Keeps going, and going, and ..

Swam tonight.

My head’s been bouncing around all day – wrapping up a bunch of loose ends at work, getting ready to be social this weekend, convincing myself that I’m actually complying with the tax code and am not going to end up in “Federal (Graphic term from “Office Space” deleted) Prison.” (Actually, we called it that in the Navy before the movie came out).

Plus, Warren’s entry about his swimming teammate hit home – luckily, I haven’t lost that many folks that I can name, or at least not when I actively was keeping track of them. But I think that’s mainly a factor of luck. I’ve seen more near misses than I care to count. Makes you think.

I almost didn’t head to the pool tonight. Yesterday’s 8 miles was, in hindsight, too much – for the first time in a while, I woke up sore this morning. So, I almost convinced myself to declare a rest day. But the wife convinced me to head out.

She was right.

Slipped into the pool as pretty much everyone else was leaving. Did 5 breast to warm up. Then I started swimming.

I initially intended to do a set of 20 laps, then two sets of 10 laps each. But, the same little voice that told me to go 8 miles yesterday said “Hey, bet you can do 30 laps straight. Then, you’ve only got to do one set of ten at the end!”

So, I started swimming. And it clicked. Long strokes, quick and deep breaths. Nice. Kept losing count, so I think I’ve actually underestimated distance instead of the other way around. Got to 20 laps, and convinced myself to do the whole mile nonstop.

At about lap 30, I entertained thoughts of going straight to 60 laps without stopping. But that was just silly.

But it was nice – 40 minutes of focusing on stroke, stroke, breathe, hey look at the bubbles, stroke, oops – forgot to kick for a while, hmmm, how many tiles are there in the lane… For a while there, I’d worked out all the world’s ills in my mind.

Then, I realized it was time to go. The lifeguard told me “Nice set” as I walked out.

Made my day.