Even after my fairly relaxing weekend, I was still completely fucking dead when I got in the water today. Lucky for me, I was certainly not alone. I don’t know if it was just the day, the weekend, or the warmup, but I was nearly useless for the entire practice. I still led the lane (only because the other two guys actually swam the open water this weekend and one was sick) but it just wasn’t there today — at least not feeling wise.

My times were fine, for the most part, I just felt like shit.

Anyway, enough of that, no one cares anyway:

600 - 600 WU (change stroke every 50) 

1000 - 400, 300, 200, 100
(build by 50, each one a different stroke - FR, BK, BR, Fly for me) :30

1200 - 1 x 300, 2 x 50 (1:25, :50 base and FR, FR/Stroke)
           1 x 200, 4 x 50
           1 x 100, 6 x 50 

800 - 2 x 25, 2 x 50, 2 x 75, 2 x 100, 2 x 75, 2 x 50, 2 x 25
(1st Fast, 2nd "Cruise), continuous with fins

100 - 100 WD

3700

Instead of CTRL-F to search I just hit CTRL-W (which in my console linux text editor is what I search with) and it closed the window of all that I had typed about Friday, Saturday and Monday’s practices. Long story short… They were easier than early last week and I’m either getting in better shape or they are just easier ;)

This weekend is the Lake Harriet Open Water Swim. Because it’s hosted by Macalester Masters Swimming, the team is going to be there helping out and/or swimming (1 mile and 2 mile swims). I have an MnGCA Board meeting that morning after the MnGCA Breakfast Buddies - St. Paul event. I’d rather be swimming in the lake I think.

Today’s practice:

600 WU (200 S, 100 K choice)

3 x 100 1:45 (50 Stroke, 50 FR)
6 x 50 :50 (D 1-3) Choice

400, 350, 300, 250, 200, 150, 100, 50 FR 1:30 Base
- I tried to hold a 1:20 pace
- I ended up with a 1:15 first 100 and then 1:20 - 1:27 for the rest.  

1 x 200 EZ

6 x 100 IM 1:50, work transitions.

1 x 100 WD

3900m

All in all I felt ok today. I’m looking forward to Wednesday. She says Friday will be fairly easy because of the meet. Without swimming on Saturday I should be really set to go on Monday again…

I started swimming with the Macalester Masters on Monday. When the coach called me last week she mentioned that they do a lot of work with fins (something I was used to in age-group/HS swimming but something that my moronic college coach, Randy Julian, didn’t put much faith in — I think we got to use them less than 10 times in the three years he coached me).

Anyway, I needed to order a pair of fins and decided to go with what I had used for 10 or so years growing up, Zoomers. Zoomers were revolutionary in their time, especially for people interested in *swimming* with fins on rather than just doing leg work. I did a little searching on the web and found a great price from Lane Four Swim Shop. They have a Yahoo! store as well as two brick and mortar stores in Houston and Austin, TX. I figured this had to be a decent place to order from. I was wrong.

I ordered my G-sized Zoomers on Friday 6/9 at 10AM CDT. After no updates on my order page on Tuesday 6/13 I sent an e-mail inquiring about the status of the shipment to which I received no reply by 6/14.

I called at 11 AM on 6/14 and was immediately hung up on. I called back figuring the connection was lost. I spoke to a woman who didn’t give her name. After asking for my order number she placed me on hold and eventually came back to tell me that they do not have the G size in stock.

I then asked when I placed the order (her reply was Friday) and what today was (she replied today was Tuesday but it’s really Wednesday). I asked if she thought that I should have been contacted about this. She had no reply. I then asked what she was going to do about this. She replied, “nothing.”

So, I then told her that I would be happy to post about this on my personal website as well as the Yahoo review. While their prices are good and their shipping options were fine, their Customer Service was poor and I am *not* pleased.

I tried to call her back and only got their answering machine. Obviously she is not interested in taking my call so that I could get her first name. That’s not cool at all.

I highly suggest that you stay away from Lane 4 swim shop and pay the couple of extra bucks to go with another vendor. I hopped online, went to Kastaway Swimwear (who I should have dealt with in the first place as I have been going to them since I was a kid) and had my order ready to go in 10 seconds. I’ll be sure to update everyone as to when the order arrives. Guarantee it’ll be here Monday.