Good Afternoon Masters!
I spent my lunch break with my bike for one last time, today. I took it over to the "other" bike shop in town, more of a Mom and Pop, but just Pop. Hours are 12:00 - 6:00 3 days a week and shortened on the weekends, whereas the one that didn't treat me right last year is more of a small local chain that sells bikes, skis, and ski equipment, 12 months a year, 7 days a week. If you recall, I dropped my bike off there last fall to get done what they called a Level 1 maintenance, they upsold me to a level 2 maintenance, then did almost no work at all on the bike and called me to say it was completed. When I complained that perhaps someone called me by accident because the bike was barely touched, the nutcase in the backroom got on the phone with me and said I rode the hell out of the bike....which is supposed to explain why they charged me for work not completed? So the manager of that store made things right by having me bring the bike back in so they could do the work and then they put on a new freewheel at their cost, no charge for labor. They made it right but didn't exactly win me over as a new customer, so I'm giving the little guy on the block a try. He doesn't offer a "Level 1" and "Level 2" maintenance, but rather inspects the bike, finds out what you need replaced, repaired, and/or adjusted, tallies it up and lets you know what the price will be, then gets authorization to proceed before actually doing the work. That's if you need something big done. Most likely, he said, it'll be a basic cleaning and & lube. I still expect that to be over $100, and parts may not be available to fix what needs fixing, just like in every other aspect of life these days.
Looks like I'm going to try to get my 6,000 yard swim done today between 4:00 and 6:00. GN needs to be to the HS before 4:00 for one last "open basketball court day" before tryouts for the team on Monday. I think he has a 0% chance of making the team, since the other guys trying to get on the team are all already part of the program, and I didn't see enough natural ability in him to knock someone off that already has the foundational skills honed, understands the program, and isn't 5'6" tall. He might have a chance if the program still included a freshman team, but last I knew there was just Varsity and JV. It's a small school - about 40-50 boys per grade - but not that small.
Interesting to me that there is a CYO team (Catholic Youth Organization) in town that had tryouts last week. That group of boys would be the ones I would expect to be the first line cut from the school team, so the CYO apparently tries to get the best players they can before the school has their tryouts. There must be a good logic behind it.
Have a greta Friday. If I complete the 6,000 yards this evening I'll check in and let you know how it went,.
MM#209 / JapanJoyful#803
BTY - good luck on 3.5 miles of swimming in two hours. At the rate I've registered in the 2.4 IM swims I used to be able to do, it'd take me over four hours to swim 6,000 yards, assuming even that I could which, unless it was out in the middle of a lake where my survival depended, I couldn't.
Hmmm...you might want to check that. Looks like Kraken have played 14 games but have only 9 points, behind both Sabres (12 points) and Caps (18 points).
Tramps - rats. However, I like my method better. Besides, maybe the 8th place Kraken and the 7th place Canucks could create their own Very Far West Division.
ps Jeanne - $250! Neat. I thought you were going to say Appleton's uncle got it. I'll trade my Mariners' one for one.
ps bio - are you able to taper and re-coup today?
I hope so.
"Enjoy yourself. Your younger days never come again." 100yo T. Igarashi to me in geta at top of Mt. Fuji (8/2/87)
Goodl luck with the long swim, BTY. I’m interested to hear how basketball tryouts go for GN. I hope he isn’t demoralized.
Out there running since dinosaurs roamed the earth
Hey y'all, just a quick post to keep my streak going! Got some more sleep (apparently needed). With DW, took her pups for a short walk. Then an 8.7 mile run, fairly easy pace. After a conference call DW, DS#2 and I went for a short, easy bike ride. Well, not easy for DW. Her battery went dead with about a mile to go so she did more on her own. Luckily we only went 4 miles.
Good luck Leslie!
Have a grate night eveyrone!
Hoping you have a great day, Leslie, and that your foot holds up. Can’t wait to hear about it.
