Old School Aquathon #1 - June 1

Harris Lake, triangle swim, two laps. Not a fan of multiple laps on any discipline. The first one is filled with "oh, I have to do this again." The second one is, "been there, done that". Out-and-backs are fine, just multiple laps gets a little old.
Listen to me complain like I've done this for years or something. Ha!

Not sure of my exact time - will see when it's posted.
One stroke hot, next stroke cold.
At the beginning, just did some sculling strokes for the final ten seconds before the the start, then was able to just put my head in the water and go.
LOTS of people. Lots of groping. Lots of people who don't know how to sight. One woman literally landed with her arm and half of her chest on my back. Have no idea how she did that. Another woman hit me solidly on four consecutive strokes until I finally lurched to the left to get out of her way. Had to stop for a second to let two people go, because they were each squeezing me into a shrinking space.
I kept thinking to myself that we're all just here to have fun and no one is intentionally trying to beat me, but if you don't get out of my line that you keep crowding. . .
So it was a mental challenge to just stay calm. I focused on stretching my shoulder and hand way out front like Coach Marty suggested yesterday. No shoulder pain during or after. Stuck with the breathing, sighted every 6-8 strokes.
In 10 days, I get to do twice that. Fun!

Now for the run. The slogan for the Old School Aquathon is "All distances are approximate. This is Old School."

And thank goodness those distances were approximate, because that half mile to make three miles? Would have been miserable. So let's talk about the good things.

First mile = 9:22
Second mile = 9:40
There may come a time when I get accustomed to averaging less than 10:00 miles. I may forget how cool it felt to see that 9:22 = 1.00 on my wrist tonight (figuratively cool, not literally cool. It was 99 million degrees, after all). I might someday take for granted that I can knock out a shorter time and pace. I hope so, as I'd like to think I'm just getting started with all of this and the sky is the limit for me, even at 41. But today, I'm just grateful.

And oh yeah, second place in Age Group?!?

Left to right - Tisha Cromwell, Michele Rivera, Kim Rice, Sandra McKinnon, Teresa Sanchez