses, offices, whatever, connected by road and rail, as well as an invisible network of electric and data cables. Wireless antennas. Water and sewer lines. Gas and oil pipelines. It's an amazingly complicated network, and it mostly works very well. At least until some idiot demonstrates that they are not up to the cognitive demands of driving, and screws it up for everybody in the area.

The point of it all is to connect the people who want to buy or rent various products with the people producing them. In the middle is that intricate network. So many different things, all with their product codes, specifications, assembly instructions, manufacturing requirements, and so many people keeping track of where the stuff is, how many of them are there, who has bought them, or sold them, and the associated flow of dollars.

Perceived as a whole it's baffling complex, with inter-relationships out the ying-yang. Even with computer help, nobody can track everything about even one thing, let alone everything. That's why us data geeks take slices, or views of things. My boss sometimes rolls his eyes as I get pedantic about what exactly is making up the number I'm quoting, because it matters. You can't do set arithmetic if you don't know that your sets are congruent, or rather, you can provided you know exactly how the are incongruent and take that into account.

While we were picking up our new faucets, the warehouse clerk came back with one instead of two. One of them had been accidentally put on a pallet that was spoken for another job. She couldn't take it, even though it was mine, till they sorted it out. Somebody hadn't consulted the system when assembling the order. This seems to happen to me a lot lately. The computer system says they have x in the bin, but the clerk only finds y, and has no idea where the other is. Even with all the bar codes, and scanning, and tracking, and inventory counts, and point of sale systems, stuff still ends up where it doesn't belong.

Until very recently we used to throw many things into the landfill. For several reasons now, we are starting to track what used to be waste. We want to recycle products and materials. This means knowing what's in them, and developing a process to stream like with like, to go to the appropriate places. More tracking. More complexity.

If you have a kid contemplating what they want to do for a living, they could do much worse than go into data analytics or business analysis. These systems are only going to get more complicated, and they need people to build nice process diagrams to explain to software engineers how to modify existing software to cope. It's straightforward to track new things with bar codes. Old things with obsolete bar codes, or waste products with no bar codes are a different thing.

Then a hard bike spin in the afternoon, 1.5 hrs all up, with lots of short bursts at high effort. I like getting a good sweat on, but last time I was putting out that much effort I was snorfling sweat in as I breathed. Plus it dribbles/ pours down my glasses.

That isn't so much fun. I got a variable speed fan set up now,  with a remote even, and that makes the ride much nicer. I had to tie down the little piece of plastic over the trainer computer. Stupid Blogspot for unroatating it.

Thursday was a rest day. I was feeling knackered from the week, and glad it was only 4 days. Word is the lay-offs aren't done yet. Several of my IT buddies have been told they won't have jobs soon, May or June, or so. That reminds me of a New Yorker cartoon, a boss standing in front of the clerks desk, as he says, "I'm afraid we're going to have to let you go as of 4pm today, in the mean time keep up the good work."

That gives them several months to find a new project to work on, which is good because it might take that long. Looking for work now is tough sledding. There are companies hiring, but it's typically contract work, not employee, and they are asking for very specific skills. One good thing about times like these is they put some work into defining exactly what they want, which is good for everyone. If you don't have the skills, you don't waste your time applying. In busier times they might put out a job requirement that is so vague, it might as well be "can spell business analysis, and has used Visio."

The current read is still "Older, Faster, Stronger" I'm liking it, but it's a bit disconnected in some ways. She does a lot of name dropping about all these older athletes and times, but it's mixed in with her races, and I'm losing track of which one is which.

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.

Swim video commentary

I hadn't known Michelle brought her phone onto the pool deck. Here's one of the resulting videos. There's another, done in slo-mo for 50 m, and that's much longer, but you can actually see what's happening. If there is sufficient demand I'll post that one too.

So you've watched. If you want to see it on youtube direct, go here. I must admit it doesn't look as clear there, as it does on my own screen. There's some good and not so good. Lets begin at the beginning.

First 3 or 4 seconds, note that I was looking at the clock. You can't see it, but when you're trying to improve, the clock is your friend. When you swim faster you will know, and then you can think about what you were doing right, or what you've stopped doing wrong.

