Mid-Autumn Festival and a Typhoon

Rescue dinghy in Taiwan floodwaters. I once trained how to operate and deal with a boat like this when engaging in lifesaving activities.

The days and weeks for me often seem to go by with monotonous regularity - a swim followed by working at home, catching up on needed sleep, preparing meals, going to the local library to do more work, and reading the blogs, etc. However, this weekend was somewhat different. On Friday, a typhoon was approaching and at the last minute the local city government decided to take Saturday off work in case things got bad. While the typhoon devastated a few parts of the island, there was little damage down here in Kaohsiung.

Then today (Sunday) was a public holiday, the Mid-Autumn Festival, when families like to Bar-B-Q and to gaze at the moon, which unfortunately they could not do because of the inclement weather.

What this meant was that my swimming training was cut short this week, as the pool was closed both Saturday and Sunday, and is closed anyway on Mondays for maintenance. In hindsight, I was pleased I did an extra swim practice on Friday afternoon - mostly speed work. So the distances covered last week were as follows: Tues (4,100m), Wed (4,050m), Thurs (4,250m) and Fri (4,100m + 2,150m), for a weekly total of 18,650 meters.

So I did little training over the weekend, apart from a few push ups at home, and cycling to church and back, mostly in pouring rain (about 25 minutes each way). It was a good job I took a complete change of clothes with me going there. Coming home, it did not matter that I got wet.

When our schedule is disrupted or we miss training for whatever reason, it is easy to feel a little down, as we (myself at least) often feel tired and when the weather is bad, it seems so much easier to catch a cold. In addition, I usually make use of the extra time I have by not training to catch up on my work, which often means I am more tired and my immune system isn't at its best. Fortunately, this time I seem to be OK.

Anyway, during such times as this, it is good to reflect on what we have so far accomplished, to try to get some needed rest and to get all fired up again to go on to greater things in the future.