Yard Mowing Blues

The yard-mowing blues, I have them and I'm tired of it. Usually, by August the growth rate of yard grass in the Mississippi Delta has slowed enough that once per week is sufficient to keep a lawn looking cared for. By September, the grass as slowed enough that three mowings will cover the whole month. By October, two cuttings do the trick. November only requires one, and then I am done until the next spring.

This year has been different. With climate change bringing us monsoons now, my lawn has launched into an unprecedented growth rate that saw me cut three times in one week during the middle of September. I am not happy about this. I want the slow down. Always, I look forward to being able to use the time and energy expended on following a lawn mower into working out, getting ready for the Chicot Challenge to come, and other important things like watching television and hanging out with the cats. Not this time.

I keep looking for the slowdown. In the past, I thought the longer nights resulted in slower grass growth. I thought. Now I know that the dryness we normally experience this time of year is the true cause. There is another cause to grass slowing and that is the nighttime temperatures. When they start dipping into the 60s, the grass slows way down. But lately, besides a lot of rain, we have has some real heat and high night time temps. We haven't hit 69 at night yet, although the weatherman keeps predicting it.

Somewhere along the way, we have to get to fall and then winter, don't we? According to the Bible, Genesis 8:22, we do. That verse promises us the continuation of the seasons and contrary to popular belief, we do have four seasons in Mississippi. I have always enjoyed them which is another reason I am missing fall this year. September has been hotter than August. I'm ready for some reasonable weather. I'm ready to go outside and not sweat. I'm ready to mow the lawn and for it to stay mowed. Whoever heard of mowing three times a week in September? That's blasphemy. Make it stop, Lord, make it stop.

Nekkid at Work

Thankfully I didn't need it. The rain had temporarily stopped when I drove up at work. We have been in monsoon season since late August, and I purposefully left my raincoat at home. But the other stuff was an accident.

The other stuff is my work keys, which is not nearly the imposition it sounds like. Sunita unlocked my office, and one of the housekeepers unlocked my classroom door. But the ones that hurt, that made me feel weird and nekkid and out of place were leaving my watch and my cell phone.

What?!?!?!?!?

Yeah, I did it.

I can remember teasing my children about their life-support machines, i.e. cell phones. Now I am just as bad. Without it, I really do feel unclothed, unprepared, out of sorts. How will I check Facebook all day long, and what if someone texts me? Those are real problems. I suppose one way to survive is to approach it that way, as a survival test sort of like Naked and Afraid, the television show where a man and a woman are dropped naked into a wilderness scene and they attempt to survive for twenty-one days.

When I used to drive that 1971 GMC pickup that I purchased for $200, I approached it like camping out. To drive that thing from Greenwood to Jackson, Mississippi and back was a real ordeal, one that took a special mindset. I did it for years when I was in seminary at Wesley Biblical. Now I am ten minutes into my professional day and I'm wondering how I can make it. I will have to revert to the camping-out mentality. I am roughing it today. Going without all the technology that has invaded our lives and has made us dependent on it.

I had a colleague once who gave up Facebook for Lent. Heck, I'm a pastor and I think that is extreme. But if she could do it for a month, I should be able to last for one day. It's not even a full day. I will be off at 1:30 and headed home to my phone and watch and cats. Ah, the cats will give me comfort. They always do.

Not only that, but I have the computer. I can check Facebook and type blog posts and look at Twitter. That eases the pain some, but it still is going to be tough. I just hope the cats recognize my distress when I get home and give me the attention I need. Let it be, Lord Jesus, let it be.

9/17 - 9/23

Monday I was unable to do Plate City because of Over 60s at First Baptist in Itta Bena. I did, however, go to Twin Rivers for 

5 X 300 @ 6:30
7 X 100 @ 2:27
200 easy
total: 2,400 meters.

Tuesday I did both. At the pool I hit a straight 1,800 and at Plate City, on the bench, I pressed

15 X 85
8 X 120
6 X 140
3 X 150
1 X 155
6 X 140

That 140 range is where I like to be before a big swim. I don't have a big swim coming up anytime soon, but I like always to be in preparation mode. For next year's Chicot Challenge, I hope to be back, to do at least a one-way (12.5 miles) while leaving it to the other swimmers what they want to do. That is what is on my mind every time I go to the pool and every rep I do at the gym.

