You are not going to believe this...

I didn't want to go swim today, I just felt cold and weak, not the sore and tired kind, the powerless I want to spend the day in bed because I feel drained kind. That would have been a huge mistake, because I swam today like I could go forever, like I found the rhythm I have been searching for for months now, and I didn't see any reason to stop, not at 250 which was my goal, not at 300 or 400, and then I might as well go half the distance and once you are at the other end of the pool, might as well come back, then I kept feeling comfortable so I topped it off with a final flip turn and I finished with 700m all at once! My body did it like it was the most natural thing, while my brain rode along on exclamation marks. I had time to work on various parts of my stroke, the cobra water strike, going over the barrel, let’s try different kicks, don't forget about bending the left arm...and on and on. I wasn't even out of breath at the end, just starting to lose form enough and I wanted to go out feeling good, and leave the final hurdle 900m to another day.




I wish I knew for sure what did it, the pancakes I had with the parents in the morning, great coaching from Ironwoman--early roll and breathing, for sure had something to do with it. Best of all, the support staff got to share the victory with me after inspiring it. I imagined each time I came back to the wall that she was still out of the pool and wondering, "When is he going to stop, isn't he done yet? Doesn't he know he can't go that far?" A particularly shapely and feminine foot went by me in the pool and it occurred to me might be hers, but I was in too positive a mindset to be worried about eating her dust (wake?)--which is exactly what I was doing of course. Anyhow, with all of the hard work over the last few months, and in spite of the slacking over the holidays, today was the single big breakthrough that I needed. Now I can start working on swim speed and oh yeah, the other two disciplines as well!



Post victory note. We celebrated with some great crepes at Le Chat Noir, which was great except that the sunlight coming in was really bothering my eyes. For our hubris, we both got handed vicious migraines, but even that could hardly dampen my spirits. What, a migraine after an unusually long workout, where have we heard of that before? Flashbacks to those early long runs during the marathon training. At a higher lever, beyond the raging left side of my brain, I couldn't care less, nothing could dampen my spirits.

MRI of migraine