All I Can Do Is All I Can Do

I can't believe my ears. While I sit here and type this, the cold rain is falling through the cold air outside my cold window. Are you kidding me? It it still winter here in the deep South, winter in May, and I am losing my mind. My charity swim is less than a month away and the water is colder now than it was in January. Unbelievable.

Back when it was warm enough to swim in a wetsuit.

I've been running a lot (for me) and that is keeping my cardio up, but running is running and swimming is swimming. I am trying to relax, and a couple of comments from other people have helped. I went in to Twin Rivers Friday after lunch to run on the treadmill and lift weights. I get on a treadmill only when the weather is inclement for an Eskimo. It was too cold to swim in a wetsuit and the rain was falling like Noah's Flood.

I saw Tom Flanagan there and was complaining to him. His response was, "All you can do is all you can do." I suppose he is right, and that helped me feel a little better. I guess no one who has or will donate is going to ask for a refund if I can't swim the full sixteen-miles. All I can do is all I can do. Not only am I missing a lot of training, but the water temp most likely will be a factor. I want to do this English Channel rules, but I may have to buy a new wetsuit and just swim until they have to pull me out of the water. All I can do is all I can do.

Saturday morning I drove over to Greenville to run the Cotton Classic 10K. I saw one of my crew members there, Robin Bond, and I also did some venting on her. I told her the swim might get ugly in the latter miles. She said that was OK, and she didn't mind being out there all day. That made me feel a little bit better.

I ran pretty well considering I didn't taper. Friday at Twin Rivers, I ran 4.5 miles on the treadmill and Thursday I ran 6.15 with two hard quarters mile surges thrown in. Still I managed  to run 52:35 which was good enough for first place in my age group. One of the good things about getting old is if you can shuffle across the finish line at my age, you have a good shot at placing. The bad news is Randal Beets beat me. Ouch!

For the week I
ran 31.45 miles
walked 7.66 miles
spent 40: on the bike trainer
lifted weights one time, but
swam only 2,100 meters.

For the year I have
run 397.08 miles (+253.87 over last year)
and swum 265,376.38 metes (+21,000 over last year).

Last week I lost a lot of ground to the previous year's swimming total. I got 30,000 meters then and this week last year, I also swam 30,000 meters. This week last year, I did two swims of over seven miles. There is no way I can stay in the water that long now and we don't even have Masters this Thursday.

Sigh.

All I can do is all I can do.