It's early, but

Summer in Calgary is not a season. It's not a time of year. It's not even a particular temperature.

It's a periodic event happening at random times, for a random length of time, a random number of times in a year. It must be seized and enjoyed, for it might not pass again any time soon.

Therefore, even though the ground in the back yard is still frozen, mostly, it was summer enough for me. I hauled out the pressure washer and hosed stuff off. I moved the barbecue into the back patio. The plan is to have our first outside meal of the year tomorrow. The forecast says it will still be summer. There are tiny green things emerging from the garden. It will probably still snow before the May long weekend, the traditional start to gardening season. Carpe diem and all.

I'm feeling much better, but just that little bit of activity convinced me I was smart not to go for a run. Even though it's warm, I'm not quite ready for that.

The slow descent, then ick

Thursday got away from me. Working late, then picking Linda up after an appointment, then going to see a presentation of a new suburb not far from here, then the British Chippy for supper. Typical of developers, they want to start selling lots before the roads to get there are built. We got home at half past pissed off cats. They glared, and told us what inconsiderate staff we are.

Friday in the pool again, starting to feel the descent. Swim was fun though. No special milestones for me, though Michelle was pretty pleased. By Friday evening the descent was an all out plummet without a safety rope.

By Saturday I was face down in the dip, snuffling and achy, and stayed there all day. All night. Most of Sunday. It was beautiful out, but it was all I could do to plod out and run some errands. I'm very pleased I didn't kill that geezer that walked out in front of me on Elbow Drive. He just turned left off the sidewalk in the middle of the block and walked into the street. I nearly wet my pants. I was about to change lanes in a semi orderly way when he realized there was a car coming and stepped back. Then HE had the nerve to give ME the stink eye.

The only thing that really cheered me up over the weekend was learning that Danielle Smith had lost the PC nomination in Highwood. Maybe it makes me shallow, but I cheered. She peed in her own Wheaties good and proper, and was forced to eat them. I hope she liked the taste, because she's going to be eating them for a while. She is done in politics. Done like dinner, and I couldn't be happier.

Still on provincial politics, there was a typical PC budget released on Thursday. I'm intellectually indignant about it, but too under the weather to work up a good rant about it. Suffice to say that corporations continue to get the (black) gold, and ordinary Albertans get the shaft.

I picked up Photosweeper yesterday, and turned it loose on my iPhoto library. It found almost 2000 duplicates that were a no brainer to delete. Then I loosened the settings a bit and it found more almost duplicates. Many of the choices it made were good, but since it was mostly comparing an original iPhone photo to an enhanced Snapseed photo, I swapped which one was going to be kept. It was only $11 and I think a really good deal.

So far I was just getting rid of obvious duplicates. I'm thinking about making a pass through and getting rid of the bad/poor/redundant but not a duplicate photos. That will be a little trickier. I just hope that as the main computer talks to the laptop, it doesn't try to be "helpful" and restore the deleted photos.

That long list of things I was going to do this weekend? Still there. Waiting. Maybe during vacation.

Amazing when your spine actually works

I'm not sure what happened, there was no great meaty thunk, but over the last little while my spine has cut back on cranky, and got more in the cooperation groove. I am loving it.

So Monday I had a very nice swim I told you about. Tuesday I was champing at the bit to go for a run. 4 K, 28:36, mostly nice and relaxed, trying for quicker turnover.

My overall pace was a bit shaky but the averages are nice. Long warm up and cool down. Good stretch session after.

Wednesday, oh Wednesday swim! I actually wanted to swim Tuesday, so I was keen to get in the water. I'd decided to do another round of CSS and actually pay attention to times and count laps. I am over the moon with happiness on my splits! The short story on my CSS times is that in a short course pool I could do 1:50 till the cows came home. Then I tried going just a bit faster and that didn't work out so well. I aimed for 1:45 on 2 minutes, and made 6 x 100 doing about 1:44, and the 7th was over 1:45. I was working all of them, and needed every second of the 15 seconds or so rest.

So today I decided to have another go, after some really good swims in the 50 m pool. It was short course, and I was getting in after a swim club warmed up the water. The first one was 1:39, then I settled into a 1:42 or 1:43 per 100 pace, on 2 minutes. I'd hoped to get to 10, and got to 15x100. 15!! Nice and easy, I could feel my breathing but I wasn't gasping, and I was never short of air. I could have kept going, but I got to thinking about a work meeting first thing.

