In Loving Memory of our Sweet Dog Maggie

Our Favorite Maggie Memories:

· The day I came home from work and Ingrid had our new puppy Maggie who had just flown to us from Connecticut waiting for me at the door. She was as excited to meet me as I was to meet her.

· Taking her to St. Petersburg, FL for the St. Anthony’s triathlon. We stayed in a seedy hotel that allowed dogs, and it was the only time we ever let her climb into bed with us. She had a blast mingling with other spectators while on leash at the race.

· Maggie’s infatuation with Christmas ornaments.

· 4 Years of Monday to Thursday evening companionship while Ingrid was on the road for work.

· Trips to the dog park by Buffalo Bayou in Houston

· Wrestling Maggie into her crate in the ticket area of Hartsfield Airport, and giving the sky cap a $20 to be sure she got on the plane.

· Maggie first meeting Reagan and Jake.

· Maggie roaming the shores of Richland Chambers Reservoir with Duke and Dakoda

· Chasing the sun spot to sit in across the room all day long

· Dog Socialization school in Atlanta

· Watching her run all out on the beach at Kiawah

· Road trips with her in the back seat of the civic

· Her white squirrel on her chest

· Her rarely heard but impressive bark

· Her velvet soft ears

· Unconditional love, always

Solo Swim Workouts

There is nothing I enjoy more than a swim workout with a group of people of equal ability, and a touch of machismo. I get so much more out of it compared to a workout I come up with on my own, and do by myself.

That is why the swimming has not been going all that well this year. While I'm getting in okay yardage, I'd describe most of the yards as garbage yardage. Logging yards with no real agenda. I put in 14,700 yards in Jan, the 3rd most Jan yards I've logged since 2002 (24,450 in '02, and 22,450 in '05 being the two years with more yards). For you two "real" swimmers who read my blog, you'll laugh at what I've become. We recall the days when we'd do 18,000+ yards in a day. I'm soft, I know.

Ever since I've moved to Dallas, the swimming scene has been a struggle. I had a great masters team I swam with in Atlanta. While the faces on the fringe of the group would change with life's priorities, there was always a good core group of people you could count on showing up, and pushing you a bit.

As we moved to Houston for grad school, time was the biggest limiter to getting in the water regularly, but as the course load eased up, and the job search was finalized, I was able to train with the masters team at Rice University headed up by the school's varsity swim coaches. I was swimming 3 times a week, putting in about 3,500-4,000 yards per workout which typically lasted about 1:15 long, and my swimming blossomed.

When I came to Dallas, things changed. There were no masters teams with evening workouts that were within a reasonable drive of where I lived and worked. I could swim with the big masters club here in town which would involve a 4:30 am wakeup call, and me getting to work a good hour and a half before the rest of my team would show up (did I mention I am not a morning person any more?). Also not ideal!

So I've been swimming with my tri team, and the level of consistency between who shows up, and when the workouts are offered has made it a struggle to find an environment conducive to quality swimming.

I've been doing swimming largely on my own, writing all of my own workouts. I've never had a problem coming up with a workout, but in the end, I tend to have myself doing the same type of workout, and usually lose interest before I hit my planned yardage total for the session. I'm also swimming them by myself, and I've always needed someone else to push me to work harder. Plus, a workout partner always helps the yards fly by.

I did have one good workout last week. I've been swimming at a high school pool and just decided to do the workout the high school team left up on the dry erase board. The intervals prescribed were a bit more aggressive than I had been putting myself through lately, but I decided to give it a go. As I recall, the workout went something like this:

200 free on 3:00
4x50 kick on 1:00
200 free on 3:00
4x50 pull on :50
200 free on 3:00
4x50 swim on :45

4x400 on 6:00 descend effort 1-4. (I went 5:45, 5:35, 5:24, 5:13)

200 warm down

It felt good to get it going a bit, and the laps did pass quickly. But I was back in the water today, and the mojo was gone.

There is a masters team I swam with twice as part of a trial back in 2005. They swim in Irving which is about 25-30 mins from my house, but about 10 mins from my office. They swim at 6:00am, which would mean a 5:15 wake up call. Still not ideal, but I'm just not sure if my tri team workouts are going to pick up for a while.

Conflicted, Dinger!

On the Mend

I succumbed to the illness that had been making its rounds in my family this week. It started with a sore throat last Sat and blossomed in to a full blown cold by Tuesday night. I cut my workouts on Mon and Tues short, and took Wed-Fri off completely.

I actually was in such rough shape on Thursday that I stayed home from work, which was the first time I've done that in years.

Anyhow, I felt like I turned the corner on Friday and felt better today (Sat) when I got up, so I decided to go out and do my run with no agenda other than to cover the distance, and keep my HR under 160. I'm not fully recovered because keeping it under 160 forced me to back off my pace by about 20-25 seconds, but the weather was phenomenal today, and I enjoyed getting outside.

I don't recall a winter in which I've been sicker, but hope it is behind me for good. I need an uninterrupted stretch during this base period to lay down some good foundation.