oh to be young again(sigh)...

had a great swim session today. yes, it's still darn cold but the pool temp whatever it is, feels very comfortable. it's the getting out of the pool that is painful. the only good thing about being cold and shivering, as i recall from exercise physiology in college, is that you burn tons of calories like that. i'll never forget my exercise phys teacher, professor beasley when he told us that the best way to burn the most calories was to jump in a cold pool with no clothes on. something about the way the body physiologically responds with the shivering uses tons of energy. i can think of better, less uncomfortable ways to burn calories than that.

so i ended up swimming 1,525 meters today. i did need to throw in a little rest here and there but it was for very short periods of time (seconds). i was in the pool for 50 minutes and as soon as my form started to go to hell, i called it a day. don't need to practice bad form...better said, i don't need to work on making my less than stellar form any worse.

swimming laps can be boring. am i preaching to the choir here? i allowed my mind to wander and my eyes too. i had 3 little whippersnappers swimming in the lane next to me and they were so talented. it was obvious they are on a team, high school maybe. i would guess they were all but 13 to 15 years old. they were just breezing down the lane, flip turning, doing different strokes, just making it look easy. i got to thinking, why didn't i start doing this earlier in life, like when i was their age? was it because i was too young mentally and just didn't have the discipline? was it that i didn't have athletic parent's pushing me to get involved in sports? was it body image/self consciousness? i would say it was probably a combination of all those. thank goodness i found my way down the right path and took matters into my own hands, albeit much later, but still better late than never.

had a wonderful run this morning before work. once again bundled up like an eskimo but very comfortable. i really think dressing for cold weather running is an art form that takes repetition to master and since we don't have very much cold weather here, i still haven't mastered it but i'm getting better at it. how can you not lately with this crazy cold front that is lasting forever it seems?

my goal this week is to get one more swim in, which will be tomorrow afternoon. next week, if the weather cooperates temp wise, i will swim in the morning to see how that works out with my schedule. i'd also like to practice flip turns a little next week. been there, done that but never mastered it...more details on that in a later post. i'll spare you those details today.

much love and peace out!