What was different? I'm not sure. I think my spine cooperating again helped my turns. My kick was better, and my body position was a little better. The continuously breathing out thing makes no sense to me at all, but people that swim faster than may say it works, so I was trying. Let's call it a work in progress. 

I was thinking about stroke, and trying for a bit of a faster turnover. I think rather than 38 per 50 m, I was doing about 41 or so. The only one I really counted was a golf trial. 50 m, 41 seconds, 43 strokes, strong but nowhere close to all out. I wasn't trying to swim fast, I was trying to turn my arms over faster.

So as you can imagine, I'm pretty pleased. 

Yoga tonight. A cooperating spine makes that ever so much better. I can touch my toes again. Yay me! If I don't celebrate my little triumphs, who else will? 

On the way to yoga we dropped in at the Canstruction at Southcentre mall. Very cool. I can imagine it took a steady hand to build some of these. Here's a couple of my favourites.

Thinking technical swim thoughts

Last August I wrote up some technical thoughts about swimming. Feel free to check it out. I'll try not to repeat myself here.

The 50 m pool has been set up for the last bunch of swims, and I'm loving it! I've always been a little slower swimming long course, but it's coming together. Today I had a lane to myself. 50 m gives you time to get into the groove and really work on your rhythm.

Part of the time I was visualizing swimming in a shallow, narrow trough. Shallow to keep my elbows high, and narrow to keep me from swinging my arms wide to recover. I was experimenting with subtle timing on exactly when I started my catch.

Something I've noticed lately is that I've been tending to glide a little more. That means when I start my catch I'm trying to get more water and pull harder. This means my muscles are working harder and I have to supply more air. I was thinking this is almost like pedaling in a big gear on a bike.

When I start my catch just a hair sooner I'm going a little quicker, so I don't have to work quite as hard on the pull. It's more like I'm maintaining my speed, rather than trying to regain it, almost like spinning in an easier gear on a bike. No one stroke has a big effort in it, it's all a steady smooth motion. Catching sooner makes it easier to get your hand vertical in the water and pulling yourself forward. This makes it easier to get a faster stroke rate going.

If you wait too long to catch you'll mess up the return, and you're likely to be pushing your lead hand down on the water, trying keep your head near the surface. This drops your hips and legs, creating  more drag, and making it harder to move forward on two fronts. One is the increased drag, and the other is the decreased stroke efficiency by starting so low in the water.

Drag is what kills swim speed for most swimmers. I was dragging my legs a lot, and probably still am a bit. Kicking a little harder helped improve my body position. For many people the problem is that they are looking forward. That head position itself creates drag, and it drops the hips and legs.

The first time I tried kicking harder, I could feel the lessened demand on my arms for the same swim speed. My body felt totally different in the water. Consider that water has about a zillion times as much drag as air. Every pause in your stroke, every imperfection in your kick, and most importantly, your head position are going to affect how much drag you produce. Clean up your body position, improve your kick, and you'll find the same arm stroke will take you further with less effort.

A huge part of this is mental. I was concentrating on swimming smoothly, gliding through the water. There's a Jedi mind trick with the catch. You want your catch to grab the water and give you a solid anchor point to move your body past your hand. You want the other water molecules to slide past your body with the minimum of fuss.

One of the suggestions that I haven't mastered is breathing out the whole time. Generally I start breathing out as my third stroke starts the catch, and use the last bit to blow the water off my 'stache. I'm working on it.

So the first K was 18:55, and ended the 1500 m in 28:30. Very pleased with that. 2x100 hard, 1:40 and 1:42 with 20 seconds rest. Then 200 m, gradual build every 50 m. 50 m cool down.

A compendium

Such a nice weekend! Slept in both days, which is very rare. I was feeling stressed and tired and aggravated on Friday afternoon. I so need a vacation. Soon. 

Every now and then I post a bunch of photos, and write about them in the order that Blogger posts them. As we know, Blogger is sometimes inventive.

Calgary has been discussing a ring road around the SW part of the city for decades. Not that I cared then, but I was a small child when they started. At last, if the provincial government doesn't weenie out, it's going to be built. Unfortunately, it's going to take up a lot of space in a place I've run a lot, and would like to run more. There is a nice path that runs beside Woodbine, then north to the reservoir, beside Cedarbrae, then Oakridge. You can see from the map that some of this is going to become freeway. It looks like the path is going to have to cross the Southland extension, and over an expanded 90th Ave before I get to the reservoir. Sigh. Such is the price of progress. Note, on this map, west is up.

