Backfilling the pool

It's been a while since posting, so I will catch up from last week and weekend.

The pool water at the HS is still freaking hot, but we manage to cover about 4K for Tuesday's practice.

Warm 
8 x 50 free
8 x 50 back
8 x 50 breast
8 x 50 fly

200 kick (mix front and back)
3 x 200 pull (descend by set)

Main - 32 x 50
4 times 
8 x 50
(#2 & #4 with snorkel, work on kick and high arm tempo)
set #1 and #3 @ :45 (moderate)
set #2 and #4 @ :50 (faster) 

cool 100

Happy Laps!

"When there are no enemies within, the enemies outside cannot hurt you."  - David Baird

Wednesday Practice - I met a nice woman name Sharon at practice who swam in my lane. She is returning to swimming after being away from it for 13 years. She grew up in FL and graduated from Cape Coral HS, so she was on home turf again.  I made this practice up for us. 

600 Warm
Main set - 4 times (1 x 200, 2 x 50, 2 x 100)
Round 1
200 Pull or Swim
2 x 50  (#1 head tap drill - #2 kick)
2 x 100 (50Ez/50F, 50F/50Ez)

Round 2
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 fist drill, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (middle 50 hard)

Round 3
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 single arm swim, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (back/free by 50)

Round 4
200 P or S
2 x 50 (#1 catch up, #2 kick)
2 x 100 (breast/free by 50)

200 cool

Thursday - study for medical coding test and had plantation shutters installed, plus the pool people came to back fill around the shell. Russ helped. 

Friday practice with FGC group:  I modified the practice to include more IM, so it's written with that in mind. 

Warm 
500 loose
6 x 50 @ 1' (drill/swim or stroke)

3 x
200 Free @ 3:20
4 x 100 odds IM / evens stroke/free by 50 @ 1:40

300 pull
4 x 100 (same as above)

400 kick
200 cool

Saturday I sat for the CPC test - hopefully I passed!

Sunday was a gorgeous ocean swim from Vanderbilt beach to La Playa with a small group of guys that meet weekly.  This is the perfect weekly ocean group swim, and will plan to join them again.  They have a routine, where by they swim from the Vanderbilt beach house to La Playa as a warm up and then return to Vanderbilt by doing intervals between the buildings. It was fun, as long as I was not swallowing a bunch of water!  LOL.  We went through a few schools of jelly fish which was gross. They didn't sting us, but we could feel their slimy bodies on our hands.   The next time I swim with them, I will swim twice as long by starting at La Playa, which is a great hotel/club where my parents are members.  I can valet park at La Playa, swim to the Vanderbilt staring point, swim to La Playa with the group, and double back again.  

This coming Sunday I'll be swimming a 10K e-postal swim at the Norris pool in Naples. It's the first time I've swum a 10K.  Some folks are swimming 5K, and only myself and one other person are doing the 10K. We'll swim it in 50meters.  

I wrote a nice workout for a rainy day - I haven't done it yet, so let me know how it goes for you.

Warm
300 swim
300 kick/swim by 50
300 drill swim by 50
100 FRIM

PreSet 4xs
4 x 25  @ :35
1. build
2. breakout
3. Fast
4. perfect and pretty

Main #1
Kick set
4 x 100 
#1 50 fast/50medium
#2 75 Fast/ 25 medium
#3 100 F
#4 100 Ez

Main #2
4 x 100 @ 1:30
2 x 200 @ 3'
400 @ 6'
2 x 200 @ 2:50
4 x 100 @ 1:20

100 cool

Monday I visited the FGCU pool!   The lanes were set up for 50m, which was great, and hardly anyone was there.  I just about finished a warm up of 800 when the guards pulled everyone out of the pool due to lightening 10 miles out.  Darn!

I paid for a membership and will swim there more often since it's a fabulous pool and the lifeguards are really nice!

Until next time!

Happy Laps!

