New Read

My cat and I are reading a new book. It's The Great Swim by Gavin Mortimer given me by a dear friend, Robin Bond, who helped crew my last charity swim. Robin has gifted me several books on swimming and is scheduled to work my next charity effort, The Chicot Challenge Swim for Diabetes, set for June 1 in Lake Chicot at Lake Village, Arkansas. Thank you Robin.

The weather has been threatening bad, but not really severely inclimate, and I have been off work for a couple of days. The folks at DSU have been off work also bringing my swimming to a screeching halt. Dude, I am so tired of missing swims. I know I could go to the pond, but I'm just not tough enough right now to handle the water and weather. I read with envy all the others swimmers' blogs and posts in "Did You Swim Today." I just don't have that kind of access to the water. I've contacted MVSU about trying to use their pool, but no one there will talk with me. Why and I surprised? Our Chief of Police at MDCC has talked to them (they will talk with him), and he is supposed to let me know. But I need to be swimming now.

I did get in a four+ mile run Monday in the cold and threatening rain. Then I lifted weights until it did shower. Last week I failed to get any upper body weight lifting done and it showed as my poundage dropped a bit on the bench and my numbers dropped on the chin. On the bright side, I was able to do One-arm-rows. I feel that is a very important exercise for my swimming health, and I have been precluded of late from doing that move because of elbow pain. I harmed the right elbow in a bicycle crash in 2007 and it causes me a little trouble from time to time. Thankfully, it has never bothered my while swimming. However, it does not like certain exercises, primarily the ones I feel are the most important, like one-arm-rows and pullups. I have replaced pullups with chins. For some reason, chins don't flare the elbow up while pullups do.

Tuesday I ran another four miles, did some light squatting, and some easy spinning on my bicycle trainer. Now it is Wednesday morning, and I am scheduled to return to work. This afternoon, I plan a shorter run and maybe some spinning. My son's birthday run is Saturday. We are ambulating 27-miles to his grandmother's house where we will crash and cook. I'm looking forward to it but I need to taper, and I'm not in a tapering mood. I guess that's what you call discipline, or the lack thereof.