Saturday I bottled the Reisling. I had supervision. Can you see her lurking up on the sofa cushions? Every now and then I got admonishments, or cryptic cat commentary.

In the carboy the wine was a beautiful amber. In the bottle it's much paler. I'm not thrilled with the labels. I think they're going to be a bitch to get off, and they give the wine an unattractive green tint. Tastes pretty good, though, from the one sip I got out of the siphon after filling 30 bottles. It isn't often that happens. Normally I get 29 bottles and a little bit.

No swim today. Did I mention the sleeping in thing? Linda got inspired to deal with some tenderloin she bought. She likes to mix up different marinades, then add it to a zip lock bag with 4 or 6 slices. It goes into the freezer, and comes out when we feel like BBQ tenderloin. This is the first of several before photos.

This is bison for dinner in progress. Another before.

You go, Blogger! We got a couple flower pots for the front of the house.

Here's the meat ready to go on the BBQ. The last before.

And on the BBQ. I think this qualifies as in progress.

After! With a yummy salad, wine, and a Yum bun. Wonderful! I keep telling Linda she could give cooking classes once she retires, but she's so modest and humble she thinks nobody would show up.

And to finish off!

I earned my nice meal today with a surprisingly good run, 5K, 36:30. Mostly nice and easy. There were a few niggles, but about 1 K everything settled down and felt great. I'd originally thought to only run 4 K, but it felt so good I kept going. It was a bit cool and I was maybe a little bit overdressed, but I wasn't sure about the wind.

Saturday afternoon and evening was a lovely time with friends. They've been retired for a few years now, so I keep picking their brains. They suggested seeing Kingsman and going to dinner after. It was a surprisingly fun movie, even if there are lots of plot holes. Jack Davenport is an actor I like watching, and Michael Caine is always lots of fun. Colin Firth was a surprise in that role, but well done. Dinner was at Selkirk Grill in Heritage Park. They all had the bison, but I had lamb, and it was wonderful.

I was thinking at the time that this is a good way to do things, spending time with people we like. They are busy enough in retirement that they wonder how they ever had time to work. I know how that feels, and I'm getting itchy about feeling it again.

I had an interesting suggestion for my blog. One of my long-timeish readers suggested that as a new feature, I start with some of the existing posts, and polish them up another level into an actual topical essay. He noted that many of my blogs are little mini essays now, though often there are other things included. He thinks my readers might enjoy a weekly feature of a polished essay, with the blog organized so they are easy to find. Since he's my age, he suggested the level of polish would be for newspaper publication, but I'd like to do much better than what's currently in the papers. 

Is this something you'd like to see?

Eventually that string is going to break

You know the phrase, I'd forget my head if it wasn't tied on with string? That's been me lately. Two examples.

We usually take lunch to work in glass containers with those click top lids so they don't leak. On swim days I'll take a couple of other containers. One has yogurt in it, the other has granola, and I mix them after the swim. Then they all go into my pack to go home. On Tuesday, at home, I dug the three containers out, carried them stacked up with my right hand, my swim suit in my left hand as I walked through the kitchen into the bedroom. After I put my suit where it goes, I'm standing there looking at all this stuff in my right hand.

After the Thursday swim I forgot to shave. No, really. I've been swimming there, then going into the office for several years now, and I forgot to shave. Good thing there isn't a fashion police at the office. Good thing it's strong string.

So the swimming. Pretty good. Tues was 500 m warmup, then 8 x 100 aiming for under 1:50 on 2 min in the long course pool. That's pretty close to my CSS pace, but it's harder to do long course. Cool down. 1500 m overall.

Thurs was 1500 m that started good. The first K was 19:15 long course, then it all fell apart. It took almost 10 minutes for the next 500 m, and I could feel myself struggling. I did some pull and drill, really focussing on my stroke, and that was a bit better. 2 K overall.

Then with the weather so nice I tried a run. Short and heavy describes it. Only 2k, but it was so nice to be out in shorts and a tech shirt. Now it's cold and looks like it's going to snow. Nothing like in Halifax, of course, but maybe a nice dusting to put some moisture in the ground.

