tyler’s take

but today there is lots of sun, thankfully.

and Christmas comes 361 days of the year!

Yesterday I swam my penultimate postal swim of 2009 (and possibly my life): the 6000 yard swim in a 25 yard pool (for those who prefer some help with the maths that’s 240 lengths or 120 laps). I somehow talked a real-life professional athlete into doing the long swim with me (what a sport!). Here’s a shot where he’s all smiles (yes this *is* before the swim, but there were still some smiles after):

Everyone needs a counter/timer/verifier for a postal and we each had our own. One of us was somehow talented enough to talk the 2009 Wisconsin Ironman Champion of the World into being his counter. The other one of us had to make do with the only other person who was willing to sit still indoors for over an hour on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and record splits every ~30 seconds (thanks Larry!).

Race preparation
Apparently, a pro triathlete prepares for a long pool race slightly differently than a pure swimmer does. For example, while we both followed our regular training routines through Thursday, one of us trained hard in swim practice on Friday, but sat out a portion of the hard stuff, then swam easy on Saturday and followed that with the regular dryland routine, but did some of that with super-light weights and bands. The other one of us did who-knows-what crazy training on Friday, did a long, long ride on Saturday, and then did a hard ride on Sunday morning *right before* the 6k swim (it shall be left as an exercise for the reader to determine which is which).

Race Report
We swam side-by-side in two adjacent lanes, and both started from a push at exactly 5 minutes after straight-up noon with absolutely zero prior warmup in the pool (this zero-warmup strategy seems to work well for me, for others not so much).

For suits we both wore similar all-textile Finis Hydrospeed legskins (still legal until at least January!). Some people can tolerate wearing a full bodyskin for a long race like this, but I find that even a 1500 is far enough to let the suit cut me up fairly substantially. For example, the TYR Sayonara that I wore for the 1500m swim portion of the Austin Tri cut me fairly well on both lats, as well as rubbed off most of the top layer of the back of my neck where the zipper cord wanted to be (I suppose some kind of body lube might help with the chafing, but I’ve never tried it). The Finis legskin ended up working well, but whoever designed the super-short booty part needs to go back with the tape measure and rethink it a bit (i.e. not all swimmers are plumbers, and big … erm … “gaps” let in a lot of water, which is not a good thing for cutting down on drag). Fortunately, the suits had a bit of stretch in them and getting them wet seemed to help bridge the gap (so to speak). Overall, the legskin did provide a lot of good muscle compression, and did seem to help ward off fatigue.

In general, I felt fairly strong the whole way and my pacing was fairly steady. I did not finish the swim under the hour mark (and going in I did not expect to), but I did go significantly further at the hour than I had last January, which made me feel pretty good about my current conditioning … at least, my distance conditioning … we’ll have to wait and see about the sprint races!

Immediately after touching the wall on my last lap I found my triceps and lats to be very sore, but my legs felt fine even though I had kicked quite a bit (quite possibly this lack of soreness in the legs was due at least partly to the compression provided by the legskin). From past experience with other long swims I anticipated the upper body soreness to carry on for at least a day or two, but after a short swimdown in the pool (only 300 or 400 yards) I found most of the soreness has dissipated. By the next morning I felt relatively back to normal, but this may have been partly due to the awesome post-swim Taco optimization that took place with the two swimmers and one counter (optimize in 45? I think we made it).

As far as postals go, there’s only one left for me: the 3000 yard swim (25 yard pool). I have exactly 4 weeks from yesterday to get it done, and this time I need to convince two more guys, or one more guy and two gals, to do it with me so we can make a “relay” out of it (technically, it’s an aggregate swim not a relay, as there is no exchange). The 3k actually should be easier to persuade folks to do than the 6k, but time’s marching on, and there are not that many more opportunities for open lanes in the TSC … we’ll have to wait and see!

This morning in between swimming outside at 7am (was the air really 59 degrees? good thing the pool was heated to 79) and doing dryland training at 10am, I hoofed it downtown and joined some friends for the 2009 NAMI Austin walk, which started at 9 am at Auditorium shores and went north across the river, around the capitol building and back.

I took some photos at the event.

A fair number of dogs brought their humans with them (some a bit crazier than others):

APD helped with traffic control:

A lot of people had fun:

Tuesday morning I skipped most of my normal swim workout to help out a friend, and consequently arrived at the pool about an hour later than typical (to run with friends after practice … I did not go all that way to swim for 15 minutes). This unusual timing proved rather serendipitous.