Wednesday I did 

600
8 X 100 @ 2:26
200 easy
total: 1,600

At Plate City I did the Swim Pull for

18 X 25 + washer
13 X 28
10 X 31

I did external rotations with the green cord for 117 total repetitions.

Thursday I swan 2,100 straight for a lousy 2:13 per 100 average. I got tired. What!??!?!?!? The dip in distance seems to have taken a hit on my endurance. I think Trevor and I worked out and I have it written down somewhere but it's not in front of me.

Friday I swam

1,000
10 X 100 @ 2:25
1,0000
total: 3,000 meters.

That was a good one. Trevor didn't show so I did some swim related and shoulder rehab kind of stuff.

Saturday at Twin Rivers, I hit

2,200
4 X 100 @ 2:15
4 X 50 @ 1:25 with small paddles
300 easy
total: 3,100 meters.

Trevor and I worked out later in the afternoon. We hit just about everything. 

You may be able to detect a pattern in my swimming. I am working the 100s up while cutting the interval down. The goal is to get back to 20 X 100 @ 2:00 which used to be my favorite workout. I have decided, however, to stick with the @ 2:25 for until I get to 20 reps while at the same time doing shorter sets at quicker intervals. The 4 X 2:15 had me breathing really hard. I also had less rest time for each one which indicate that my body was not fully clearing out the lactic acid between reps. On the 10 X set I did earlier in the week, I actually got faster after the sixth rep. That means at that interval, I am fully recovering between reps.

For the week, I swam 14,000 meters, lifted weights five times, and even shuffled a little bit. I'm on the way back although it is taking a lot longer than I expected. Thank you, Jesus.

Drop in Posting

If you read this blog with any regularity, you may have noticed a drop in the frequency of my postings. Not that I don't still post every week. I do. Sometimes two or three times. But compared to last year when I posted 291 times, I have fallen off the face of the earth. This year, I might or might not make 100 total posts. Why is that? You may or may not care, but I'm really writing this because I like to write. I you do want to know, however, read on. If not, check out the next post. 

One reason for my drop in throwing ink is the multitude of injuries that overwhelmed my body and mind for the past almost two years. One of the purposes of this blog is it serves as an athletic log and forms a permanent record of what I did in terms of training, performance, and health. Starting in November of 2016, my running fell on hard times. A knee injury sidelined me and the inactivity on that front continues. With the running gone, one large stream of my writing went dry. Although this bothered me (and still does), I filled my mind with swimming and lifting which managed to keep me, for a while, out of the pit.

Besides the running, in late June of 2017 a bad shoulder injury further hampered my training. I swam some short distances off and on with discomfort and then I could not swim at all. When the swimming stopped so did the weight lifting. Two more streams run dry caused the writing river to drop precipitously.
Then other losses began to overwhelm me, and I fell into a downward spiral that saw me come home everyday from work and go to bed, nap, and watch television. I was in the pit and getting out proved to be a difficult endeavor, one I had never done before.

While all this was happening, I didn't feel little like writing so I was writing less at home. Not only that, but these feelings spilled over into my teaching. Not feeling like writing myself, I was assigning fewer in-class writing activities at school. I always write when my students write, except when I am checking the weather. Thus another stream went dry further lowering the river.

Although Randy Beets has been gone for a few years, our rivalry remained strong for several of those cycles around the sun. But the longer he stays gone, and with both of us injured in the past, the grudge, although it still holds, has less sparkle than it did. Consequently, another tributary of the once running writing river has run dry. 

A fourth reason for my lack of literary output is our little cat CC. Everyday when I climb onto the bed to relax and watch some TV, she climbs into my lap and begins to purr. With her comfortable and happy, I am not about to push her aside so I can put a laptop in her place. Ain't happening. She gives me great joy and relaxes me beyond belief. I literally thank God for her everyday. The other cats might or might not hang out with me. CC is going to hang out with me everyday.

And finally, that pit I mentioned earlier was a big factor. Several times I thought I was out only to discover to my chagrin that I had slid back down the muddy slope. When your mind is not right, it is difficult to write. But now I am standing on the Solid Rock. The swimming is coming back. I'm lifting several times a week with Trevor. Even a return to running looks like it might be in the future. But no matter how many times I post in a year, I can't see letting this blog go. I do enjoy writing. It often amazes me when I scroll back through my own blog to see how I had forgotten the sequence of certain events, or that I had experienced pain in a certain area, or just to review some really good training cycles.