Other thoughts at random. I should get Michelle to do more guest blogs. That was very popular! I still need a vacation. I'd like to take the people that designed Maximo out behind the woodshed. I'd like to take the person that shut down the network servers last night out behind the woodshed too. I came in today wanting to get something down first thing, and I had to deal with autosaved documents in excel. That got me all tensed up afraid I was going to lose some work, and meanwhile, my office is much hotter than normal, and I'm warm from a brisk walk in.

My left hand is all banged up, but I didn't bleed too much and not on anything important. I think I did it opening a door in a parking garage I've used a zillion times. The swim lane ropes have been eating my right hand, wrist, and elbow. Ouch. I used to have a good sense of where my appendages were, and didn't bang into things. Much.

Lately though, I think my brain is full. It doesn't like switching between tasks anymore. I've noticed myself walking on auto-pilot a few times, and I'm curious about where I'd have gone if I hadn't noticed. I've done that driving a few times. I'm finding it harder to let stuff drain away. Workouts used to do that, but lately I can't do them hard or long enough.

Even though Penn West said they weren't going to do more lay offs, they did. Not to the scale of Conoco Phillips or Talisman, but these were people just down the hall from me. Some days I feel like pulling the plug on the whole industry and see if I can make a living as a writer. The rational side of me says that's a lot more work, and pays a lot less than the current job.

Celina likes the micro-fiber towel. She has tried to drag it off to do who knows what to it. I have to hang it in the bedroom to dry.

A guest blog post by Michelle!

As many of you know, Sunday was Michelle's very first triathlon all by herself! Your first is always special, and I'm so pleased I was a small part of it. I didn't want to write much about it because it's her experience not mine, but mentioned she could be a guest blogger if she wanted. Next morning, this text was in my email. Take it away Michelle!


There aren’t many people on earth who can tell me “where to go” and “how to get there” and have me keep coming back for more directions.  Keith is one of those people.

Keith, thank you very much for the generous gift of your time throughout the winter as my swim coach!  Only months ago I couldn’t swim but I took adult learn to swim lessons and stuck with them because of a long weekend swim with your analysis, drills and encouragement. The Talisman 10-mile Triathlon was perfectly timed the weekend after my last swim lesson and I just swam, biked and ran in my first triathlon.  You were a fabulous personal cheerleader on race day too!  :)

So… how did it go?

The day before > I pumped up my tires and did a short ride and a run in my gear, making sure everything fit and nothing chafed, switching out a piece or two that felt restrictive.  Richelle from Tri It helped me find this outfit that fit. On my test run, I turned my ankle but it seemed fine… until 11 p.m. when the throbbing woke me up.  I searched everywhere but couldn’t find a tensor bandage so pulled on a CEP compression sleeve, tied an ice block to my ankle with a scarf, took an ibuprofen and elevated it on a pillow until the morning.  I often have a restless sleep before a race but I don’t sweat the small stuff, immerse myself in the exciting race day ambiance of the event and carry on.  By morning, the ankle was fine.

Race day setup > I woke up to a sweet good luck email from Amy and had toast & PB.  Keith and I arrived early at Talisman Centre and dropped off my bike.  I got my body markings done and we headed to the pool for a warmup swim.  I only swam for about 20 minutes, then hit the hot tub and changed into my tri outfit (Louis Garneau shorts a 2XU top and a Moving Comfort bra).  Next I headed to walk the route and familiarize myself with the transitions through the swim, bike, and run areas.  For extra peace of mind, I wrote how many swim laps, bike kms, and run laps were needed for the race on my hand with a sharpie.  I was in the last group of racers (heat four) so once heat two had cleared out of the bike area, volunteers helped set up my bike on the Tacx trainer.

It took a bit to get it set for a “2” incline, then I had about 10 minutes to get back to the pool before the race started.  Keith reminded me to leave my bike in a lower gear so I could get spinning faster right off the bat.

Swim > Lucky for me, there was only one other racer (Isabella) in my lane so we wished each other good luck agreed to split the lane so we could each stick to our own side and just swim at our own pace.

I did a quick" re-warmup almost lap" and then it was time to get back to the wall to start.  After the first 25m, I stopped to check my timing chip that was velcroed around my wee ankles.  The strap wrapped twice around my ankles and had slipped but wasn’t coming off so I kept going.  Somewhere on lap two, I sucked back a mouthful of water and had to stop to cough about ten times so I could breathe and carry on.  Isabella called out “you got this!”

