Well, today was my first dip into swimming with the Macalester Masters program. I left the house this morning at 5:15 and made it up there by around 5:40. Waited around for the doors to open and went inside. Filled out some paperwork, met some of the guys, and started the workout.

I’m not the fastest one there but I am the youngest! I guess that has to count for something ;)

We did 4050 meters (yes, meters, short course though) in 1.5 hours. I’ve been doing around 2200 yards in 45 minutes in the mornings so this was a bit of a change for me. I think I held up well even though the coach asked me twice if I needed to get out early :(

Anyway, I felt pretty good after the practice although I’ve got a headache now :( Bleh. We’re going to a Saint Paul Saints game tonight so I won’t even be able to rest.

300 S, 200 P, 100 K              600

50 FR, 50 IM, 50 FR (:50, 1:00 base for 50s, :40)
50 FR, 100 IM, 50 FR
50 FR, 150 IM, 50 FR
50 FR, 200 IM, 50 FR                 900

6 x {

      1 x 25 :20
      1 x 75 1:00
      1 x 125 2:00
      1 x 75 1:00
      1 x 25 : 20
      :30 rest
}                                          1950

20 x 25 (Fly, Fly Bk, Fly BK BR, Fly BK BR FR) :30
                                            500
1 x 100 WD                             100

Total: 4050m

We’ll see how I do on Wednesday.

I have been busy at work and at home as well as planning for the MnGCA’s Spring Event so the website hasn’t been getting a lot of love from me. Oh well. You’ll all live.

Friday’s are now half days for me until July 25th. I have to work 9 hour days which kinda sucks but I certainly enjoyed the 8-12pm on Friday! I finally got an e-mail back from the coach of the Macalester Masters swim team out of Macalester College in St. Paul. She said that they have room for me and we decided that I will try it out for a week starting the 12th of June. My prepayment with the District 196 Community Education swimming runs out on the 9th and even with the USMS registration and $40/monthly fee, we save a few bucks for the year (I think $7). I’m looking forward to swimming under a coach and with some other people! After work I drove over to hang out w/Chris and drink beer all afternoon. Definitly a nice way to spend a sunny Friday afternoon ;)

At about 3:50 I decided to beat out any rush hour traffic and drive home to be there before Kim. On my way I purchased three more .50 cal ammo boxes for the Spring Event. I already had a single .50 cal and a single .20mm (huge) ammo box painted and then sanded and painted the other three on Friday night. The sun was out and shining away and the paint dried fast. Good deal.

On Saturday morning I went to swim (did 3500 yards, not bad) and had a scratchy throat. Kim had been sick earlier in the week and I knew it was only a matter of time before I would get it too. Well, it had started. I felt better after the swim and spent the rest of the day lounging around the house waiting for the St. Paul Saints game that night.

Last week we planned to meet up with Chris and Laura at the game and Kim did all the leg work to pick us up tickets. There had been intermittent rain all day Saturday but right before game time the skies cleared and it ended up being very beautiful, although a bit too cold. I think that this cold had quite a bit to do w/my resulting condition today :( We left after the 6th inning just as the Saints were turning it around. A funny side note, a year to the day ago Kim and I had attended the St. Paul Saints Game and won free Buca di Beppo!

I had planned to spend the day hiking around w/Chris and hiding the freshly painted ammo boxes for the Spring Event. This morning I woke up at 3:30am just absolutely miserable and sick. I was uncomfortable as hell and did some cleaning before finally waking Kim up to keep me company around 4:30am. I continued to clean and watched some TV with Kim and then we went on a walk just after sunrise around 6am. We were surprised at the number of people who were out and about at that time walking! We saw a young family w/a young kid as well as several out walking their dogs — much to Buddy’s excitement.

We went to the store and got me OJ, tissues, DayQuil, and a Vicks inhaler. I looked like a walking sick person. If the store had been more crowded, I wouldn’t have been surprised to see people diving out of my way and reaching for the nearest Lysol spray or face masks… I spent the rest of the day on the couch, in bed, or watching TV half-dazed from the DayQuil buzz.

Kim and I headed over to the Dakota County Galaxie Library to nab some books. I’ve been doing a lot more w/Access at work (bleh) and picked up some book on VBA that doesn’t tell me much more than I already know but I hope that it adds at least a little to my knowledgebase. I also picked up Under the Loving Care of the Fatherly Leader : North Korea and the Kim Dynasty. It’s interesting so far but I, admittedly, haven’t gotten out of the first chapter. There’s only so long I can read before my head feels like it’s going to blow up all over the pages.

I don’t know yet how I am going to feel tomorrow. Hopefully I won’t spend most of the evening wandering around the house wondering if my eyeballs are going to fall out of their sockets from the sinus pressure. I would like to make it to the pool and then on to work w/o any issues but I really don’t see that happening :(

Well, not that I was *trying* to do it today, but I finally met my goal of doing a 3000 in the 45 minutes allowed in the mornings… I had been planning out my practices prior to the morning swims but recently, due to me being lazy and not much impressed with my creativity beforehand, I have gone with a spur of the moment type approach. I’ll probably go back to writing them out ahead of time again soon but for now this is working for me.

Anyway, I got in the pool a few minutes late and had to rush my warmup a bit but I made it through before 7AM. Afterward I was feeling pretty good so I went ahead with an ambitious (for now) set that I was quite happy with when it was all said and done.

I can certainly feel the strength in my out of the pool activities (hiking 15+ miles with Chuck on Saturday) plus climbing the stairs in Minnehaha Falls Park in Minneapolis with Kim yesterday. Woot.

200 S/K/P			         600

16x100 FR (every 4th IM D) 1:30	1600

6 x 100 FR P 1:30		         600

1 x 200 WD		         200

				3000

I held all the 100s FR under 1:10 and while the IM drills were having me come in on 1:25 it was more of a restful swim for those than anything else. I was *very* pleased with that set and continued to feel strong into the pull. Woot.

On a slightly related note, I got an e-mail from a lady interested in knowing where I swim in Apple Valley. For those of you watching along at home, you can check out District 196’s Community Education programs here.