12.2.17 Saturday Morning

That must have been tough, Kim. I had to go to one for a student's sibling--cancer, not a violent death. In my career I've had two students lose younger siblings. Couldn't bring myself to go to the second one--it was a three-year-old. Sudden illness they never really figured out--probably meningitis. She went home sick one day and was dead by the next morning. They were also neighbors. Did not think I could hold it together in front of the kid and some of his classmates.

Wow--maybe you do have a dress hidden somewhere! That dress has quite a story behind it; my mother would kill me though if I put it on a public forum! I think it has been worn maybe three or four times (at least in public). Last time by me was, believe it or not, HS graduation. Thus the alteration!

Anyway, not a whole lot of training here:

16 minutes of running (out of 24?). Great leap to 2 minutes jog/1 minute walk. Nothing hurts while running, but taking it slow as I'm still having some issues with swelling later in the day. (Even when not running.) Seems to be a nerve issue, and not sure what can be done about it. I am on my feet a lot more now as am coaching an hour and a half three days a week. Really hoping my body will adapt a bit better and get over the hump with running when it's break and I don't have to walk around so much. One hour of pool running after. (School pool closed for repairs--no swim.)

Spent most of the rest of the day doing errands and being lazy. I've been feeling a bit run-down since Thursday night--not quite sure if I overdid it on Thursday's swim and Friday's bike ride (water was really warm and maybe got dehydrated), girl stuff, or fighting off a bug. A lot of my students have been sick lately with colds and sinus stuff. Feel better this morning so going to try my long ride and see how I feel; will cut it short if still feeling bad or HR really high.

Saturday, 12.2.17, I was at a US Masters Swimming meet. I was entered in 7 events (including 3 25's which don't count toward event totals). It was a very small meet, with probably 15 to 20 participants. I was the only male in the 45-49 year old age group, so I won every event I competed in

I dropped time in every event I swam. Practicing with the coach and team has really paid off. There is still a ton of room for improvement, but I felt really good about my times after the meet. I was glad that the officials decided on a 5 minute break between two of my events (as well as a few other breaks throughout the meet). Aside from the 25m races, I don't think any event had more than one heat.

My daughter is on an age group team, and I officiate at her meets. So yesterday she was a timer for my meet, as were quite a few of her teammates. They also took out the touchpads, and replaced the 25m lane lines with the 25y lines (going the other way in our L shaped pool) Since I am an official, the officials that worked this meet were giving me a lot of ribbing about DQing me in every event (even the ones I wasn't swimming!) During one of the breaks, they even announced that the break was for everyone but me.

So my total yardage, including warmup, was about 900 yards. I was thinking during the warm up: I did probably 250 yards freestyle out of the 400 yard warmup, but the only freestlye I swam during the meet were the crawl legs of the 200 IM and the 100 IM. I didn't even do the 25 free becasue it was the only event between the 100 breast and the 200 IM and thought I could better use the 20 seconds rest.

It was a fun meet. That I dropped time was a nice bonus.

J White