I slide down into the water and tuck onto my feet against the wall. As I push off I'm well below the surface. Many people push off by leaving their head out of the water, bring their feet up to the surface, and poke their butt out. This makes a horrible wake and slows you down right from the start.

At 5 seconds I'm nice and streamlined off the wall, already beginning to kick.

At 6 seconds I've just about completed my first stroke with my right arm. I could push off stronger and glide further with a dolphin kick. I think I'm about under the flags, but can't tell. Note that my head is still completely underwater. When your head is down, your hips and feet can be higher.

At 7 seconds, my right arm has recovered and my left is just beginning to stroke. My shoulder is still slightly out of the water because I haven't completely rolled more onto my right side. My upper arm is still slightly out of the water, but my hand has speared into the water. There is a complete lack of bubbles around my hand. My butt is right up at water level.

At 7 seconds and a bit, my left elbow is pointed at the ceiling. My right is just beginning to start the catch, you can see there is still a complete lack of bubbles. My head is tilted ever so slightly up, and should be flat in the water.

At 8 seconds, you can see my left hand is just about to enter the water, and my right has just begun the stroke. No bubbles, but my elbow is not as high as it could be. My head is flatter in the water, and I've just finished sucking in air. My left hip is at the surface.

At 8 and a bit seconds you can see my left hand has entered the water and my elbow is still out. No bubbles. I sound like I'm harping on it, but until you are swimming clean, every bubble is evidence of a sloppy stroke.

At 8 and a fraction more seconds I'm wincing at where my right elbow is. Way too low, and looks like it's leading my hand. I know better. You can see a little splash where my left elbow is in the water.

Still not quite 9 seconds, my right elbow is emerging from the water. My left hand is still out in front, reaching forward, preparing to catch. It might be hard to tell, but I'm looking straight down at the bottom of the pool.

Still not quite 9 seconds, right hand is just coming out of the water, although my wrist is bent too much. Left hand still hasn't started the catch, I'm looking straight down, hips at the surface.

Still (STILL!) not 9 seconds my right elbow is up and I'm bring my hand forward. My forearm is relaxed. Left hand still out in front, still looking down.

Still pre-9 seconds, I've rolled onto my left side a bit, and my right hand is preparing to spear the water. The left is just begun the catch. My hips are at the surface.

At 9 seconds (at last!) my right hand is straight out in front, no bubbles, and my left has disappeared. I'm looking straight down, you can see a tiny bow wave over my head. My shoulders are out of the water.

At 9 and a bit you can see my left elbow most of the way through the stroke, but not quite emerging. You can see a bit of a bow wave around my right hand, so it's just below the surface. The higher it is in the water, and the further forward when you start your catch, the more water you'll anchor yourself onto.

At 9 seconds and a bit more you can see the left elbow straight up and my right hand just starting the catch. There's a subtle shoulder thing happening here. As I've been stretched out, reaching forward with the one hand, I'm starting to recover with the other. As the recovering shoulder starts to catch up to the arm, the catch happens, and your shoulders swap positions one forward the other back. This helps drive power to the stroke, in conjunction with the roll.

You'd need a fast finger on the stop watch to time how long a stroke takes from say, entry around to entry again, but it's under 2 seconds.  When I time the strokes on my right hand, it's 16 seconds from the time the first right stroke starts, to the end of the 9th, is 15.5 seconds or so. You don't have time to think about it.

Skipping forward to about 10 seconds you can see me breathing to my right side. My elbow is just out of the water, my hand still in. My left eye is in the water, and my head is flat this time. The bow wave creates a bit of a dip in the water where my mouth is. This is one of the great challenges of swimming, in that you have to breath at very specific times, and for a very brief time. You need to power those lungs to SUCK IN air. The flatter you are in the water, with your shoulders back, the more your lungs can expand. I'm told good swimmer breath out slightly between breathing in, but I'm still working on that.

At about 13 seconds you can see my feet, and it looks like a big kick, but my left heel is up near the surface. An underwater shot would be better, but you can see I'm pretty flat in the water.

