August 7: Following Dory's Advice

Though my TNT coach is on vacation, we still had an organized team swim practice this week. Our practice took place at Cranbrook. I decided to go early to try and get a run in, though I wasn't even going to touch the trails since that is what brought on those dreaded shin splints in the first place.

I'm not sure if I mentioned this before, but Cranbrook's track is so wierd. It's gravel, and it looks like it was taken right out of the Greco Roman times. The gallery seating is all made of stone. It's quite a beautiful setting, though strange nonetheless. I can't find the actual distance anywhere, but I think that the length of the track isn't a full quarter mile length, like most competitive tracks.

Michigan has endured a pretty hot summer, and today was no different. The temperature was around 90, and it was extremely muggy. I ended up running 12 laps (3 of those being sprints), and I was drenched by the end. Good thing I had swim practice immediately afterwards.

Three of us showed up for practice. I had looked forward to having a lane to myself, but it turns out that this night was open swim at Cranbrook, and it was packed. Open swim, according to Cranbrook, was from 8-9. No way were we going to get our 3300 yard practice in an hour! And I certainly didn't think I'd go fast, since my shoulder was really acting up.

We had to do a lot of sprint work tonight, which probably helped us get through a major portion of our practice done before 9pm. When 9pm hit, the two other swimmers on the team called it quits and headed for the showers. I hung back, waiting for the scuba class to finish up on the other side of the pool. I figured that if they were still there, I could keep swimming. I got that confirmed shortly afterwards by the pool monitor, who said I could swim to my heart's content until the class was done.

So I did.

I ended up finishing the 3300 yard drills, and added another 550 yards to that. For some reason, I just felt great swimming tonight, especially after I worked past the pain of my shoulder. I could have kept going, but I didn't want to overdo it...

I thought of Dory from Finding Nemo with all of the energy I had.

Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming
Just keep swimming
What do you do?
You swimmmmmmm!

--------

Join me on August 19th at Dragonmead and help me raise money towards my goal!
For details, go to http://www.active.com/donate/tntmi/DunCAN

Comments

rdpetesblog said…
what is you do again.

you swimmmmm.

I like that you can use that philosiphy in just about everything you do.
August 8, 2007 at 9:18 PM
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