waterlogged

it was a weekend full of water. storms flooded the nearby river, so no biking on the trail for a while. i am so thankful that boo doesn't seem to be scared of the thunder, because we've been having a lot of it.

boo had his first swim lesson at the local aquatic center. at first he did not want to go in the water at all. it might have been a bit chilly - mid 60s this morning! beautiful for playing outside but not necessariliy in the water. when i picked him up and carried him, he clung to me with the tenacity of a barnacle, even in 2 foot deep water. so funny too, because he is a completely different creature in the bathtub at home. in our deep tub he blows bubbles, floats on his back, walks on his hands (he calls this the "shark swim" when on his belly and "octopus swim" when on his back).

just as i was thinking it was going to be a very long half hour and a long summer of saturday mornings, the teachers started jumping up and down like frogs, which broke his endless repetition of "no no no" and put a smile on his face. the turning point was when they sang "wheels on the bus." he didn't do the bubble blowing (which is what the motors on the bus do) but he did it later at home. he loved jumping into the pool and later loved walking through the little fountains and going down the kiddie slide. i think he just might be willing to return.

this morning was my open water swim clinic from mary meyer life fitness. i almost didn't think it was going to happen because of thunderstorms here; but at the exact same time, it was crystal clear just 20 minutes north where the lake was. this lake michigan weather is funky.

i went to the clinic last year and it was inspiring and really helpful. mary meyer talked about how it is totally normal to panic when you go into the open water, and said that she herself panics every time, and always has to talk herself down ("okay, you can't panic right now, there are 50 people watching you during this swim clinic"). good to know.

one of her partners (who has swum a race on every continent, and i think has won the english channel swim) talked about always finding the positive. if you get kicked in the face and your goggles fall off, tell yourself, thank god that i have vision so that i can appreciate this. when she was swimming the english channel a chunk of her hair got loose from her cap and fell into her face during every breath she took for the remaining hours of the swim. she thought to herself, thank god i have hair so that it could do this to me. thank god i'm healthy and not going through chemo at the moment and still have hair. (note that one person who did the danskin tri was going through chemo at the same time! now that's strength!) thank god i have the strength to swim for this length of time so that it could do this for several hours. a good illustration of not dwelling on the negative, because something will happen, and it will just bring you down.

this year i skipped the intro lecture and went with the "advanced" group - which might have been a bit much for me, but was definitely a challenge. there was only one other woman and the instructor. we practiced a couple of beach starts - man was the water cold (it was mid-60s today). then we swam to the middle of the lake and worked on sighting and our stroke. eek! i was out of breath and not at all thinking about form. and my sighting needs a lot of work. i end up doing a few freestyle then switching to breaststroke to sight. i really need to work on rotation and lengthening my stroke. yet i have just one more week of swimming and biking before we start travelling for 2 weeks, and i won't really be able to swim/bike very well.