Sunday swim

I'm not sure how much credit goes to the massage lady's use of cupping, scraping, tiger balm or her other skills, but I'm pretty sure I owe her big.

Today I did a fairly quick 3,250...

Chlorine, chlorine

Round my thoughts, running round my nose, chlorine, oh you old chlorine.

Hopped in the pool, lord and got a whiff of you,
all I want now is some good loratidine.
Chlorine, oh you old chlorine.

Chlorine's for water, lord, it ain't for me,
Maybe it kills ya, but tweedle-dee...

OK, I tried. Townes Van Zandt would be so proud.

Just another ordinary day today: 750 warmup and a happy little 2,500 after...

On the road to healthy

After another 3,250 on Sunday, I felt twinges in both shoulders off and on, but nothing out of the ordinary, and mostly the sort of unpleasant feeling you get from a hard workout combined with lurking partial injuries.

In other words, I feel about the same as I did in the spring, when the shoulder troubles commenced. Which as Martha would say is a very good thing.

Yardage increase!

I haven't boosted my yardage for a while, and I've been feeling healthier (maybe even full of vim and vigor, for all you V-word-seeking Scrabble types) so I went up to 3,250 on Thursday. I think I could have gone to 3,500, one of my interim goals, but why throw the dice unnecessarily?

As far as a long-term goal, I'm not so sure. I can easily do two miles (70 laps) in the time available (90 minutes). Thursday, I swam 65 laps in 65-70 minutes, so maybe I'll shoot for 80, which is 4,000 yards, each day. That would be more than 11 miles a week, which if my handy-dandy multiplier works is about the equivalent of a 45-mile week running. Not too shabby.

Of course, there's always the velocity problem, but I think maybe I need to have more than 13 months of swimming under my belt before I start to worry too much about how fast/slow I'm going.

Headed toward a yardage increase

I don't know when the last time I went up was, but it has been a while. I've been pretty consistent around 3,000 yards since switching pools (a month and a half ago!), so after today's run-of-the-mill swim, which I noticed was done with about 15 minutes to go in pool time, I think the time is fast approaching to tack on 250 or so. I'd like to add 500, to make it an even two miles, but that might need to wait a little while.

Birdman kicked Wesley Willis's ass, but the Massage Lady saved mine.

How high's the water, mama?

Depends on which end of the pool you're in, I guess. The new pool doesn't vary in depth, as far as I can tell. But Friday and Sunday, the new pool was still closed for repairs (I overheard another someone say that the tiles on the deck hadn't cured properly and some had failed, so maybe that's the deal).

Both days were just fine, 3,000 yards without any big problems. On Saturday, the massage lady did her magic, including a round of cupping (an old technique that involves inverted cups, vacuum and bruises that make my back look like she threw salami slices at me).

Say what you will about non-Western medicine (and if you're severly skeptical, in many cases I'll join you), but the massage lady gets results.

Thank goodness, because I want to keep eating ice cream, and that won't happen so much if I can't swim!

Better on the second day

I felt right at home today, and swam 3,000 yards with no big trouble. I also overheard some talk of why the new pool is closed: Apparently, some of the tiles on the deck are failing because they weren't properly cured.

Could this be related to the hurry-up opening??? The world wonders.

Different pool, same activity

Having planned carefully and arrived on time, I missed the little yellow signs at the alma mater's new pool: Construction of some sort continues, so the daily swim is at the school's old pool until Saturday or so.

Of course, I had changed and showered, but no big deal. I still had time for a pretty pleasant 3,000 yards, although the old pool is definitely more chemical-ly than the new one. It is also a bit warmer.

On the sunny side, my shoulder only complained once, and only a little. I'm not sure that's a "hooray!" moment, but it was encouraging.

Ah, the forgotten vagaries of the school pool

Well, even the new pool has one of the old one's faults: being closed during breaks. Since I commenced, the alma mater decided to adopt a four-day break that includes Columbus Day, so that's happening now. Oh well, I'm sure my shoulder can use the break.

That's interesting, though. I wonder if the adoption of Invader's Day as a school holiday is part of the push to become a "national" liberal arts college. A rubbbishy goal in the first place, especially because it cuts into my swimming time (and the students' class time. grr.)

short Friday swim

which would have been longer, except for deadline excitement at the paper and a very small squirrel I encountered on the way from work to pool. The little one was knocked out on the sidewalk and had a bloody nose, presumably from falling out of a tree.

While I worked the phones (it was way too cute to leave to the marauding cats and birds) the squirrel came to, so I scooped it up in a discarded drink cup and returned it to a safe-looking notch in what I guessed was its tree. When the butterfly lady and I stopped by much later, there was no sign of the squirrel, so maybe it got a new lease on life.

My abbreviated swim was still more than a mile and pretty quick. Not too shabby :)

Wednesday afternoon swim

Well, the best part was that the place across the street still had samosas, chana masala and fry bread (OK, nan, I suppose, but it was fried) when I got out of the pool.

A forgettable, mile-plus swim. At least it was an hour in the water...