Hello Countdown My Old Friend

John was only twenty minutes late. He thinks that is on time. The water had cooled a degree or two with the clouds and the rain from the day before. I swam

  1,650 37:55

  50 picking up money

  300 for time 5:40

  3 X 50

  400 countdown 8:06

  200  small paddles 4:18

  500 countdown 10:10

  200 medium paddles

  600 countdown 11:58

  4 X 50 large paddles

  total: 4,200 long course meters.

The countdown set is my old friend in the long course pool. You might not remember so I will give you a little review. It begins with 400 and then I add to it. On the 400, I swim the first 25 of the first 100 fast. On the second 100, I swim the second 25 fast. On the third 100, I swim the third 25 fast. On the fourth 100, well, you can guess can't you. I count down the set by the 100s and when I swim the last 25 fast, I am finished. 

The 400 countdown was originally given me by Coach Cagri at Masters Swim. Then I started adding to it on my own. I made it a 500 by adding a 100 easy after the last 25 fast. That way I was recovering while swimming instead of recovering on the wall. If you do the math, you will see that there is an easy 100 after each hard swim. But when I went to 600, I switched to a full 50 fast. That is where the set gets tough because 50 meters is long enough to get the heart rate up pretty high.

Today I plan to swim a 700 and 800 countdown. If you can't tell me how I will swim the 7th and 8th 100, go sit in a corner and wear a dunce cap. This set is not only physically difficult, but you have to think the whole time. If you lose your place, it is over. So it is a fun set for me and keeps me entertained while I pile up the yardage. Uh, meterage. 

Back home, I even went out for a little run before lunch. Yes, it was little. I shuffled for 2.29 miles. Hey, that might not be much, but it is better than a poke in the eye. I tried to go down onto the river trail. I got on the east end of it but could only make a few yards before I came upon the river covering the trail. 

After lunch, I decided it was time to take care of some business. I had a pile of eight ten pound plates by the backyard gate for months now. The idea was to take them to Leflore Steel to get a dumbbell made. They moved to the Industrial Park recently, and I did not know exactly where their new place is. So I loaded my plates and drove out. I drove around until finally I found them. Then I went inside and asked the first person I saw where Donny Cleveland was. He said, "Through those doors." I went through the doors and found him. So now I have an 80-pound dumbbell in the pipeline.

After that, I started on the backyard. First I weedeated. Then I mowed. After that, I laid some blocks that I moved over from the old house. Then I did another project that has been on my "To Do" list for a long time. I had some plywood stacked up against one of my homemade weight trees. It was ratty looking. I got out the circle saw, and reduced all of that wood to small rectangles to use while deadlifting. The idea is to work my high rack pulls down to deadlifts. Right now, my high rack pulls are a hair above knee height. I started lifting while I mowed. The last thing I did was high rack pulls. When I reached my top set, I pulled ten pounds off the bar and put a 3/4 inch board down to stand on. Wow. The 3/4s of an inch made a difference. The set went like this:

  11 X 185

    6 X 235

    4 X 255

    2 X 265

    1 X 275

    1 X 265 (one board)

    1 X 255 (two boards)

Now with the plywood sawed into smaller pieces and neatly stacked, the backyard looks better, and I have a new game to play while lifting. Over the weeks, I will keep adding boards. This will increase my volume on heavy pulling, and should carry over to my deadlifting as the range of motion increases.

So I had a big day. I did all three workouts, and pulled off some stuff that needed doing for a long time. Thank you, Jesus.