Cycling ( Read more... )

It has been a busy week (surprise - I think I say that every week, at least when I get around to posting ( Read more... )

Today I went to the pond much later than usual. Normally I go at around 7:00 or 8:00, when there is no-one except a few senior citizens who enjoy the peace and quiet. It's a hot sunny holiday today, so the beach was packed. It felt quite European, with everyone from babies to octogenarians in the water, a guy playing guitar on the beach, and folks ( Read more... )

Except for packing my stuff. Tomorrow is Bring on the Bay, a 3km swim in the Ottawa River. I have promised myself that if I finish in about an hour, I will sign up for the Riverkeeper 4km swim in two weeks. That one is much more challenging, as it is across and slightly up the river; tomorrow's goes into the centre of the river for part of the way ( Read more... )

I went swimming with friends this morning. It was cool and cloudy, but not rainy. We thought we had a plan. Apparently we did not all have the same plan. That's what happens when we make the plan in the late evening, and then go swimming at 6 am. We parked at the boat launch, which is near to the mid-point in the long narrow lake and headed out for ( Read more... )

Ever since my first summer of open water swimming (two, three? summers ago), I have thought about swimming from one end of Meech Lake to the other, and back. It's 4 km each way (5 miles total for those who don't use the metric system). A week or so ago, someone in my gang of fellow swimmers said we should go for it, and today we did. We started out ( Read more... )

I went shopping at Value Village twice this week and got some fab clothes - most ready to wear, a few needing minor alterations, and two shirts to play with refashioning. I have been following a couple of sewing blogs and now I'm inspired. I even scored a pair of wood and leather clogs that are just like the kind I wore growing up in Germany ( Read more... )

Pootle is a word I learned from the FB group "Did You Swim Today". It means a gentle swim, puttering along the water. possibly with lots of stops along the way. That was this morning's swim. I met up with a friend I haven't seen in about a year and we had a mad gossip while swimming back and forth across the pond. By the time we were caught up on ( Read more... )

Today at swimming, I was given 50 yard drills to do in one minute even. I don't think I have ever succeeded in doing them in under 1:05, and then it was basically touch the wall and start again. This time, I got 5-10 seconds rest at the end of each 50. In my first hour swim, I have graduated by one lane (thanks to many new members) so I am now ( Read more... )

After yesterday's hypothermia worries, I decided to head to the pool today. I swam just shy of 3 km in an hour (116 lengths of a 25 yard pool). Half of that was non-freestyle, so slower ( Read more... )