Yay, a good swim today!

Just taking a break from doing dishes. Still have to fold the clothes, but now I've got more of them to fold, as I discovered a wet batch I'd forgotten about in the dryer. Doh!

What a flurry of a day! After my afternoon appointment, I went straight to the pool and got in an hour and quarter of solid swimming before picking up the kids and doing the groceries.

I felt tired to start and then tired during, but somehow, I managed to have a bit more rhythm today. Perhaps this came from my own head telling me to tough it out and just do it, as I haven't been able to swim more than two laps of front crawl at a time recently, but today, I swam 10 straight! Alright, sometimes I got 2 or 3 seconds break between the laps cause of the traffic jams, but does that nullify my achievement today? I'm trying real hard to breathe on both sides, but sometimes I feel like I've run out of oxygen and need to breathe on one side only and hope that I make it to the end of the lane without drowning. Mind you, I could probably just put my feet down since the pool gets so shallow, so I guess that fear of drowning is unfounded. I definitely swam more than 60 laps today, that's for sure! Even got in 3 laps of butterfly stroke. Still real cool ... too bad I never got that novelty rush with front crawl though.

Alright, so some of you are probably asking, "Why so much emphasis on swimming, Bonnie?" 'Cause if I can't swim 4k by the cutoff, then I can't finish the Ironman. Secondly, even if I do finish by the cutoff, which I plan to, but I don't swim it well, then I won't be able to finish the Ironman either. Dirk told me that the swim is incredibly essential and I have to be super efficient, i.e. with that long a swim, I would only need to kick once or twice per stroke. I slowed my kicking down today, and look how much farther it got me, and I wasn't that much slower, just less out of breath.

For those not in the know ... Up to fairly recently, I could not put my face in water at all, couldn't seem to keep the water out of my nose ... and deep water, especially open water, scared me immensely (bad panicky feeling). When I was younger, I only managed to pass the first two levels of swim instruction, tadpoles and beginners, and I think I had to do that last level three times before I finally passed at the age of 13. I remember being grossed out by mouth-to-mouth resusciation ... ick. Mouth-to-mouth has become a less icky concept now ...

Needless to say, no cycling today. Tomorrow? Run and swim ... I hope!

Thanks to all those who commented on my last blog entry - it's nice to know you care. I'm going to hit the hay soon. Up early though as I have still a lot of work to do on my website. Maybe if I'm lucky, I'll manage 5-6 hours sleep!