Just Keep Swimming ...

For starters today, did you see the "Big Nate" (Lincoln Peirce) comic in today's paper? Check out what caught the eye of the junior crewers as they read it and said, "Oh, Mom, you have to keep today's 'Big Nate!' "

In our house, it's not a case of someone walking by a penny, it's
making sure no one gets hurt when everyone's diving for it.

Okay, my entry today is a review of yesterday's supplementary workout. You might recall I blew off doing a long run. It wasn't so much a blow off as a realization that I needed to insert a day to mix up what I've been doing. I needed that mentally as much as I probably did physically. So, after convincing Aaron that a morning jog was a great way to start the day (he disagrees to a point, by the way), I went full throttle on a secondary workout in the pool in the afternoon. And, of course, I invited Aaron to join me!



We started by running the square of the shallow end. Yup, I said running. When's the last time you ran in a pool? It's hard!! But, it was fun because we kept racing each other. PC#2 was with us, and neither she nor I could ever beat Aaron. But, we had fun trying!

Then we moved over to what has been my second-best, right-behind-the-road workout friend this summer:

Hey, it's the formerly known as Not-Getting-In-There Lap Lane.
I've never, ever been a lap swimmer, and even just two years ago
made it a point to let Aaron know I would not waste my time at
the pool purposely exercising. True story.

For the first time in my entire life, I've utilized the lap lane. Before now, I've considered it a total waste of pool space. And, boring. And, did I mention a waste of playing space? This year, I've consistently used the lap lane for upper body workouts. Specifically, I sit on a kick board and make my arms do all of the work back and forth very specifically, very methodically. Ever tried it? Yow! That's some work! I've progressed considerably since beginning, so yesterday's mix-'em-up exercises Kicked. My. Butt.

We used the lap lane to:

• do the upper body work I've been doing; much more fun with a friend!
• swim the deep end while running to the wall and back from the rope in the shallow end (ooof!)
• use kickboards to hold our arms while only kicking -- way more difficult than I anticipated! I whined a bit about that one!

We were at the above for an hour when Aaron said, after lap 10 of the kicking, "I'm finished!" in a no-matter-what-you're-about-to-say way! I was right behind him! I believe I'd already decided that was the last hurrah, but I had not yet told him. I was very ready to just float around for a while! But, besides being pretty pooped, this is how I felt after:

That's from today's Rest Day, by the way. A picture after all of
that yesterday would have looked happy but weary!

This morning, I felt every, single muscle in my arms and legs!! That's the sign of some great work (or of totally wasting a perfectly lovely lounging pool! Ha!). Once I was up and about for the day, though, everything worked itself out and feels fine. But, I made a point to take it easy today to let my muscles chill and reboot. Very important!!

With the pool at my disposal, more of these exercises will continue to come into play, and we'll see if it helps my running or if I exhaust myself. As I'm sure you've experienced, it's so easy to overdo it in the beginning, but with that issue smack dab in the middle of my radar, I will be able to keep it in check and self-correct if I go off course. It's worth going for it and figuring it out!! Besides, the worst that can happen is I get tired and have to grab a noodle to float around for a while. What a pity that would be!

The only pool drawback? Not only are there typically no pennies to be found, but you sure do find a lot of these:

Grody, destructive Japanese beetles ... yuck!

Back to the running tomorrow! See you then!