This morning I woke up feeling much better. Even at 4:45am when the alarm went off I was out of bed pretty quickly and felt good about deciding to go to bed at 7:30 last night. I really needed the sleep. I was at GVP and in the water at 6am with John C. We swam out to the dock and then decided to head back in. Were both racing sprints this weekend so neither of us felt the need to extend the distance any. I've already done a 1.5 and a 1.4 mile swim this week so I was plenty good with the mile.
On the way back my mind started to wander. I was thinking about the race, about work, about my upcoming work trip to Chicago next week, and some other random things. I pretty much stopped paying attention to the fact I was swimming.
As a side note here.... I really love that I can completely lose myself in thought while swimming. It wasn't that long ago that every part of my stroke required careful thought and I was nervous and concentrated in the water. Now I'm relaxed as can be and able to drift off in thought. Especially in calm lake waters. However... this is not always a good thing.
So as my mind wanders I'm sort of loosely paying attention when I breathe as to where I am. Well sort of. Basically all I know is that the sun is on my left side which means I'm swimming the right general direction. It was so low that I couldn't see anything else when I breathed to the left as it was pretty blinding. And on the right side I saw green trees. So bascially all this means is I'm roughly headed the right way. However I haven't sighted the entire way back other than to peek out on eye when I breathe. I sort of forgot to as I was busy thinking about other things than swimming. Suddenly I woke up and realized I was still swimming and should probably at least check to make sure I'm still headed the right way. So I popped up to sight. I was very confused. I swim at GVP so much that I have a good mental picture of the pond and yet I had no idea where I was. I had to stop and tread water for a second to figure it out. The problem was that I had apparently drifted WAYYYYYYYYY left on the return leg. So much so that I was just about on the left side of the island that I usualy swim by on the right hand side of. So nothing looked right, and the island obscured my view of the beach I was headed for so I was very confused. When I figured it out I laughed and then started to swim back around to my usual right hand side of the island. Then all of a sudden my hand hits rocks right around the time I can see them. Theres a big pile of loose rocks in my way. Its about 50' offshore of the island. The only way to get over them was to walk on them and then get back in the water on the other side. This is right around the time John looks up to see where I was. And looks very confused to see what looks to him like I'm walking on water. Pretty funny stuff!
So I got back in the water and finished the swim. This time paying attention to where I was going the rest of the way. Finished the swim and then headed home.
The rest of the day today I'm going to try and relax as much as possible, finish packing for the race tomorrow, and go to bed as early as I possibly can, or perhaps take a nap if I feel like I can. I still feel like I can sleep more. I know that tomorrow's race is not my focus, but I'm still competitive and would like to do well, but I feel like I'm a bit too beat up to do anything specatacular tomorrow. We'll see how I feel tomorrow. From what I'm told and looking at the results from last year its going to be a tough field tomorrow. I took a look at the age group winners last year. Unless a miracle happens in the water for me tomorrow I don't think I'll be anywhere near the top three. Those guys were FAST! So my goal is to race hard and have fun. Should be a good day. Weather looks perfect. Should only be high 60's or low 70's at race time.
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