At 21 seconds I'm getting ready for a flip turn. At 22 seconds my head is curling down, and all you can see is my butt, just barely, then it is up and out of the water. Fast now, my heels come up out of the water, and I reach around with my toes, looking for the wall. This happens with my hips flipping open so I'm flat on my back in the water, just under the surface. If you stay turtled up it takes longer to get around and you'll sink like a stone, and your feet will end up on the wall much too high and you're likely to push off pointing down. At just on 24 seconds you see between the ripples that I've pushed off the wall, and I'm just beginning to roll onto my right side.

At about 24 seconds you can see me just breaking out of streamline. I'm on my right side, and I'm just about to stroke with my left hand. It's almost a sideways stroke, with my entire upper arm out of the water, and my forearm pointed straight down. My head is under water, and my hips are just coming to the surface.

By 27 seconds I'm back in the groove, left hand finishing another stroke. I'm breathing, one eye in the water, head point forward, not up, with my mouth in the little depression from the bow wave.

28 seconds the right arm is recovering, but look at my head, you see the back of my head is almost under water. Remember head down means hips up, means flatter and faster in the water. Michelle sometimes visualizes being pulled along by her hair in a pony tail.

During the mid 30 seconds, look at my feet. The kick is much tighter, and it's up near the surface.

At the very end I cruise it into the wall, where a competitive swimmer would take another stroke. You  might not notice, but I looked at the clock. Then I did a lot of heavy breathing.

19 strokes on the way out, 21 on the way back if I've counted right, for a golf score of 79. Not bad, but not terribly good either. I was getting sloppy.

My learnings from this, and especially from the slo-mo version? I need to work on keeping my elbows up. Always. A competitive swim coach would talk about my weak and feeble kick, and they'd be right. Being a triathlete swimmer gives me slightly different priorities. The biggest piece there is that my stroke is not smooth in the water. It jerks around, partly because I'm pulling hard, but also I'm not doing it as well as I could be. Really, you don't grab a handful of water, and throw it backwards. You anchor your forearm and hand vertically in the water, and slide your body past it. Think of it as a Jedi mind trick. I need to work on this. I already know when I slow my stroke down slightly and really focus on anchoring it, I swim faster. But then when I try to swim faster I get sloppy.

Just to put my time (39 seconds for 50 m) into perspective, that is 78 seconds for 100 m (my best time for that ever is 83 seconds and best recently is 87 seconds), and 780 seconds (13 minutes) for a Km. (My best recent 1K time is 18:04 or so) For a real fantasy trip, that's 2964 seconds for Ironman distance, 3.8 K. That's 49.4 minutes. That's Ironman male pro territory! Then they get on their bikes for 180 K, and then run a marathon. That just shows you how good they are at what they do.

The swim club kids will routinely go sub 60 seconds for 100 m freestyle in a 25 m pool, and the Olympian men will do it in about 45 seconds.

Back to the swim video. Watch what my head does throughout. It rolls side to side, but stays pointed straight down the pool. My body follows my head, and stays straight, or mostly straight in the water. Twisting and turning will slow you down. I think I can be more rhythmical, and that will help my stroke.

So, there you go. If you want the slo-mo, you have to ask. You can see exactly what my hands are doing, and see better what my stroke is doing underwater. Questions? Comments? Any pro swimmers have any suggestions?

The split weekend

The Friday off was lots of fun, blogged here.

Then work Saturday. You don't want to hear much about it other than it being the culmination of what was really about a week's work, spread over several months, on and off again. When I say that one xl took 2 hours and 15 minutes to load you'll have a good idea how my day went. 49K rows of data. Glad that's done.

Today started with a bit of chaos caused by a cranberry, we think. All is fine now. The swim was really good, with video even! One slow-mo, one real time, each. I've been watching these, marveling at how much Michelle has improved, and even how much I've improved. I'm liking my stroke better, with the water entry being good, and my body position in the water is good. But I was getting sloppy on the stroke itself, leading with my elbow a bit. I might put mine up on YouTube with more detailed commentary, but I'm not up to that tonight.

This is why it's important to get video of yourself swimming if you want to improve. Whatever you THINK you might be doing, odds are it doesn't look that way at all. All this was shot above water level, so it's harder to see what's going on under the surface. I keep meaning to buy a Hero camera and shoot from underwater.

I found it interesting that my first 100 m I thought I was cruising along, was maybe going to end up being about 100 seconds, turned out to be 91. The next I tried a bit harder and was 94 seconds. After a short break I put it all together for 87 seconds. Contrast that with the 50 m swim in the video, that was 39 seconds. It's clear my speed falls off sharply when I double the distance.