Warm days and warm water

 Last weekend we made last minute reservations on a rainy afternoon to see 'Footloose' at the Broadway Palm for the matinee show.  The venue is dinner theater style, but you can purchase only show tickets.  Russ has been to the Broadway Palm more than a few occasions with his mom many many years ago. As he looked at the wall posters show ads, he commented, "I've seen that, and that.."

Here he is enjoying Christmas in August!

I gave the Seahorse statue some lovin'.

Everyone was finishing up their dinners just before the show began. The first half was fairly entertaining, however I was pretty tired from a hard and steamy bike ride, that I snoozed for a while. There were a few good voices, however I would not recommend the cast to audition for American Idol any time soon. I'd call the performance an off, off Broadway production. During intermission we decided it was time to cut bait and cut loose.  I had no idea that Russ never saw the movie Footloose, so when we got home, we pulled it up on Netflix and he watched it. 

Before heading home, we stopped into the Asian Leaf Market. This is a great market to purchase Mr. Brown's coffee, my favorite Ice Coffee of all time, which I discovered while living in Guam. Yum!!

Early Saturday morning around 6:50am, we were walking Yigo, and we see three large trucks (two were cement trucks) heading out way. Yep, they were the trucks that would pour the shell to our pool.  Russ watched the two hour process while I went for a bike ride. I don't have any pictures of the cement being poured. Here are the guys that came a few days later to remove all the wood and plastic from around the pool.  It's coming along. We are not quite halfway through completion.  Maybe it will be done by Labor Day and we will host a party!?

Monday evening swim at Cape Coral H.S.
Since the water temp is 93 degree F, the goal of main set was to stay on pace

Warm
400 choice
12 x 25 (25 stroke/25 free) @ :50

Main
12 x 200 @ 3 (I pulled the last 3)

600 (100 kick/ 100 choice swim)

4 x 75 (kick/drill/stroke) 

100 Fast

200 cool
(4600yrd)

Happy Laps!

"Be gentle with the earth"

I guess installing a pool, and disturbing the earth, is a far cry from being gentle with the earth.  Pipes are looking good in the spa!

The quote in the title of today's post is directly from the little book, "A Thousand Paths to Enlightenment."   I began thinking about food, sustainability, and the new laws that Paris, France plans to enforce starting next year to grocery stores, whereby grocery establishments will be required to donate much or all of their left over food to local charities. Fines will be imposed if they do not comply with the new policy.  Obviously there are many implications to this law, such as the private store owner who cannot afford to take the time to assign an employee the task of making sure his store's food is distributed out accordingly.  Food waste is a global issue, and I feel it is important to take steps to see to it that food that would normally be thrown in the trash, be given to those in need.   Over consumption, over abundance, and super sizing are directly related to consumers looking to get more for their money, which they do quite well when patronizing at stores such as Costco or Sam's Club. 

My mom hates shopping at Costco, and my dad loves it. Since she is not feeding a family of 4, she wants to purchase her groceries in small doses, thereby less waste. Yes, it makes sense to purchase dry goods to save a buck, such as coffee, TP, trash bags, and the like.  Plus if you are feeding 4 people, you can purchase a decent cut of meat, or fish for a pretty good bargain.  But then again, we run into the problem of being kind to mother earth, and taking into consideration all the water and grain it takes to feed and process that beef or that big tub of ice cream. 

Water - poor CA!   It's monsoon season for India now, and the water they get is vital to their crops. 

Did someone mention water??  Let's swim!

Tuesday I made an initial visit to the N. Ft. Myers Community pool. Nice place. They provide two lap lanes, a kiddie slid and plenty of shade. 

The workout was boring, but felt good!
500 swim
500 pull
6 x 150 snorkel (100 swim/50kick)
500 swim
200 back stroke

Wednesday morning - weekly Caloosa bike club ride from Winn Dixie. This was the second time meeting this group. We ride to Coconut point and back. Rather thank starting out with the hammer heads, Pam suggested to go out easy, then ride back with them, because they wait for her at the turnaround. That seemed to work out well. I could tell there was a lot of testosterone in the group of 6 guys.  Since they kept the cruising speed under 30mph, we had no problems keeping up.

