Oh How Humbling!

Today at Master's swim practise, we were doing kicking drills the coach stopped everybody and announced that Brian (about the same age but not a tri-guy) would race against two of the kids from the Mallards swim team. We would swim 50 metres front crawl and the kids would swim kicking-only either butterfly kick or freestyle kick. I couldn't see who the kids were as they were a couple of lanes over so I asked how old they were and Serge said they were 12 and 15. Great, I was only three times older than one kid and three and half times older than the other kid. This should be a fair race.

So we took off and I was really just trying to keep ahead of Brian who was besides me. I think I breathed once on the way down and three times on the way back. I was neck and neck with Brian but I nailed the flip turn and by the mid point back I had pulled slightly ahead. Looking back, I made the same mistake twice....At the start of the race and after the flip turn I should have glided under water for a longer period of time as its easier to swim under than on top but its been 27 years since I swam competitively. My time for the 50 was about 33 seconds and change but I couldn't hear Serge because I was huffing and puffing. I beat the 12 year old and Brian but the 15 year old beat me. Kicking only. How embarrassing. I think my time from the good old high school swim team would have been roughly the same as this was a water start.

I'll probably run tonight as I'm playing in a charity fund raiser hockey tournament tomorrow morning. I got my new orthotics and normally I just go and run but these feel a little difference so my old ones must have been totally wrecked. I'll wear the new ones over the weekend and just run on my old dress shoes with weren't as bad.

I had a long talk with the orthotic guy (who isn't a Podiatrist but a Certified Pedorthist - what's the difference???). David has run over 200 races and his fastest time for the marathon is 2:40 so I guess we can say he's experienced. I asked about him about the Newton and he said he's never heard of it but will check it out and let me know his thoughts. Clearly he was skeptical and thought it was a fad. This mid-foot versus heel strike is extremely confusing. What to do??

Its going to be a smoking hot next couple of days with the temperature hitting 30 degrees on Saturday. Definitely will be riding outside. Maybe Paul will want to go riding seeing that he's back from his three weeks in Florida