Ending the Weekend Off Right

3200m swim

It is relatively rare that I have most of a weekend day to do something other than training. It seems takes me by surprise, but I try and enjoy it when it happens.

I started my swim before Jane's class, but I had mistimed the class and it started about 30 minutes after I had. So I ended up swimming half of the class, which is probably a good thing just because it keeps me a little more honest.

The water was insanely cold. I know, I was just complaining about the heat. But this was a shocker, especially in the early morning before you've really had a chance to get too hot. My warm up was truly a warm up. I couldn't believe how cold it was. I was actually glad that my initial sets were long so that I didn't have to stop. I was pretty much doing 200s or 300s at a time for the first 30 minutes. Did I mention how cold it was?

Then class took over. Initially I was the only person in the lane. The instructions were to swim a 250 free followed immediately by a 150 nonfree. We could then rest until the 3rd person came in and then repeat the set again. Since I didn't have a 3rd person, or even a 2nd person, I was wondering if that meant I could wait indefinitely. That is, if it hadn't been so cold. But my lane quickly filled up and it became apparent that I should not be leading. It was a long set to finish up and I vowed to stay ahead for the rest of the set. Somehow I did and then immediately dropped to the back of the pack. As usual, Jane's workout killed me. I was glad I had a valid excuse to get out early. But while I was there, I did the workout and almost made all of the intervals. That's pretty good for me and a Jane workout. And I was able to leave before I felt too broken, so I ended up finishing on a good note.

And it was not even 11. I had the rest of the day to enjoy. And that I did. I went to the Farmer's Market at the 29th Street Mall. It's not quite the same thing as the Saturday one, but there was still a great selection and I was able to get enough veggies to make a completely locally grown dinner. Having recently read Omnivore's Dilemma (Michael Pollen) and just finishing Animal, Vegetable, Miracle (Barbara Kingsolver), I'm on this big local food kick. I can't usually get to the Farmer's Market, or at least I can't go regularly, so I definitely enjoyed this one, little as it might be, as much as possible. We took the dogs up to the mountains to let them run around in the cooler air. We thought we'd be able to witness a thunderstorm, but it didn't quite materialize where we were. But the clouds were certainly impressive enough. I also even got in a little cleaning in the form of vacuuming. And, I finally got to the laundry and was able to put away those clothes that have been sitting in a pile all week, leaving me plenty of room to build up a new pile this week.