January 28, 2009
Karen L.

It's o-dark-thirty in the morning, and I'm about to be off to the gym in the hopes that at 5:00 in the morning (as opposed to yesterday, at 6:07am) I'll be able to find a parking spot there. Whether or not I'll be able find a swim lane is another issue. It's nice that everyone's enthusiastic about working out, but it was -3 degrees when I pulled into the (full) lot yesterday, and I wasn't about to walk to the gym from down the street in that.

Unlike Tiffany (wow, Tiffany!), I haven't learned to flipturn and haven't yet swam a mile. I spend a fair amount of pool time doing drills and snorting water out of my nose. I also bought some mask-type goggles and am still trying to get those to work for me without leaking. I shared a lane with a woman who was enthusiastically kicking with flippers on the other day, and there were a couple of unpleasant flipper/wrist interactions. On the one hand, I'm whining and this is absolutely nothing compared to what an open water swim will be, I know. On the other hand, darn it, I want to be able to concentrate on my drills and not have to worry about Flipper Woman!

On this, our first week of training, I'll be spending the latter part of the week skiing with visitors from the MidWest. I tell myself that it counts as part of the training :-).