When I got into the lane this morning for swimming, I noticed a lot of new bodies. We had 4 new guys join us and I just knew it was going to be trouble. Because I am, as Julie puts it a tweener -too fast for the slowest lane but too slow for the next lane up, I sometimes get stuck with the newbies who have strength but little endurance, skill or etiquette.

We started out with 50 drills and this big guy kept pushing up the lane to eventually lead. That was fine because he was strong -- for 50's. Then our next set was kicking and pull. Arnie and I alternated leading that one. During one of the pulls, I got smacked hard on my hand by a swimmer in the next lane. Smacked so hard that my hand just went limp and I could not even swim the rest of the length with it. Afterward, the guy who smacked me asked if I was all right. By then I was but I did take a hit as he is one of the strongest swimmers AND he was wearing hard hand paddles. OUCH.

Finally, we had a distance set of broken 600's, starting with 100's then 150's, then 200's and finally with 300's. The big guy led every OTHER one and sprawled himself across half of the wall each time as he sat out (breathing hard) on the ones out that I led. Annoying but we can whip him into shape eventually.

2500 Swim Practice @ 01:00:00

I got in a run during lunch and did a hilly route up Yessler to Martin Luther King blvd and then back through the I90 tunnel path. Hit every red light I could and while it was not a spectacular run, it was solid.

5ish Mile Run @ 00:50:00

Tonight was Cheryl's group and it was a combination of drills and then a 3 mile run with increasing intensity around Greenlake. I ran with a group and stopped at each mile marker to indicate where the mile marker was to the participants as they ran by. I worked hard in between and my splits were 7:19 and 7:09 so I am calling it a good. I left pretty quickly after because I am feeling a tiny bit under the weather and did not want to get cold while sweaty.

3 Mile Run @ 00:30:00