Thursday AM
Warm
400 free
200 kick
200 (50 drill/50 swim)
200 kick
Preset: Pull
300  breathe every 3
200  breathe every 5
100  breathe every 7
Main:
2 x 175
2 x 125 (last 25 fast)
8 x 75 (2-free/back/br, 2-back, 2-50 breast/25 fr, 2-free)
6 x 50 fins 2 EZ 1 fast @ :45
cool 100

Happy Laps!

Seashore Swim Academy

Since Russ was out of town, I decided to stay a few nights in Naples and take advantage of swimming with T2 Masters on Friday morning for Freaky Fast Friday. Unfortunately we did not get to complete the workout due to lightening in the area. After everyone evacuated the pool, we were treated by the full moon rising over the pool.  It was a site to be seen, and coach Mike had his phone handy to take the photo. 

After a nice swim, I went to an interview with Southern Technical College for Admissions Representative. The lady interviewing me decided that she wanted me to meet the Exec. Dir of the school in the Bonita Springs location.  We scheduled that meeting for later in the afternoon, after I taught a swim lesson to a Mr. Daniel, the scientist. 

The swimming lesson was my first official Seashore Swim Academy lesson since living in FL.  It went very well, and he progressed from kicking backward to kicking forward. Be sure to LIKE Seashore Swim Academy on FaceBook!

I signed up to swim a Postal 10K on August 23rd. in Naples. That will be fun!  So far one other crazy person has signed up for the 10K distance. We swim it in a 50 meter course pool. 

The swim practice from Friday:

Warm
400 (breathe 50 R/50L)
300 pull
200 kick choice
100 FRIM

12 x 50 @ 1'
1 blast/1build/1ez  (blast is first 5-6 strokes fast or breakout)

1 x 400 free
(25 free/25 back/25 drill/rest 15s/25 fast)

12 x 50 pull @ :55
3 x: breathe 5/7/4/fast

we did not have time for this small set , so we went right into the next set, which we only did 1x due to lightening.
1 x 200 free @ 3'
1 x 100 free @ 2:20
1 x 50 free @ 90% effort 

Swum as a GROUP!
4 x
25 smooth 0/1 breath @ :40
50 breath 3/fist @ 1:20
25 tarzan @ :30 (fast drill)
25 SPRINT @ :15
75 EZ @ 2:15

300 EZ

Sunday was a 105K ride with a nice group of mixed cyclists. Mostly women, and a few guys. We ventured onto Sanibel, then eventually into Captiva. We saw two rose colored spoon billed birds in the Ding Darling Preserve.  I tried to get a photo with the phone, but it's not that clear. They are pink because they eat shrimp.

There are a few short stories that do go along with this particular ride.  To start with, about 8K into the ride, a young lady by the name of Denise stops suddenly and dismounts her bike, and starts yelling, "oh it hurts, my leg, I am cramping!"  She was a very tiny women, thin boned, maybe 100 lbs. wet. I quickly felt the need to come to her rescue with a cold water bottle that was not yet thawed out from freezing it the night before. I gently rubbed the water bottle on her thigh. I then proceeded to massage her quad muscle with a type of tragger technique. (hold the muscle and wiggle it from side to side) When I did that her response was, "Oh that feels so good!"  There was not much else I could do for her, and her cramp was not going to subside in a few moments, so she decided to turn back and head home. Apparently she was on holiday at altitude a few days before and had some other health issues she was dealing with.  Another 8K down the road and the ride organizer had a massive flat. She ran over a nail that went into her rim! Here we are waiting for her to change the flat.  

         

One group assisting in the process (East), the other group chilling out down the road (West)

Eventually the group needed to be split up with different speeds. The ride took much longer than I had anticipated, however I should have know that when it was advertised as a 'social' ride. Many photos were taken, and new friends were made. It's all good, happy to be on the bike, and hammer the over pass to Sanibel and back. 