After briefly crossing paths with Ande in the parking garage (apparently he got out early), I began crossing the street to the swim center, and as I looked around to check for traffic I noticed other things.

To the east I saw the rising sun punching crepuscular rays through the opening rifts in a recently passed thunderhead. As I let my eyes follow these rays to the western vista I perceived a most beautiful apparition: a nearly full rainbow glowing brightly in blue sky above the distant dark background of an advancing storm.

Again, I was hamstrung with only my lesser recorder. Alas. It does at least convey the general idea.

After crossing to the other side of the street I saw one end of the rainbow coming down seemingly in the pool (olympic gold inside):

Looking back towards the capitol I found the other end (isn’t that where they keep the rest of the gold?)

Here they are in a pseudo-panoramic digital collage:

The rest of last weekend turned out to be about as beautiful as Friday evening. Saturday provided even more gorgeous sky shots.

And even the evening proved to be worthy of some imaging.

Sunday got off to something of a slow start. I had intended to get up early and run around the lake, since I haven’t seemed able to completely kick my cross training habit yet. But perhaps my body was asserting its opinion that running rather brutalizes it, as I ended up sleeping in until the sun was high enough to make the run seem unfun (and hence, not done). Instead of running around in a big circle downtown I instead stayed home, mowed the lawn, and trimmed back the bramble.

After that I thought it might be time to assess the growing things that I planted so many months ago.

By autumn, the meyer lemon tree, which at one point in the spring had over 100 blossoms, had only a sole surviving fruit:

The topsy turveys were something of a mixed bag. The serrano was somewhat fruitful, but not more than had it grown upside up:

The santa fe pepper produced only three or four peppers during the entire summer (but aren’t they cool looking? I think I’ll grow these again, but in the ground or a regular pot next time):

For most of the summer I was ready to accept the tomatillo as a total failure. It grew far more green leaves than either of the peppers (by a factor of 3 or 4), but never flowered. Still, I kept watering it (and it kept needing water). I suppose after several months of it essentially ignoring me I was not quite ready to give up on it (is that tenacity or just stubbornness)? Then, sometime around my birthday I noticed that it was actually flowering! Of course, since then it’s basically back to ignoring me. The flowers (amazingly) are still there, but as yet no fruit. It *has* been a really hot summer after all (far too hot for good growing). Perhaps the cooler fall weather will be more productive … I think I’m not quite ready to give up yet:

Finally, at some point over the summer I stuck a pineapple top in a pot. They’re rather slow to flower (2 years or so) but it’s fairly well taking off. I like to watch them grow:

Then I decided that it was probably time to change the oil in my car …

… is coming soon. Really. While we wait, serious bonus points will go to anyone who can identify anybody in the obnoxiously cool photo above.

Arnel Pineda really does sound a lot like Steve Perry. These days, he might even sound more like vintage “Steve Perry” than Steve Perry does. Even if Steve Perry had/has a “one in a million voice,” I guess that just goes to show the power of numbers: if you’re a “one in a million” kid growing up in india or china you have over 1000 people who are just like you (FYI, Arnel is filipino).

Too bad the box deal fell through guys. Anyone who does go to the concert tonight should take good mental notes (along with your earplugs! (honestly, it actually sounds better with them)) and enjoy the late 20th century flashback.

Today I think I might have seen the most beautiful sunset ever. Sadly I was hampered with a only a very low quality image recorder (at least, the one with images that can be shared). I might have known it was coming since on the way to twilight I saw some of my most favorite clouds, high cirrus and cirrocumulus.

Seeing these types of clouds always seems to make me smile. Perhaps it comes from the sense of awe that they inspire … so high and far away, and seeming so wispy and delicate.

The natural world around us is filled with things of such beauty and wonder, if we only take a moment out of our busy lives to stop and stare we might decide that some of our “large problems” are actually small in comparison to world in which we live. A little perspective can be a good thing.

Follow along in your own mind’s eye as the cloud bottoms, surrounded by a darkening blue and purple sky, slide through the spectrum of glowing colors … white, to yellow, yellow to orange, orange to red, red to pink, dissolving into the backdrop and then reemerging in field of darkening white and grays over a deepening blue.

Sometimes it pays dividends to walk the world with eyes open and up.

Yes, I’m a bit behind. They’re coming …