And with that final period, I just marked off the first thing I wrote on an index card to get done today. Blog. This list looks like this:

blog
study
swim 
Leflore Steel
cash check
mow
paint
workout
jump dog truck
clean storage room

How far will I get down the list? Who knows. Thank you Jesus for enough life to make a list and tackle it gladly.

Comp I (ARC)

A Dream

I dreamed about my dad last night. I was on a trip, a long one, trying to get home from I don't know where. The road I was driving was straight, flat, and bordered with animals of all sorts. I saw deer, pigs, dogs, raccoons, cats, and others. I kept slowing so as not to harm anything. Then I stopped and drank a pop at some place I was sure I had been before. 

When I left, the dream shifted. Dad was there and when Dad was alive, he was always in charge. Same in the dream. We stopped again very soon at a church, and he got out and sat on a bench in front of the church which was located on a town square. I was a little confused about our stopping because we were ahead of schedule, and this was going to put us behind.

The town square differed from all the town squares I have ever seen in that the center section was filled not with a courthouse but with buildings, ancient, rotting, downtown buildings. One building was six stories tall and although we were facing it, it had the appearance of us looking at its back. What caught my attention was the fact that there was a gas meter at each level. Six gas meters were in a straight line up the side of the aged, brick building. I wondered how anyone could possibly ever read the meters.  Besides having no stairs, there was no balcony from which anyone could go from inside to the outside wall. Spider Man is the only one, besides Jesus himself, who could deal with those meters.

So what is this all about? I have no clue. Two things make it stand out in my mind. Dad was there, and he looked just like he always did or how he did before he left us. The second thing is I am sure I have dreamed about that brick wall with the gas meters before. I don't remember the specific dream, but I'm certain I've seen it all my sleep already. Recurring dreams always get my attention. Not that I think they really contain any deep seated significance. But I wonder why, why certain images keep returning. 

For many years I had a repeated dream where I was at church and people were driving up and either I had not studied or my shoes were muddy. I can discern that one: I was consumed, at that time, with preparation for preaching. That obsession reached out and touched me even while I slept. I have also had ongoing dreams about being on the run from the law. I haven't had that one in a while, but it used to be a common one. Now there is this wall, this brick wall with gas meters that no one can get to. Does it mean anything? 

Maybe.

Maybe it's an echo of a fool's errand I have been on for several months. I won't discuss that, but it is a bit of a source of irritation for me. 

Maybe that's it. Maybe.

9/10 - 9/16

It was a different week. They are all different weeks. I shifted a bit this time away from a slow slog up and down the pool towards more quality. Monday I did

1,000
4 X 100 @ 2:30
200 easy
4 X 100 @ 2:30
200 easy
total: 2,200 meters

Pushing the 100s showed me how little quality swimming I have done. At the gym I only did some light weights, cords and the Swim Pull because Trevor couldn't make it.

Tuesday I did not swim, but Trevor was back, and I benched

10 X 80
8 X 120
5 X 140
5 X 140
5 X 140
5 X 140
4 X 145
2 X 150
15 X 120

We also did some leg work.

Wednesday I swam

1,200
5 X 100 @ 2:29
400
total: 2,100

Notice I dropped the interval to 2:29. This is a great advantage that a Garmin watch gives you. A few weeks back I did do one @ 2:25. But that was before I started programming workouts into the watch, and I got confused and lost track at some point. It is easy to do the math at first, but when one gets tired and short of breath, well, you know. With the watch, you don't have to do math; the Garmin does it for you. I plan to work my way up in reps and down in time until I get back to 2:00. I'll get there I'm sure.

Saturday I was really pressed for time and did 5 X 300 @ 6:30. This set is designed as a warmup. But I tapped out after it because I had things to do. The idea is to swim the 300s at or just below 2:00. That used to be my warmup/cruise pace. I'll get back there, by the grace of God, I will. Thank you, Lord Jesus.

For the week, I swam 10,900 meters, walked a little, and lifted weights.

