wrecked

"Yes.... you are the man." I confessed for the trillionth time this morning over the phone to Mister 9:55. I sighed. That beat my time by over an hour. Suddenly my little 10:58 seems to suck big time.

He believes I can go sub 10 at Florida. Funny thing.... I bet I could too. But there is work to be done between now and then.

And first things first., Which means my return to Masters this morning and getting my intestines handed to me.

Ahhhh.... I love the first week of on again. You know when you have taken the proper offseason.... three days in on season everything feels good. Until you show up at masters where you've been missing for a week. When they made the transition from drills to pace and you were swimming with the girls in the ocean.

I really love the lane I swim in. It's a good group of people. I have heard of teams where there are lane wars. We line up how we line up, we frequently fight for the last spot in the lane..... and we are good to each other. We mix hard work and laughing. None of us can count, or add. Or remember the set. We've even got a new girl and she's a criminal psychiatrist.... or something insane like that. She fits right in.

This morning when we had 12 X 150 on hard-o-clock I thought.... this is an interval I can make easily.

Not so much girlfriend.

I swam about a 1200 straight. There were a few times I got to do an open turn which I count for rest. What screwed me up the most is that we had to breathe to the other side. Give me a pen and tell me to write with my left hand while you are at it. I couldn't remember what I was doing.

I thought my coach was on the other side of the pool.... but she wasn't. Caught me breathing to the right.

Shucks.

After 4600 yards my shoulders were grateful it was over and my head knew it would get better. This is what happens when you have taken proper rest. You get a little out of shape. When you come back you come back even stronger.

I was so wrecked this am that during my run I wasn't sure if I'd make 30 minutes. But I did.

And that's how things go in the beginning. This is the fire you have to travel through for the bigger gains on the other side. When times got tough today I labeled each wall opportunity. I pushed off of opportunity a gazillion times today.

2009 has nothing but that. Opportunity. Today I saw it, and tomorrow I will as well. There are goingto be days that are great, and then days that I feel like a wrecking ball has taken me down.

And each one of them holds promise.