Full Day

I didn't post yesterday because I was consumed with one thing: Jason Campbell's funeral. I had my Bible and notes at school and studied at every opportunity. I wanted every word to be perfect. 

First, let me back up to Tuesday. We lifted, and took a short afternoon shuffle, and I swam that night, 3,450 yards. Then I went home and worked on the funeral. Jason was a sweet, beloved man.

Early Wednesday morning, the energy was low at Plate City. We all three were tired and it seemed like we were just going through the motions. But we did it. I tried but I could not squat. My lower back was so tight that I had to tap out on that move. So we shifted to the leg press. I have a good machine that I rarely use. It gets little use for two reasons. First, I think know that the squat is a better exercise. Second, I forget about it. You might wonder how you can see that big machine just sitting there and forget about it. But believe me, it is possible. So we hit that one hard, and it was different, which itself is a good thing. You need some variety in a program. Ideally, the way to use the leg press is to squat first and then finish with the press when you leg muscles are tired. That way you don't have to stabilize the weight and you are much safer from injury. 

Jason's funeral was at 2:00. I thought things went well. It was emotionally difficult for me, but what else is new? When it was over, I felt like a few hundred pounds had been lifted from my chest. Funerals hit me like that, which I suppose is a good thing. It makes me do everything I can to be prepared.

After the service, I went home and rested. Then I went to the pool to meet Tyler for a magnum practice. We swam

  2,250

  200 @ 4:00

  50 @ 1:45

  100 @ 3:00

  50 back @ 1:45

  50 breast @ 1:45

  500 @ 9:00

  50 @ :45

   250 easy

  total: 3,500 yards

If that looks familiar to you it should. It is almost the same practice we did last week with a couple of small changes. One change is we swam a long warmup. I like those because that covers the aerobic conditioning, the basic fitness that we can always fall back on when we are tired. Then everything with an @ behind it was done at race pace. Those are some pretty quick turn arounds, which is what makes the set tough. This is the same as last week except the final 50 that we added to the end. In case you are wondering why it has an @ behind it, the idea was to get to the wall before the watch hit the :45. I beat it by two seconds. I was slower on everything except the 500 which I beat by two seconds coming in a 8:08. So you can see where this first practice that I call the Meet helped me: stamina. Tyler beat me in all of those except the 500, but he was way faster on it this week over last week, maybe 50 seconds faster. So the set helped his stamina also.

When I got home, I still had not run so I changed changed and went out the door. I only did 1.14 miles. I was tired, my legs were toast from the morning's leg session at Plate City, and it was getting late. All in all, it was a full and productive day. Thank you, Lord, for helping with preach Jason's funeral. I am not going to say that he will be missed. He is already missed. God, bless his wife, his children, his dad, brother, and other family members as well as his numerous friends. They We are going through something right now. We probably will be for a long time, but your grace is sufficient.