Do you ever have a day when you feel like you're the tortoise? This morning's swim was just that. A feeling that I was displaying more qualities of a land dwelling reptile, with the protection of my shell, rather than a smooth sea turtle. I progressed passionately through the water more like a box tortoise than a turtle with flippers. It was one of those mornings. I didn't even have to work today and I was at the pool at 5:30 a.m. to swim with the crew. We do a good job of making one another feel guilty if we miss a swim. In fact, after the workout, a teammate asked if I was doing the same workout as them. I smiled and said "yes--just slower."  I'm close to 60 miles swimming for the month so far, with a few spin classes and lots of long blustery dog walks. Shoulders feel good and due to a new anti-inflammatory for arthritis, my back has resolved its issues with flip turns. Also enjoying some cooler pool swims in the afternoons. After some rest this afternoon, I hope to be back up to smooth sea turtle status by morning.

Last weekend I was honored by the Ford Athletic Swim & Triathlon Club as the Member of the Year for 2010. Our club president said I always sport team gear, have a positive attitude, coach weekly masters swim workouts, encourage others to join or try new strokes, organize swim clinics and Tiger baseball games, design t-shirts and work to make F.A.S.T. bigger and better each year. I am honored to share the trophy with my husband, who has supported me every step along the way. As the VP of Swimming, it was awesome to award over 30 swim mileage awards for 2010 and hearof all our members' accomplishments. I am thankful to be able to surround myself around such wonderful teammates, many of which are volunteering their time the morning of February 6 to host our club's 24th Annual "Super Swim Meet" (short course meters) at Brighton High School. Good luck to the swimmers competing and thank you to those of you who are volunteering.

Happy New Year! 

The first swim of the season is a yearly tradition that I've been participating in for seven or eight years now. To ring in 2011, a school of 27 of us swam 111 x 50s on the :50 seconds in a very warm pool- mid 80s. This swim requires an icy water bottle and a lot of patience. We had six swimmers in our lane, so we each took turns leading six 50s and rotated leaders after every six (so every 6th one is on the :45 seconds, while the previous leader moves to back the lane). Following tradition, lots of us went out for a New Years Day breakfast to celebrate.

The flip turns on Saturday did a number on my lower back, so I've pretty much had a flipturnless 2011 after that set. Every swim seems a lot longer doing open turns and I'm getting quite bored. To combat the boredom of the slower walls, I've done a few swims with a great new toy from my in-laws, Finis' SwiMP3.  It's a small waterproof mp3 player (clips onto my goggles) that uses bone-conduction technology to transmit sound underneath the water. The playlist took a little tweaking after my first swim with tunes. I was so excited when I first got it, I just loaded mp3s that I had on my computer. I remember laughing out loud when the songs went from artists Toby Keith, to Mis-Teeq, to Josh Groban to "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas." I couldn't stop laughing at the end of the pool. Speed up... slow down....speed up.....slow down. That swim was like driving on Orchard Lake Road.  I think the playlist is figured out now. Yesterday when the song "Bottom's Up" came on, I thought, "I should be doing flipturns" to this tune.

It's January and the gym parking lots are packed, the exercise classes are filled and many people have made resolutions to shed a few pounds. For aspiring Channel swimmers, who are about to swim in very cold water over a long period of time, they recommend gaining a few pounds. Not by eating junk, but healthy high fat foods. I just read a Channel swimming posting that said, "A sucessfull crossing requires hours of training in pretty chilly water and an extra layer or two of blubber definitely helps." Now that's a resolution.