Sunday, May 18, 2008

Short Weak Swim - Only 3,650 meters

A red hibiscus, which is quite common in Taiwan. A constant reminder of Hawai'i apart from the weather.
I was obviously tired today as I felt it when I woke up and when I got into the pool, I did not feel I had much energy at all. So I just continued swimming in a fairly relaxed manner until I had just passed the 3,000 meter mark, at which point I tried doing some fairly all-out 50 meters with about 30-60 second rests in between. At the end my friends challenged me to a 100m race, but I could only manage about 1m 34s. So I ended my workout at 3,650 meters. Nothing special, but at least I trained.
I don't know if swimming when I am tired will actually help me. In case it might not, after the swim I went out and bought a vitamin drink with 45 gms of carbs in it, and ate a good breakfast when I got home soon after that.

Today I actually feel OK, but have been a little busy for Sunday as I had some fairly urgent work to do, so could not nap as much as I wanted.

This week the big news was the Sichuan earthquake, although the Myanmar cyclone was equally devastating. I saw some of the TV coverage on the earthquake rescue effort. I am glad that Taiwan apparently donated a huge sum of money for the humanitarian relief effort in China. In times like this, it does not matter what political views people hold, but it is important to help others in need. Had it been easier in the past for me to live and travel in China, I would probably have spent more time there. The people after all are Chinese, and I can speak with them in their national language (Mandarin). In many ways, they are no different from people here, and are not any more deserving of what happened than anyone else. It could just as easily have happened here, as there. An earthquake in Taiwan in 1999 claimed over two thousand lives.

Tomorrow will be my rest day from swimming, although I will probably bike a little just to get out and about. I will need, however, to get on with work tomorrow as I am pretty busy at the moment. Bree will race in Honolulu in a few hours from now. I probably will only be able to look up the news reports after the event when I wake up tomorrow morning. I wish her the best.

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