On the way back home I grabbed some breakfast and coffee and spent an hour reading the news on the computer in my office. At 6:45 am I headed to the Western Hills Athletic Club pool for the 7:00 am workout. It was still dark but it was in the high 60s with a soft breeze coming out of the west. The water was about two degrees cooler than the day before and, while it's a little tougher to make that first jump in, the cooler water (within reason) generally means a faster, better workout.
There was the usual contingent of young (mid-20's to mid-40's), hard charging swimmers training for stuff like triathlons and USMS nationals, and they were frothing it up in the fast lanes (100 repeats on 1:05 to 1:15). I'm looking for a bit more moderation and 100 yard repeats in the 1:30 to 1:35 range. Yes, as I've gotten older I've gotten lazier. And a little bit slower.
When we started workout it was still dark and about halfway through there was a most glorious sunrise. I switched to backstroke for a number of laps just to look at the clouds slip through the rose sky turning to deep blue.
I headed home around 8:30 for a scheduled call that never happened. Seems my corresponding call "partner" is based in Colorado and was snowed in by a blizzard and unable to get to her office. I sat on the back deck of the house, sipped a cup of fresh coffee and pondered the reality of current life.
Everything swirling around us on the news is bad and tragic and sad and frustrating but when I close the lid on my laptop and turn off the feed I realize that so much of my life is so good that it's almost unbelievable. After a half hour of sitting quietly and savoring every sip of coffee I had the thought that the saying from an early Star Wars movie might be right. "Your focus determines your reality."
If that's the case then I choose to focus on swimming more, hanging out with friends and family more, and using the cameras I find to be the most fun. You'll have to find your own formula...
2 comments:
I stopped watching TV news and reading internet news for the most part in November of 16 and have felt better ever since. To quote someone, "you can only control the controlables" and worrying about everything else that I cannot control does me no good. I subscribe to the local paper to keep tabs on my community and read the funnies, and that is good enough for me. I'd rather spend go out and stalk birds to photograph or go wine tasting. Life is short.
I have been looking at this photo for a few days and thought that it was time to comment. It looks like the people in the photo all have nice technique, at least from what I can see from the arm recovery.
Back in the dark ages (did I ever mention that I was a life guard at the pool where Ben Franklin took his first swimming lessons?) when I was in high school, we had the option in the summer of working out in the high school pool which was inside (upstate New York being what it is in the winter) or at the new outdoor 50 meter pool which is now the site of an office building. I liked swimming outside and at 50 meters once I adjusted to the wall being so much farther away.
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