Category — swim

The first of the year dawned cold and windy.  It was 17 degrees, but that didn’t stop my friend Larry and I from doing our annual 1^st day of the year run.  We had a pleasant two loops of Prospect Park to ourselves as it appeared that the cold, previous evening’s festivities or combination thereof kept almost everyone out of the park.  I don’t think we passed more than 5 other runners. 

After the run we went home to get ready for the annual Coney Island Polar Bear Dip into the Atlantic Ocean.  This was without a doubt the highlight of my day, specifically because my 8 year old son decided to come with me and take a dip into the ocean as well.  I can’t express how proud I am of my little man.  It was 17 degrees outside and the water temperature was in the low 40’s and the kid tore off his clothes and dragged me into the water.  He was excited, laughing and had eyes shining bright with excitement.

The place was a mob scene and it was difficult to make our way through the crowd into the water.  We ran in holding hands and with adrenaline flowing.  I looked at my son and asked if he was ready to dunk himself.  He shook his head yes and then on the count of 3 we dunked our heads below the surface of the water.  It was bone chilling cold, so we didn’t hang around and started to run back to our blankets.

The crowd was even thicker at this point and we had a tough time finding our blanket.  To make matters worse, I wasn’t wearing my glasses, so I could see hardly anything.  I felt bad as I could tell my son was really cold and wanted his towel.  We probably found it within a minute, but it certainly felt longer.  Both our hands and feet were really cold and it was a struggle to get him dressed.  I had hand and toe warmers and I put them in his gloves and shoes to help warm him up.

Fortunately, while at the beach I met up with @brujitalinda.  She was there with a friend who wasn’t doing the dup and was kind enough to take pictures of me and my son on the beach.    @brujitalinda looked stunning in her bikini and was adorned with her New Year’s resolutions written on her body.  Perhaps next year I will do the same.

 On the way home from the beach, my son rested in the back seat, laying down across it with his cold feet pressed against the bare flesh of my stomach.  They were nice and cold and he found it infinitely amusing as I complained about his cold feet pressing against me.  When we got home, we both took warm baths and then went back out to Larry’s house for post Dip festivities.  We drank his wife’s delicious Hot Toddies and equally delicious Chili.  All totaled it was a great start for the New Year.

 

Wednesday, 1/16, 6pm on F train heading towards Brooklyn

Today is a non-running day, which means I am heading to the pool. I really wish I did my swim in the morning, but as usual I slept too late to make it to the pool on time. I really need to get to bed earlier. I just don’t want to go to sleep so early. I just want entertainment at night, whether it is watching TV, chatting online or perhaps best of all, having sex with my wife. But even after all that is done I don’t feel like going to sleep. It’s like I’ve suddenly become afraid that I am going to miss something. If only we didn’t have to sleep.

I am really not in the mood to go to the pool. The whole point of the pool workout is to give my legs a rest, serve as active recovery and to keep my cardiovascular fitness improving. That is looking at it negatively though. I need to change that line of thinking. Swimming will give me a much needed upper body workout, balance out my body and for vanity’s sake and keep me looking good. I look back at my IMLP photos, especially from 2005/2006 and I see how cut I looked. I love the way I looked in those pictures and do want to get back there. Swimming is one way to do it. I just got to start swimming in the morning so it doesn’t seem like such a chore as when I do it at night.

Anyway, so I am on the way to the pool. Hopefully it won’t be crowded, or even better it will be closed because someone puked in it. Hey, that’s not good… Did I really just say that?

Thursday, 1/17, 9am on F train heading into Manhattan

I felt really good after my swim last night. As I stood in the locker room feeling the warmth in the muscles of my upper body I began to feel like a triathlete again. I guess in my heart I will always want to be a triathlete and not just an ultrarunner. Suddenly, I was feeling like increasing my schedule to incorporate more swim and bike training. However, that is not what I am supposed to do. I am an ultrarunner now and that’s what I have to focus on.

I ran 9 miles this morning. It was supposed to be 8, but I took a new course and misjudged how far I would go. I kind of knew if would go over, but I didn’t really care. I figured a little extra distance won’t hurt me and besides I was enjoying the run. My legs were a little sore from the previous days strength training session, but it was a good soreness. The weather was beautiful outside and I just wanted to run. I would have gone longer had time permitted.

Friday 1/18 6pm

I am sitting in my office drinking a Bud Light waiting for the poker game with my staff to begin. I am kind of out of sorts today. I woke up around 4am and decided to get out of bed. I had a bowl of Total Whole Grain Cereal and then decided to get on my bike for an hour instead of going back to sleep. I didn’t want to take a chance that I would go back to bed, oversleep and miss the workout. So I headed to my trainer in the basement, put on the season finale of Dexter on Showtime on Demand and spun easily for 60 minutes. I finished by 5:30am which left me 2.5 hours to go back to sleep before I had to get back up for work.

By the time I woke up again, I wondered if the workout had ever really happened. I had to check my HR monitor to see if I actually recorded a workout. I did, but I still felt as though I did nothing for the day. I called my coach later on and asked him if I did a workout in the middle of the night, went back to bed and then woke up feeling like I didn’t work out, will I have actually have done it. He said yes, so I didn’t worry about doing another one even though I still feel the need to get in some exercise.