I just tried to keep moving and do push turns when I could, stopping for a few breaths from time to time or switching to backstroke a couple of times for extra air.  I kept my cool, felt good and steady, and didn’t feel like I was going anerobic.  It felt like I had a good balance between cardio and strength and couldn’t go any faster without getting out of breath.  I could see Keith standing along the edge of the pool with the other spectators.  The water in this pool is a bit cooler than in the training pool but that’s perfect for race day. With one lap to go, the volunteer called out to me to let me know and I glanced down to the lap counter on my finger to confirm I was on track at 9 laps.  One more to go.  Before I knew it the race was over and it was time to climb out.  I can spring out of the training pool on my own but this one was deeper and a kind volunteer gave me a hand up.

T1 > I ran down the roped-off carpeted transition path through the training room and down the hallway to Gym 1 and quickly spotted my bike thanks to the fluorescent ribbon I tied to the brake cables.  Sitting down felt awkward so I stood up again to pull on my super-cool heat mouldable carbon-fibre Bont bike shoes (from Kijiji). I tried to do a quick blot of the most soaking wet parts but it made no difference.  It would have been good to have one towel under the bike to catch drips and another to step on to dry my feet off before putting my bike shoes on.

Bike > I clipped in my left foot easily, swung my right foot over the saddle and clipped in on the second try to my Trek Madone women-specific bike (bought second-hand).  A few sips of Ultima electolyte drink from my water bottle and two small squeezes of some salted caramel gu in the box on my crossbar were all I needed. I was happy I stashed a lip balm and something to wipe the sweat from my face in there too.

I had the best cheering crew!  Richelle,  Rose, Maddy, Keith, the volunteers chatted nearby and reminded me to keep up my cadence.  Jordan was there with an enormous lens on his camera. (Making us do this. Making us!) Photo credit Jordan Brydon.

 I was feeling my legs but wasn’t breathing very hard and I knew I had to save energy for the run. As soon as my bike computer displayed 12.5 km I dismounted on the left side of my bike and got myself over to the right side where my running shoes were.  (Note to self: next time organize stuff behind the bike or under the bike and gear down to spin faster so I use more cardio and less leg power.  Figure out how to work harder on the trainer to build leg power.)

T2 > Thanks to the velcro on my bike shoes, they came off quickly but I got a cramp in my left calf pulling on my Altra 3sum running shoes.  I willed myself to relax and it went away.  (Note to self, next time loosen the elastic Yankz laces a bit more.)  Next was a quick run across the Gym to the stairs… (STAIRS!!!) up to the running track above.  Keith had warned me that my legs might feel rubbery coming off the bike and to hang on to the handrail in the stairwell.  I had observed some very stiff, rubbery legs going up those stairs but thankfully my legs felt good enough to run up the stairs.

Run > At the top of the stairs, a volunteer pointed me in the counter-clockwise direction and I stuck to the inside “fast” track passing lots of people.  I held back a bit as I wasn’t really sure about the pacing for all three sports.  A volunteer handed out elastic bands every 5 laps to help us keep track.  My lap counter on my finger came in handy for the run too.

I was feeling good, waved at Keith and picked up the pace in lap 14 and sprinted the final lap.   I heard Richelle yell out “Go Michelle! from below.”  (Note to self.  The run is my strongest area, let it all out here!).  I ended up with a little blood on my left heel, which is weird because I have run sockless in these shoes on my 12 km RUNcommute home with no issues.  The only thing I changed was tightening the laces so next time I will leave the laces loose and wear socks in both my bike and run shoes.

Post race >  We looked at the times and I was very excited to have done my swim ten minutes faster than a month ago!  I was shocked by how fast my run was as I didn’t feel like I was actually running that fast.  Sometimes, ditching the technology and pushing myself by feel gets the best results.  Awards were given for oldest and youngest athletes (11-years old!) as well as for the rubber-band volunteer and best bike and run "pain faces” (LOL).  The staff and volunteers at this event were amazing, organized, encouraging, friendly, helpful and reassuring.

Post-shower In the locker room I chatted with Isabella about her race and told her the story of how I had just learned to swim over the winter.  She was going to tell her sister and try to get her to learn to swim.  She asked if I was feeling proud and I thought about it.  I wasn’t feeling that beat-your-chest-like-a gorilla-pride and I think I was feeling more grateful for all the support I received and to have been able to do this event at all.

