Steady Swim and Mystery Trip Coming Up

More water lilies! Still the lake looked beautiful as I rode home after swimming this morning. The sun was shining brightly just after a thundershower.

This morning I was awakened by the sound of heavy rain somewhere around 4:30 am. I continued to rest, but managed to get up a little earlier and (after a dry bike ride) start swimming at 6:05 am. I did not swim fast today, but my stroke felt smooth, and I barely paused during the first 4,000m. I tried to focus on my shoulder rotation. Being tall, sometimes I think I am turning my shoulders when I am just turning my head. So I focused on longish and more fullish strokes. Near the end, I did 5 x 100m on 2 mins, and finished each one in about 1m 45s. Nothing special. Still, my former coach Steve sometimes used to reprimand me during Masters' workouts for looking at my watch. I guess that time does not always matter. I was swimming smoothly, feeling like a well-oiled machine. With a bit of tapering, and something to fire me up, I think I can surprise myself. Only there is not a lot to fire me up here. After August when I can once again go to the US, the temptation may get very great just to fly over and see whether I am really any better or not. Or else the trip might be too emotional for me, so maybe better just to stay here. I finished the practice this morning with a 100m race (1m 31s), not fast, but I had the faster guy a little worried since I was leading at the first turn. Still I found it hard to generate the speed to push hard. If we had raced 200m it would probably have been a different story. Today my total distance was 4,850 meters.

This afternoon I need to take the fast train up to Taipei for a mystery dinner. I'll explain what happened tomorrow. It has something to do with what I used to do before we first went to Hawaii. I will probably see a few people I knew then. I hope I don't do any awkward movements while wearing the jacket. Swimming has made me feel I could rip metal chains apart! Still I look forward to describing the trip tomorrow. Now I need to concentrate on actually getting up there. Nostalgia - something that increases with age, I guess.