208 - 210

           208

rivers of birds high
above earth, shading the sun,
leaves fall, darkness grows

           209

crow caws, wind blows
whistling through crowds of limbs,
bow walks on pine straw

          210

boy pulls bogan down
aims guns, shoots -
squirrel falls from tree

Looking for My Speed

Pace. It's been on my mind lately. Since God had graciously granted me the ability to swim again, slowly I have been working my way back into some sort of fitness. For many weeks, I swam only for the enjoyment of it, surprised anew and afresh every time I managed to go up and down the length of the pool. So happy was I to be in the water again and hypersensitive to the idea of re-injuring myself, I thought little if at all about speed.

Then the yardage began to increase, and I also began to pay more and more attention to what the watch said about my performance. At first, it was no big deal that my times were slow. Now, I am caring more, concerned, even starting to fret some.

I have not during this comeback done a single all-out swim of even 50 meters. But I have worked up to around 90% which happens to be the pace I used to swim 100 meter repeats. Those don't hurt as good as they used to, and my pace is ten to twelve seconds per 100 off what I routinely did in years gone by.

I am sure no swimmer would be happy about that although open water swimmers generally are not overly concerned with speed. But I want to come all the way back, not  just part of the way, if possible. My strength, with the help of Team Centerville member Trevor McLean, is almost back to where it was. My endurance, although far below, is coming up at the rate I would expect. The speed, however, lags.

It's hard to know exactly how much of that is me. The pool at Twin Rivers was redone last year, and now with no lane lines I am sure each lap is slower because the swimming is not as straight. How much slower? I can only guess and my guess is one to two seconds per 100. That still leaves another ten seconds out there unaccounted for.

Some of that tens seconds, no doubt, is my weight, which, although it is still high, is beginning to come down. How much difference does that make? Again, I don't know, but my guess is another one to two seconds per 100. That leaves another eight seconds.

Some of that eight seconds in certainly due to conditioning. I already mentioned that the 100 repeats don't hurt as good as they used to. When I am fit, I love the pain a set of hard 100s causes. In the past, I did 100s @ 2:00 and could knock out a set of twenty. Now, the interval has changed to 2:30 because I can't make the 2:00 interval. I am coming into the wall now at around 1:52. That used to be 1:40 - 1:45. I counted the set a failure if I did not make it with :15 rest on @2:00. Now I can't swim the repeat without at least :30 to catch my breath. That proves that some, but not all, of those eight seconds is conditioning. It is inescapable that I am slower. The question is, What to do? That, my friend, is why I am pecking at the computer just now. I am trying to understand, trying to come up with a plan, a strategy, to get back to where I was or be even better. You know what they say: if you aim at nothing you will hit is every time. I am aiming to regain all of my lost form.

One plan to regain my lost speed involves Plate City. I need to continue doing what I'm doing, but I also need to add some things. I have been a bit spotty on the Swim Pull which is where I build sport specific strength. In addition, I need to add some exercises that involve fast twitch muscle fibers. These would be ball slams and hitting the tire with a sledge hammer. I did these in the past and developed some really gimpy shoulders as a result. So I need to start slow but stick with it and build up to real workouts without injuring myself.

Another strategy is to get my running back. I have little wind anymore. The cardio benefits of running may or may not translate directly into swimming, but they do produce cardiac efficiency and capacity which is needed when the water pace goes from cruise to faster. It has been a long ordeal, but I am doing the things I need to return to running: I have given the knee lots of time; I am losing weight; I am working diligently on lower body strength; I am ambulating and doing tiny bits of shuffling. If I stick with what I am doing, I now believe I will eventually regain my running. Thank you, Jesus.

A third strategy involves plain old speed work in the pool. Because of the severity of my injury, I have been extremely cautious about resuming fast swimming. In fact, when I first began to swim again, I could not swim fast but had only one gear. Our coach at DSU, Cagri the Mad Swimming Scientist, used to have us swim in various "gears" as he called them. I found it to be a applicable and useful concept. He loved to have us shifting gears durning our sets and that is how I began to conceive of and develop what I now call my countdown set. When I started back the last week of May, however, I only had a first gear: second, third, and fourth were gone. Now second is back and so it third, but I'm still looking for fourth. Fast 50s should help me find fourth gear. I need to do lots of these with long rest intervals for the muscles to  rest so a strong effort can be repeated.

The fourth strategy involves the 100s themselves. The 100 repeats have proven in the past to produce strength, speed, and stamina. They take to speed and endurance up to longer distances. In my mind, I have made the commitment to do this. The trick is to translate a commitment made in the mind to one  to done it in the pool.