Showering and changing after a swim is old hat. Getting run gear on is a bit more disorganized. Today there were about 7 other people in the locker room, and 3 of them were standing right beside me, and one of them was a smoker. Yack.

Then out for a run, nice and easy. About 8 K in an hour. We parked over at the canoe club. Once upon a time we ran from there all the way up to 64th Ave, in the dead of winter, check it out here.

Some of my long time readers might remember me running along the canal in the mornings. This started at the canoe club, across the canal, along it, and then along the Bow, with some pauses to check out interesting stuff, and take some run video.

I still look like T Rex, plodding along, but at least my feet don't look like they're trying to pick themselves out of a tar pit. I think I look very heavy on my feet. My hands are doing a floppy thing that looks looks weird, each arm doing something different.

On the way back we ran along the bluff above the river and paused to enjoy the view, and take some butt shots I mean, do panoramic model shots of the fine running gear we were wearing. It was a beautiful cool sunny morning, perfect for running. Mostly quiet, even though there's the Deerfoot right there, and no other running traffic. We weren't in the mood for that.

Even though in the photos the buildings downtown look a long way off, in real life they are right there. Sunrise photos from here can be pretty dramatic if you've got the right camera and lenses.

Weather coming in. We got a bit of rain later.

Those large round brick things? I've stood on them. I used to work there.

How could I not include this shot of them?

Coffee after, and picking up goodies at the Farmer's Market. Later I put some beef tenderloin on the BBQ, and we had a lovely meal. I'm currently fending off the cats as I finish my wine and write.

The astute of you will have already noticed the NaNoWriMo banner is no longer at the top of my blog. It's true. I'm not going to do it this year. My schedule is full already, and I still don't have any idea where that piece of the story is going. Maybe what I think is that great opening scene belongs elsewhere.

This is what I like about writing, the intellectual challenge of taking this wonderful story and characters that live in my head, and reducing it to a string of text that someone else can read and build their own world in their heads. Even though it's frustrating when it doesn't work out, or my characters aren't talking to me. Maybe their busy sorting something else out, and I'll wake up one day knowing what happens next. That day, I assure you, I'll take the day off work and write like a madman.

Swim, run, bottle retrospective

We had a plan today. Well, sort of, mostly.

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?

Timing to avoid chaos

It really gets my goat when people drop into a crowded lane swim with no consideration. Today there were only 2 lanes for us public members at Talisman during the time I wanted to swim. The other 14 lanes had swim clubs practicing.

Having one pool out of action for maintenance is necessary, but painful.

There I am, looking at my choices. One lane has Katie and 3 other people in it. I recognize her right away, but I also recognize the swim stroke of the two other guys. They were the ones I was watching last weekend. They swim faster than Katie. The other girl was keeping up with Katie. I timed them all.

Much as my inner shark was ready to get in there and draft like a madman, a cooler head prevailed. I know perfectly well I could barely keep up for about 100 m in that lane. The other lane had two women swimming only slightly slower than I was planning, and one guy floatie doing things that only marginally resembled a swim stroke, very slowly, while wearing fins. I timed them. The two girls were passing smartly. I joined them.

Notice, please, that I didn't just jump in. I sat with my legs in the pool getting ready as they did a couple laps. I caught their eye, however briefly, so they knew I was joining. He didn't notice. I decided to do a straight up relaxing swim, not trying to set a record or gratuitously pass people.

It worked out very well. We all adjusted our spacing so we could take turns passing Mr Floatie. They paused on the wall and let me pass the few times it was necessary, then hung in my draft. That's fine. We swam for a while in peaceable 4 part harmony. Mr Floatie disappeared, and was replaced with a Burster. At least he was polite about it. He'd swim a couple laps, mostly keeping up and fitting in, then would catch his breath at the end for a while. That's fine too.

Eventually just me and the faster girl were left, and we happily chased each other up and down the pool. She was leaving as I stopped, deciding that 2 K or so was a nice swim. A couple very slow breast strokers joined the lane as I got out. Katie kept swimming, but I could tell she was nearly done. The other people had left, and One Kick Splash Girl had joined her. All was peaceful, in what could have been chaos, because of the consideration of everybody joining the correct lane.