I found Keith in the bike area and we brought everything up stairs, enjoyed coffee and a snack, chatted about the race and future plans and chatted with the super rubber-band volunteer about his races too.  I gave Keith a card and a DIY sewing project microfibre towel with sharks (it sort of matches his swim trunks) on it to thank him for being my coach.  He really didn’t have to do that but I’m so grateful he did.  Keith took swim video and when I watch it, it seems like I’m swimming in slow motion.  I can see my head popping up and a funny reach with bent hand.  I will study it more and try to make adjustments… and just swim more.

Inspiration > It’s all around me.  Running with Keith through the winter last year while training for two ultras planted the seed that some day there might be a new and different challenge waiting for me.  Keith’s Ironman finisher’s smile greets us at the top of this blog with every visit.  Obviously some of the triathlon awesomeness around me inspired me.  My friend Maria did her first full Ironman last summer and I stayed up until midnight to watch her cross the finish line on the live video feed.  Another friend Jenn (breast-cancer survivor) finished the 2013 IMYYC 70.3 in spite of having her bib taken from her when she didn’t make the cutoff time.  That’s determination.  She’s back for more this year and she’s going to rock it.  Amy and Leana make triathlon training sound humanly possible.  Sophia (kidney transplant recipient) did a duathlon a couple of years ago and planted that seed.  Last summer I trained for the duathlon part of the 2014 Strathmore Women’s Triathlon.  Instead of the duathlon, I ended up joining my friend Deb in the team triathlon relay where she did the swim and I filled in with the bike & run.  Our team placed first.  I was inspired by the ladies of all abilities in that race and started to dream of learning to swim.  Last summer I volunteered at IMYYC 2014 as a banner girl and learned what it means to be Ironstruck.  Wowza.  I held the banner for the elites as they crossed the finish line, then biked home after my volunteer shift through the age-groupers sweating it out in the hot sun on the run and I started to think that there might be a place for me at the back of the pack if only I could swim.

Determination > In July bought myself a chlorine-resistant suit, swim cap, goggles, nose plug and earplugs.  I took them with me on a summer trip and thought I would try them out at the hotel pool but, sadly in spite of watching YouTube videos on how to put on a swim cap, I felt so dorky, and so intimidated.  I remembered how awkward I felt showing up for my learn to run clinic three years ago and figured I would work past the fear but the water in the outdoor pool felt SO cold and there were too many people around watching for me to attempt flailing around.  I stayed in the pool for less than a minute and then ran into the hot tub to warm up as per my usual performance. Fail.

I knew what I wanted but didn’t know how to approach the fear or get into any kind of a routine. A few weeks later Keith offered to have me tag along on one of his regular Friday morning swims. I think he said we would leave at 4 a.m. and at that point I was willing to go at any time just to get started and get over my fears of feeling awkward.  Keith gently, encouraged me (without laughing… how is that possible?) from being afraid to put my face in the water to working on drills with a flutter board and pull buoy until I had enough confidence to sign up for swim lessons which started in October.  I took Adult Learn To Swim Level 2 lessons and repeated then twice.  Then Level 3, repeated twice.  There were a couple of times I was tempted to throw in the towel when I hit a plateau, or was sore all over and exhausted, or felt like hubby was annoyed with my training schedule, or like it was all too much effort and nobody cared anyway.  Then Keith would text me asking if I was still coming swimming (how could I say no?) and that kept me on track.  (So it's MY fault??? :-) ed)

Rewards > Over the winter, I got stronger and started to see mini lat muscles in my back.  (No not latte muscles!).  Just this week, there was the hint of a bicep on my stringy muppet arms.  Progress.  Arm muscles should definitely help with swimming, oui?  ;)  I have been called short, petite, small, thin, skinny and weak but I prefer the term  “concentrated!"  I can definitely say that this spring, I was thrilled to discover that winter swimming has improved my core strength, cardio and breathing for fast running, and helped keep up my leg strength for biking.

Looking forward > This year Keith and I are doing IMYYC 70.3 as a team relay.  There’s no way I’m ready for a swim like that… but Keith is!  I’ll do the bike and run.  I look forward to continuing to swim, bike and run!  I blame Keith.  Thanks eh. ;) (You are very welcome! KC)