I met Krisanne, Eric, and Sandy at the Ballroom to play a few games of pool. I was supposed to meet them for dinner, but the scheduling was tight as I had already arranged to meet Francesca and Jen for a swim workout.
The workout wasn't too bad, but did leave me tired. Part of it was probably dehydration - I forgot to bring along a water bottle to sip. The other part was just the workout itself - a typical masters swim workout includes various pool gizmos. Sometimes it is the pull buoy, which helps keep your legs floating higher, and sometimes it is the kickboard, which... is there just to thrash your legs. What you do is usually hold the kickboard in front, keep your head up, and doggie paddle back and forth. I'm not sure what the point of the kickboard is, because that isn't at all the way you swim any stroke except doggie paddle. I think years ago, somebody has success torturing their swim team with a kickboard and somehow it got ingrained as a great way to train. It probably makes sense if you plan to kick like a motorboat when you swim, but I'm positive there are other efficiency gains to be had that don't require kickboard-style leg work.
We did a few hundred yards of kickboard, and towards the end I cheated a little by sculling with my hands. I didn't feel bad because right before the kickboard drill we did 6x75 sets where the middle 25 yards was kick only, which is like the stupid kickboard drill, except without the kickboard. Bah!
The only thing good about masters swim is it is relatively social. My friend Jen was in the same lane, and Francesca and Ronan were one lane over. So you can chat a little bit here and there. Normally lap swimming is fairly isolating for me - I go to the pool alone, I don't wear contact lenses so I can't see too well, I wear earplugs to avoid dizziness so I can't hear too well - so I usually just work on my own drills or crank out the yardage. This time, I wore my contacts so I could see the others at least!
After showering I met up with Francesca, Jen, and Ronan in a little snack bar, where we all slurped up a post-workout smoothie. We chatted a bit and it was later than I thought before I left. I called Krisanne and found they were going to continue playing pool for a while, so I drove over to join them at the Ballroom in Fremont.
Sandy is up visiting from the Bay Area, scoping out possible places to live here in Seattle. Ironic isn't it, a friend is moving up here around the time I'll be moving to Florida. We teamed up to play Krisanne and Eric, and it was just not our night. We lost the first game by scratching on the 8 ball, and lost the third game by sinking the 8 ball. It was fun though!
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