Monday AM swim:

Warm (deja vu!)
400 Free (breathe 50L/50R)
300 Pull
200 K
100 FRIM

12 x 50 @ 1' - 2 moderate, 1 fast

4 x 50 fly-back @ 1'
4 x 50 back-breast @ 1'
4 x 50 breast - free @ 1'
(I call these switchers, but usually do them rotating)

3 x 200 P @ 3:20
breathe 7 5, 3 by 50, + 50 FAST

2 x 300 Free @ 4' or 4:30
2 x 150 Free @ 2:20 or 2:35

Rest :60

4 x 100 @ 1:30
4 x 75 @ 1:10 

*The 100s shoud be at perceived threshhold pace. The 75's should be a touch quicker but not as fast as you can go. The 300 should be well above perceived threshold pace and the 150s sould be quicker than the 300s, but not quite as fast as the 100s. 

200 EZ

No doubt, the most exciting event that took place last week was the initial construction process of installing our pool!  Basically digging an enormous hole in the back yard. 

It's going to take approximately 2 months to complete.  Summer is always a tricky time due to weather, which puts projects behind a few weeks.  It's all good though, and when it's done, Yigo will enjoy doing his laps!!

Phase 1 - The enormous hole!

"Mommy, when can I go for a swim??"  LOL!!

Passion for cooking

Aside from swimming, cycling and running, the other hobby that I most enjoy doing is cooking. I never thought I was going to be a 'foodie' however, I so enjoy being creative in the kitchen, so this evening I whipped up a delicious salmon dish. The salmon was supposedly wild Alaskan, rather than farm raised, which I purchased from Ada's Natural Market in Ft. Myers.  In any event, I don't want to get into a discussion on which is better, farm or wild, so here is the dish I prepared this evening:

Roasted salmon (I don't have a grill yet) with saute' zucchini, roasted thyme potatoes, and a lemon caper, butter, cilantro cream sauce. 

The sauce was really to die for!  I would have added white wine if I had it.  I made a rue, then added juice from one lemon, capers, garlic, cilantro, a little more butter, and a dob of sour cream, plus S & P.  I thinned out the sauce with chicken broth, but would have rather used white wine. It was delicious! 

Sear the salmon on a flat pan, then put the pan in the oven. Slice the potatoes thin and coat them with EVOO or an oil of your choice, and season with thyme, salt and pepper, and place on cooking stone ware.   The zucchini was simply saute'd with butter, salt, pepper and oregano. 

Swimming this week is a little less than usual. Monday's AM workout was a mish mash of what the coach gave me, and what I came up with:

Warm 
300  (75 free/ 25 back)
4  x 75 50 drill/25 swim @ 1'
6 x 50 kick with fins
12 x 50 descend @ :55
Main: 4 times
200 Pull @ 2:50
100 FAST @ :130
4 x 25 moderate - fast @ :30
cool 250

Tuesday AM practice: (my design)
Warm 
600 swim
Main
4 x 50 (switchers) @ 1:00 (fly/back - back/br - br/free - free/fly)
125 (100 IM/25 free)
4 x 50 (25 stroke IM order/25 free)
150 (100 IM/50 free)
4 x 50 (25 strokeIM order/ 25 free)
175 (100IM/ 75 free)
4 x 50 (Im order by 50)
200 IM
4 x 50 Free 
Cool 250


Wednesday  - Yoga on Lanai and picking out wallpaper with mom, plus a short ride on the busy streets of Del Prado during rush hour.  (need to reconsider other options for 5pm ride)

Thursday - AM will be:

Warm
200 swim
200 pull
100 kick 
Preset:
6 x 75 IM drill @ 1:20
 Main 
20 x 100
# 1-4
25 fly/75 free
50 fly/50 free
75 fly/25 free
100 fly
# 5-8
same with back
#9-12
 same with breast
#13 - 16
all free
# 17 - 20
IM
Coo 200 

Happy Laps!