I didn't time the lap splits like I usually do; there was too much variation in pace. Sometimes I'd be cruising along in a draft, hardly working. Other times I'd be pushing a bit harder to time a pass. This is the first swim in a while where I've had to pay attention to other people in the lane, and that just made it interesting to think about the subtle timing changes.

In other news, I'm still working at Penn West, and it sounds like they want me to stick around at least for a little while.

We picked up treats at Sidewalk Citizen, and they are awesome! This brownie was one of the best ever. Pity they are so far from where I live or work. Or maybe not...

And Curtis has been supervising some literary efforts. It's very difficult to type with such supervision. This was while I was working on the intro to my last guest blog, by Amy. It's a good read if you missed it.

Beakerheading and workouting

Verbs. I need to work on my verbs.

Swam Wednesday, working on long and strong stroke. Lots of golfing. For a while I was stuck at 79 or 80, (39 strokes, 40 seconds) or worse. Then after a bit of work slowing my stroke down to make it stronger, I tried golf again. 75 (33 strokes, 42 seconds) I did that several times. Working on 100 m sprints this way were only slightly slower, but I was less out of breath.

Thursday we strolled downtown to see Beakerhead stuff. The giant claw was under repair, so that wasn't so much fun. We wandered around the newly renovated St. Patrick's island, and really liked it. Here's a few photos. I want to join up with some buddies and run all over the island. Then we headed back downtown.

The Bow river can be very pretty.

A sculpture made from recycled streetlights. I am awaiting seeing graffiti scrawled on it way up high.

Under the Skipping Stone bridge.

I rejoiced to see the shark car! Pity it doesn't go very fast.

There's a new guy at the top of the new hill. Linda liked him.

We walked just over 8 Km, and by the end I was feeling it a bit in my left foot. Oddly enough, sometimes walking slowly is harder than running.

Back in the pool Friday. More strong stroke stuff, feeling good. Last time I tried 100 all out it was 89 seconds and nearly ready to puke. Now down to 87 seconds, and feeling stronger. Repeated the golf scores several times.

It was so nice out I tried to run that afternoon and what a mistake that was! The first couple K were ok, but nothing special, then the niggles started, and kept getting worse. I called it done at only 3.5 K or so.

Saturday was nice enough for a bike ride, but I called it a rest day. We went back down to Beakernight, and strolled the crowd. We had a really good time. Flaming skee ball! What more do you need to know? We found the other rabbit. He seemed to be a little sad at being separated from the bunny herd.

It was nice to see so many people out enjoying the displays of eclectic stuff. It was a perfect summer evening. We didn't get into the man-basket for a ride up 200 feet. I was willing, but the line up was really long, long enough I was wondering if everybody was going to get a chance. I could have hung out and listened a lot longer to the percussion players set up right by the LRT station.

Sunday back in the pool again, trying to keep up with Katie. Still a work in progress. Used to be I could stay in her draft about 50 m, and be out of it by 75. Today we swam side by side for a bit. I kept up for 100 m, her gaining ground slightly on the swim, me a bit quicker on the flip turns. By 125 m I was fading, and I stopped at 150 m, out of breath, arms tired. She kept going, cruising along.

Overall the swim was really good. I did 100 m in 87 seconds twice. Repeated a 75 golf score. Worked at trying to maintain a 100 second per 100 m pace, and got 200 m. I'm pretty pleased with that. The new stroke is settling in, feeling pretty good as long as I think about it.

Michelle and I got a coffee after, and we were watching some of the synchro swimmers training. I'm just amazed by them. They were swimming some laps, and their stroke looks a bit sloppy, but they are swimming along just about as fast as I can swim at all. I can't even beginning to be vertical upside down in the water as I wave my legs around artistically above the surface. I think I'd drown trying some of their drills.

Oh yes, some other photos, just because. The new national music centre rising on the reconstituted bricks of the famed King Eddy.

Linda looking mysterious and serene.

Linda, playing the puppy orchestra. Very well too, I might add.

It's been a lovely vacation. I'm feeling more rested, but I'm not especially ready to go back to work. You will all be delighted to know that the major thing on my to-do list got done. Yes. Business tax paperwork.