Day Sixteen - "Off Season"

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.
Aeschylus

I have to admit, that Wednesday was a monotonous day. The day started out with a little excitement with the leak in the roof, a quick trip home to “check on things” but as the morning disappeared the day quickly lost any ebullient feeling. A continuous issue has plagued my work environment that I will resolve today come “chthonian or high waters”.

The Wednesday’s skies were filled with gray clouds that loomed over the area emanating rain for a good portion of the day. I heard on the radio that Lake Lanier had reached capacity for the first time in over 5 years. The region has come a long way since the time when boats where stuck in the mud half way out into the lake due to the thoughtless residence and politicians of the Atlanta area and their only source of water. My environmental disposition believes the time is now for corrupt politicians and “Joe Neighbor’s” in Georgia to set aside their greed and “believed rights for water” and devise with ways to preserve our water supply. A continued effort in our house will be on water conservation than water consumption. A difference always starts with the few.

Got back into the lunchtime weight routine yesterday. It had been out of sync for the last couple of weeks coming off of Augusta. I hit the LTF-Johns Creek gym at lunch for a leg work out:

10 minutes on the spinner
3 X 10 110lbs Gluts
3 X 10 30lbs Hip Flexors
3 X 10 30lbs Interior Hip Flexors
3 X 10 45lbs Knee Highs-Hip Flexors
3 X 10 145lbs – Hamstrings
3 X 10 170lbs – Quads
150 Sit-ups
3 X 10 450lbs Sled
3 X 10 160lbs Calf Raises

The goal is 2 times a week on the legs and 1-2 times a week on upper to prep for Boston Marathon Training come December. Core exercises will be attempted 5 days a week. I am not a believer in the “Six Pack Abs” especially when I have crested over the 40-year-old mark. With positioned in a chair at my desk job for most of the day the hip flexors, stomach and back become weak. I need to continually focus on this area and maintain strength due to the back issues I have encountered over the years.

Thursday started at 4:11AM for me. I awoke thinking about the roof, the issues at work, scheduling time in the evening to go to Reflections with Ellie. She painted a picture for the contest and is excited that she may have placed in the 3rd grade category. We always enjoy working in projects for this event every Fall.

I fell in and out of consciousness for the next half hour and at 4:45AM decided to get up and start the Thursday. Tuesday and Thursday’s are Master’s Swim and I wanted to get to the pool and warm up the right shoulder some before hitting the workout. The shoulder was stiff from Tuesday’s upper weights and I wanted to warm it up so I don’t tweak it in the pool.

The ride to the gym was, forgotten…We all on occasion have had times when we are driving and come in & out of a half-conscious state where we do not recall a certain time or length of road we have traveled. Well, this was one of those mornings. I remember getting into the Jeep and getting out of the Jeep but do not remember one mile or minute of the distance between point A & B. It is a little disconcerting that 8 miles was lost but I arrived at my destination without any consequences.

Entering the locker room, I spotted Jay getting ready for the swim. He must have sleeping issues or is timorous he would be late for the swim this morning. Jay seemed full of pep ready to take on the water with a certain goal in mind the way he promptly gathered his swim paraphernalia and “bee lined” it to the pool.
When Coach Mike arrived, he create the impression of dishevelment as he sped towards the Aquatics office and then back out into the lobby area. On his way to the lobby, he told us to start a 500M warm up. It turns out he forgot the swim workout and had to construct it from memory and went to make photocopies.

After the 500M warm up we started in on:

6 X 300M on the 5:30
200M Kick Left Side/Right Side
12 X 25M’s Out then 5 push-up on the deck
100 cool down
Repeat…the 12 X 25M’s & 100M
300M Warm down

Melissa and I swam in Lane 1 and hit the 300M's at 4:39's & 5:02's respectively. During the 12 X 25M’s Melissa stopped and pointed out that she cut her knee on the pool deck during the pushups which was bleeding and she was experiencing “Pool Toe”. Now, I have no clue on this so if anyone can give me a decent explanation I may be able to sympathize with Melissa as to her “Pool Toe” issue. I presume Melissa was just trying to duck out of the pushups, but I could be wrong…

When we finished Coach Mike apologized profusely on the short workout (in and out in 1 hour). I conversed with him about the workout and advised him not to “sweat it”. Everyone of the A, B & C swimmers hit their marks and we got a good workout in. We do not need to crush out 4500-5000M every time during the off-season and a mix up of long and medium distances is right for this group.

I am inspired for tomorrow’s entry. I will be running with the trio of Jay, Bob & Michele in the morning. These three top class runners are out for their 18-mile training run at an 8:30/mile pace. Since it is the “off season” for me, I asked if I could tag along on the back nine of their run. Now understand, I have not run any distance with Jay or Bob in almost seven months. While training for Boston, Bob would hook up with me on my long runs and push me to stay on pace by running ahead of me every time. Since Boston, we have all been running but we have our own goals we wanted to achieve which meant more solo runs than group runs. This will be a treat and the ability for me to size them up. My main goal on the back nine of their run is to insure that they are holding their paces and averaging the 8:30/mile for the 18. Bob indicated a negative split on the back half, which will be good for their training. More to come on this…

The sport of the event tomorrow will not only to help them hold pace, but to heed the activities that will transpire between point A and Point B in order to document our adventures in the morning.

Note: My mother emailed this after reading today's entry:

Memory is the mother of all wisdom.

Aeschylus

Two very important words in this quote:

Mother

Wisdom

Love, Your Wise Mother