Black Lines – Advent Day 11

As you can probably tell, I’ve pretty much decided to power on through the Advent Project, despite the fact that I let it lapse for fourteen days. Eh. What’s fourteen days between friends?

Today may have started out as a perfect example of how lucky I am:

Woke up next to the love of my life snug in my own bed. Made it down to the YMCA in plenty of time to get a good bike, and started warming up. Light class load during the pre-New Year break, and Noreen kills the lights, turns on the blakclight, and fires up “Speak To Me” for the classic “Dark Side of the Moon” class (Ride? I don’t necessarily feel comfortable using cycling terminology for spin class, which is a different animal, a ghost shadow of the wonder that is really riding a bike).

Anyway, having been back to spin pretty consistently for almost two months, I had a breakthrough last week in that I finally re-learned pacing on rides, not wiping out too early, and not holding back and finishing fresh. Good times.

After spin, I hit the pool. And spent about 1500 yards staring at the black line on the bottom of the pool.

New Years started early this year – the pool was PACKED – every lane shared. I dropped in with a nice woman who was swimming A TON of leisurely laps, taking the lane next to the wall while she swam next to the rope. So, first thanks for the black line was in making one lane into two.

Then, as the swim went on, the pool slightly emptied out, and I was able to move over a couple of lanes for the last set – 250 hard. Head down, stretching to meet the black line with every stroke, and happy as a clam.

Got home good and tired to start the day.