Already I am thinking about Chicot. I am attempting to build the base of strength, speed, endurance, and stamina that will lead to a successful swim next June. Sweet Chicot. She is always there right where God put her. Thank you, Lord.

New Zion

I was a little confused at first when Penny texted and asked me to email her some information on the Chicot Challenge. Marvin, one of her co-workers, requested it because he wanted to present it to his church, or something like that.

"I told you about this a long time ago," she shot back in a text.

Well, if you know me, you know I have a forgetter that works overtime. So I wrote something up and sent it to her, and she told me to add a thing or two, which I did.

The next day she informed me that New Zion Missionary Baptist Church had selected me, to receive an award based on Team Centerville's work on behalf of diabetes. We were invited to attend their Sunday morning service September 9th at 11:00 am. I couldn't wait.

I took my suit to the cleaners, shined my shoes, and even trimmed my mustache for the event. We made it to the church just in time to beat the start by almost a minute. The foyer was filled with maybe twenty-five men all dressed in black suits, white shirts, and red ties. One of them smiled big, grabbed me and gave me a back-crunching hug. This, no doubt, was Marvin the man who works with my wife and who had asked for the information.

We, Penny and I, were ushered inside and down to the front where we sat on a reserved pew with Bill Clay and Kenderick Cox, other award recipients. A little later, we were joined there by Sheila Mitchell the only one from our congregation to make it. Then those men we saw in the foyer began to sing as they marched/danced down the western aisle and onto the stage where they sang with a vigor, joy, and harmony.

For me, at least, it is rare to see this many men in church. We found out it was Men's Day and they intended to celebrate. I soaked in the singing while my eyes gazed over the ancient but magnificent church. Somehow I picked up on the fact that they plan to build a new sanctuary. It made me a little sad to think this house of worship may be replaced, but a glance around told me they really do need more room. Every pew was packed and the wall next to the foyer was lined with folding chairs, each one filled with someone who had a smile on his or her face. I knew that because the offering was taken by section. We got up, put our gifts into the plate, and circle the sanctuary on our way back to our seats.

Before long, the place was rocking like a 1960s Elvis concert. I felt exuberant at the celebration, the freedom, the worship. Amens abounded. Praise the Lords rang out. I kind of wanted to run and shout but was a little too shy. Songs and worship went on and on but I never felt tired or like things were dragging. Everything was well planned. 

Marvin, Rev. Dr. Calvin Collins, and Dr Jerryle Briggs, Sr., MVSU's eight president (who was the speaker for the day), presented the framed certificates to me, Bill Clay, and Kenderick Cox. The honor I felt was immense. It was truly touching especially when I remembered how downcast I had been in the months leading up the this year's Chicot Challenge.

Briggs was brief, focused, and appropriate (except for a couple of comments on genocide -- Do people really believe this?). His title was "Passing the Torch" which was also the theme of the day. He addressed the need to work with today's youth. He addressed their need of role models. He addressed their need of mentors, and how we need to show then another way. When it was all over, I found myself wanting more, wanting to attend another New Zion worship service. One of the problems with being a pastor is you don't get to visit much because you are always at your own church. I'll be on the lookout for special meetings at Calvin Collins' church, and Penny and I will go back when we can.

9/3 - 9/9

By the grace of God, this was my best swim training week since May of 2017. Monday I did 

2,200
400 small paddles
400 small paddles
100 medium paddles
100 medium paddles
200 easy
total: 3,400 meters.

Trevor was out so I did a very light workout of Swim Pulls and external rotations with the green cord.

Tuesday I swam,

3,000
2 X 300 small paddles
total: 3,600 meters.

With Trevor back at Plate City, I benched

15 X 75
12 X 95
8 X 120
6 X 135
4 X 140
3 X 145
4 X 140
6 X 135
7 X 95 + swinging chains

Wednesday we canceled Plate City because of Gordon, so I wanted to go longer in the pool and hopefully swim in the rain; I wrote about this already. What I did not tell you was how far I swam and how I did it. I opted for some distance the easy way, or maybe I should say the easiest way: a descending ladder. It looked like this:

1,000
900
800
700
600
500
400
300
200
100
total: 5,500 meters.

I grew a bit weary. This was my longest swim in a year and a half, and I could tell it. Although I was cheated out of the rain, I did get to swim under clouds. That saved me money on sunscreen.

Thursday I swam

1,200
10 X 100 with small paddles @ 2:30
total: 2,200 meters.