Thanks Tet and KSA and all....
I blew it away. Felt great right from the start. I was swimming 1:45/100 pace even though my goal pace was 1:50's. I never ran into cramping issues, either in my legs or the bottoms of my feet, so I didn't need any prolonged rests. I rested at the end of 2,000 yards and 4,000 yards, mainly to get some water into me but also to get my goggles out of my eye sockets. They were really digging in by 4,000. Each rest was only 18 seconds and that really helped me to keep going strong, time wise. I felt great when I saw that my time at 3,000 yards was 52:12 since my time at the end of the 3,000 earlier this week was either 52:10 or 52:12, I'll need to check. My finish time was 1:44:54. I swam an extra 50 yards and finished 6,050 yards in 1:45:44; partially to have an insurance 50 yards since it would be awful to check my splits over the last part of the challenge and realize I had fallen 50 yards short. It also gave me a new distance PR by 50 yards. So, my honor system finishing time is 1:44:54. My time last year when I swam this challenge was 2:02:27, so I beat my previous PR by 17:30. How about that? Had I held my overall pace, I could have swam 7,000 yards in 2:02:27, and the way I felt at the end, I think I could have!
Now I have to remember to go into the app and register for both races. Last year I was the slowest of all the finishers in my AG in the country, and I'm hopeful that I moved up from say 12th to 8th or 9th. I won't find out for a while, though, because it takes them a really long time to post the final results. It must be because they make some efforts to verify the first few finishers' times in each AG, especially the AG winners and those setting new national records. Just for perspective, the fastest swimmers in my AG probably finished this 6,000 yard distance in well under an hour, swimming sub 1:00 100's. I can't even swim that fast for 25 yards!
Thanks for the encouragement. The next ePostal is a one hour all out swim. Registration opens in January. My pie-in-the-sky lifetime goal of 2 miles in one hour feels like it's within reach! (That is a 1:42/100 pace. I'm practically there, if I can stay healthy)
Oh, and Tet, I remembered you asking me a while back, how many strokes it takes me to swim from one end of the pool to the other. At that time my answer was probably 17 when I'm fresh, and 19 when I get tired. (When you're swimming for two hours you have a lot of time to think about things.....). Today I was hitting the end of the pool in 13 strokes. I chalk that up to all of the drills with the pull buoy and also to having a much improved push off of the wall and a better underwater dolphin kick. It has become apparent that the improvements that I'm looking for in my distance swimming is to be found in getting better at the underwater dolphin kick. So I'll be posting about doing a considerable amount of core work over the next couple of months, not to mention underwater dolphin kick drills.
What an excellent PR and great stroke count across the pool. Congratulations on a job well done!
I had some really good coaching (Masters) in Dallas and learned a lot about all that. My coach was a top Olympian back in the day and could get down the pool in 3 strokes. He was edged out by Mark Spitz in the 1972 Olympics. His name was Jerry Heidenreich. He was a truly great coach for kids and adults, but was a troubled person. He took his life in 2002.
10 hill miles up and down Mt Tam. 1400' of elevation gain, in the first 5 miles (subsequent 1400' loss on the second 5...). After the 8.5 yesterday, I was pretty spent for today but wanted to take advantage of the great weather (75) and avoid the weekend crowds. I can tell my legs are going to be sore tomorrow!
BTY; good job on the swim! And yeah, customer service means a lot these days, with people being more judicial on where they're spending their inflation dollars.
60-64 age group - University of Oregon alumni - Irreverent and Annoying
I'll have to ask my friend Glen if he knew Jerry. He was a national caliber swimmer in the early 70's, expected to make the Oly team; right after college he broke his neck in a dirtbike accident nad has been paralyzed since.
Wow. Tragic!
I don’t have too many regrets in life but one is quitting swimming when I was almost old enough to join the HS swim team. I was pretty lazy and not coachable. Hey, two more regrets! But, yeah, what a difference a coach might have made.