I am looking forward to the construction of our pool. It will be a nice welcome to the home. All the indoor designs and decorations are looking exquisite, if I do say so myself!

Still no Cable!

Well, we have all heard the complaints from across the U.S. about Comcast, and I am here to tell you they are all true!  

It's amazing how a company that makes so much money can be so unorganized.  Basically since our home is new construction, they needed to 'bore' the lines.  This step has taken exactly 5 weeks to get the correct technician out there to accomplish that.   Hopefully we will have cable and internet by next week!  I am not holding my breath!

Thursday AM swim - Shannon's practice:

Warm - 2 xs
100 swim
100 kick
100 pull

Main - 3 xs
200 swim pretty @ 3:15
4 x 75 (Free/back/free) @ 1:15
8 x 50 odds FAST / evens EZ @ 1'

Cool 200

Friday AM with GC Masters:

500 Loose
8 x 50 (drill / swim by 25) @ 1'

Main - 2x
2 x 150 (100 FAST/50 Moderate) @ 1:50
4 x 25 kick @ :40
2 x 200 swim or pull @ 315

Super Swims:  (this is where you attach yourself to a tether that is connected to a poll on the deck and it provides resistance)
* it feels really weird to swim w/out it after the set:
4 x 2 min. with 1:00 rest
1 x 4:00

400 warm down

HAPPY LAPS and Happy Friday!!

Another lamp constructed!

Here is another beautiful lamp that I made. I really like the shade because it is unique. All in all this lamp cost me about $26 dollars to make. The funny thing is when I was purchasing parts to complete it, I needed to purchase a couplings. It was a good thing that I had one left over, because our electrician needed one when installing the light in our walk in closet. Ha! 

Given that I am not an electrician by trade, I have successfully made three lamps thus far, and I am pretty excited about the prospect of making more!  Hopefully we will have a nice shelf in the garage for the future of making additional lamps. 

Monday was a nice rest day, as I really felt like sleeping in.  Tuesday AM swim practice was written by me, even though there are workouts to follow, I like re-designing the workouts.

Warm
400 Loose
200 Kick
12 x 50 @ :55 (25 IM stroke/25 free)

Main:
3 x 150 pull/breathe 3/5/7 by 50 @ 2'
4 x 50 back @ 1'
3 x 150 pull/breathe 3/5/7 by 50 @ 2'
4 x 50 breast @ 1'

Snorkel/fins/paddles
1 x 400 
1 x 300

Cool 100
Happy laps!

Wednesday AM I joined the Caloosa Bike Club for their weekly 36m ride from the Winn-Dixie. 

It was a small group of about 11 cyclists. Three women total including me. As soon as the group rolled out the the parking lot the pace amped up to 28-30mph. Geez - what a way to wake up!  No warm up, little food (two oranges) and tight calves.   The roads are nice, and there is little traffic. As we circled through the line, I noticed I was the only woman left with the group.  I think they were surprised that I was still with them.  I think the other girl, Pam could have stayed in the pack, but she told me that she was not feeling well. 

About 10 miles into it, one of the guys got a flat. We all stopped and he changed it. We carried on, returning to the blazing pace.  The course traverses over a very slight incline, and that really did me in. The temps were already climbing int0 the upper 80s. At the bottom of the hill, there was a light and that is where the course turns around.  A few miles down the road, we bridged up to the the slower group that had previously passed us during the mechanical. 

After we caught up to the small group, I decided to sit in with them and recover a bit. It was a nice ride back, and my legs are very spent!   It was a fun day and I met a new friend as well, her name is Louise. 

I look forward to riding with the group more. 

Yesterday I had what I thought a very successful interview with the HR person at Lee Memorial Hospital for a position at their Wellness Center. I hope to receive a call from the hiring manager in the next couple of days.  Wish me luck!

Our pool permit has been approved and the pool guy, Waters Edge, will start the digging process next Thursday!  We are very excited to get this underway.  I'll post pre-post and interim pictures. 

In the meantime - - be well, be safe, and keep smiling!