wet set

On Wednesdays I have meetings until 5:00. But I still go into the office at 7:00. So today, even though it was a scheduled "rest" day, I decided to go to the gym in Bellevue before work. It still got me across the bridge before traffic got bad, and I got to work feeling energized and pleased with myself.

Today I swam for 30 minutes -- 400 meters freestyle, 400 meters pulling with a leg float, 250 meters kicking, and 50 meters freestyle to end it. I was pleasantly distracted during the first 400 meters by the whalesongs of another swimmer. (Do *I* make that noise, too?) It worries me a bit that it took me half an hour to swim 1100 meters. How long will it take me to swim 1500? In open water?

I was looking at last year's Portland Triathlon. It looks like an amazing event, and I was happy to see that "normal" people also participated in the race. I scrolled through the results. One of the later finishers spent 53 minutes in the water on her swim. I think that if I spent 53 minutes just swimming, I'd be pretty much done. I don't know if I'd be able to will myself to get on the bike. So huge, huge kudos to her.

I wrote the date of the Portland Marathon on my whiteboard at work: 10/05/08. I think that's my new target.