Trevor and I worked pulls and shrugs.

Friday I went to the Pastors' breakfast and ate too much. Then I came back to town and wanted a long swim. I was shooting for two hours straight. I tapped out after 1:56:35. My left pectoral muscle was hurting, and I feared pulling something so I stopped. I was tired, but I had enough to keep going. Sometimes, however, you have to used some restraint. I totaled 5,300 which is my new longest continual swim since June of 2017. 

Saturday John and I went to Tuscaloosa to watch 'Bama maul Arkansas State. That kept me from doing anything except walking. I might post on the trip later. It was hot.

Sunday, we cancelled at Centerville and the church was supposed to meet at New Zion MB Church, but only Sheila Mitchell and  Penny and I showed up from our congregation. They gave me and two others awards for community service. I think I will post on this later this week so for now that is all I will say except if you ever get a chance to visit New Zion, do it. Do it!

For the week, I hit 20,000 meters in the pool. That has always been the threshold for me. Real training begins at 20,000. In addition to that, I ambulated 4.01 miles, and lifted weights three times. I need more distance on foot. The swimming and lifting are going well. That you, Jesus. 

Gordon

Hello darkness Gordon, my old friend

I've come to talk with you again

Because a vision softly creeping

Left its seeds while I was sleeping

And the vision that was planted in my brain

Still remains

Within the sound of silence rainfall

I waited patiently for Gordon to arrive, pacing the halls of the MDCC Greenwood Center, checking the weather, watching the clock, and wanting to get off so I could go outside and play. I love to play, especially in the rain.

It is not that I like to do just anything in the rain, but I like/love to swim in a steady precipitation. I really can't put into words how marvelous it is, but I can tell you how rare it is. Rain usually comes with lightning, except in the winter, and I am way too much of a sissy to swim outdoors in the winter. I have done that a few times, but I was never very good at it and gave up on my project to become a winter swimmer several years ago. So when I saw that the rain, Wednesday, was not accompanied by flashes of electricity, I began to get antsy, excited, nervous even. 

Not wanting to cause trouble or consternation, I even called the director of Twin Rivers Recreation Center to secure permission to swim with Gregory. 

Notice the dark sky in the background.

I got it.

Permission.

So as soon as I left work, I changed clothes and hit the pool. When I waded in, there was only a light drizzle leftover from the heavy rain that had been falling earlier. 

Then it stopped.

I swam for two hours and crawled out of the pool..

Then it began to rain and it rained really hard. 

Sigh.

Maybe next time.

8/27 - 9/2

Each week the shoulder has been feeling more normal, and this week it did also. I still am not sure if it will ever be truly like new, but I am happy beyond belief to be able to swim at all. Monday, I hit the pool for

1,000
300 (ncd - new countdown - based on 50s instead of 25s)
400 ncd
4 X 100 small paddles
6 X 50 medium paddles
total: 2,800 meters.

On the bench, it was

15 X 75
12 X 95
8 X 120
5 X 130
4 X 135
2 X 140
4 X 135
5 X 130
14 X 120

Tuesday, Trevor and I lifted after I stopped by twin Rivers for

2,200
6 X 100 @ 2:30 medium paddles
total: 2,800 meters.

Wednesday it was

3 X 400
400 cd mwith 25s
400 easy
400 cd with 50s
400 easy
400 small paddles
total: 3, 200 meters.

Thursday, Trevor and I lifted for the third time after I swam 

2 X 500
600 small paddles
total: 1,600 meters.

Friday is free day so I got in the pool after the ladies aerobics left and swam 5,000 meters straight in 1:45 @ 2:06. This is my new longest since June of 2017. I felt pretty good and threw in some pickups along the way.

Saturday I opted for the indoor pool because a few kids were in the big one. I did

1,200
6 X 25 @ :45
400 small paddles
6 X 50 @ 1:00 medium paddles
100 easy
6 X 25 @ 1:00 large paddles
150 easy
total: 2,500 yards = 2,285 meters.

Saturday was the first time I had swum with large paddles since the injury. Naturally I was cautious, but everything felt OK.

For the week, I swam 17,685 meters, lifted weights four times, and ambulated 4.24 miles. The 17,685 is the most distance for a week since June of 2017. I even lost a little bit of weight and feel like I finally have that going in the right direction. Thank you, Jesus.