Swim to the Point

My first swim to the point in 2024! The water is now about 50 and it was sunny and warm today. A group of us met, and a couple of us decided that we were tired of swimming laps and wanted to head out to the point. It's been a few weeks since I swam-swam, and at first it was hard for me to get my face in the water again. But, I took a couple short breaks, breathed through it, and soon was doing fine.

The swimming part was hard too. I was focused on how cold it was, and not my stroke technique and it was slow going. It took forever to get to the point.  When I arrived my friend was already there waiting for me. He was like "do you want to swim across the lake to the other point?" And in my head I really didn't, but out loud I said "sure," and we swam over. It was kind of windy today, and the water was a little choppy. I swallowed some water, and I got water in my goggles - that section of the swim was the hardest. By the time we got to the last leg of our triangle, though, I was getting the hang of it, working on my reach and strong arms for the pull. I think the last bit was the fastest. In the end we were in the water for about 35 minutes, with most of it swimming. The route is a little over a half mile, so it wasn't the fastest swim, though we did stop for a bit at a couple points. 

The other thing that I did was pick up my bike from the shop. I hadn't used it since before my trip to Africa, and it was in kind of sad shape. Now it's all squeaky clean, and has a new chain. Before the swim, I rode it around the lakes, which is about 4.75 miles.  My plan is to ride it to the lake some this summer, so I don't have to worry about the parking situation. The ride to the lake, if I take the bike path and minimize time on the roads, is about a mile longer than the ride I did today, which was totally fine. 

50 degrees

Spring has arrived! Scary early, it's not such a good thing, but it is really nice. Today at work I went for a walk around campus without a jacket, I even ate my lunch outside and enjoyed the sun. The daffodils are in bloom, and it's so pretty out. 

I was really proud of myself because I adulted really hard today at work, having a difficult conversation with my boss without being emotional (well, not too emotional at least) and getting my point across. And then I rewarded myself with ice cream, which wasn't really what I meant to do, it just kind of happened.

After work a group of us met at the beach for a relaxing swim. According to my fish-momoter the water was about 50 at the surface, and a degree or two cooler about four feet down. We had a pretty chill swim, just bobbing around and doing the old lady breast stroke, but we did stay in for 25 minutes. I wore my gloves, but I don't think I'll need to for much longer. We briefly thought about a swim to the point, but where feeling a bit lazy. It's really time, though, that we can stay in long enough to get to the point! Super exciting. 

I found a new weight training program that's for women of my age, and I started it this week at the Y. It's called hailey happens, and so far I'm enjoying it. The program allows me to life higher weights, and a lot of free weights, which I actually do prefer. I went to do deadlifts, though, and just used the barbell because it was all kind of heavy. I'll have to look back at my crossfit records to see how much I used to lift.

The other thing I've been doing lately is I impulse bought a ukulele (off ebay for $20) and am trying to learn to play. There are lessons at the cambridge adult ed center, but of course they are the same time as my swimming lessons coming up. I think they offer them every season, so I'll have to try to take them in the summer.

Back to the Lake

I'm finally over my cold, and finished with a busy week at work. Today was the first day I got any exercise in two weeks! I went to a kind of chill yoga class and then for a dip at the lake. The water is getting warmer - today it was around 42.5, though we went after dark which always makes swimming harder. As always, I didn't really want to go in, but then we all did and it felt great. In a not-so-great way. We stayed in for 10 minutes - I wore my gloves and was cold but not too bad. 

After we were standing around snacking and warming up when I realized that there was someone in the old pump house that's by the lake. We've never seen anyone in there, so of course we went to investigate. The building is brick, with no windows, and it's got a lot of pumping equipment and such, plus a kayak. The guy was really nice and he let us go in and look around. He told us that there's an old spillway that goes out by the lake and tunnels into the bottom of the building. Of course we will need to check that out, though I'm pretty claustrophobic and probably won't go that far.