Easy swimming on the taper

My fingers are crossed for a Sunday - if it is anything close I will be loving it! It cannot get any better than that - I might even have to pack my arm skins!

To relieve stress and anxiety I have decided to leave for the race on Thursday at noon. I had planned on leaving very early on Friday morning but realizing that I will lose an hour due to the time change that meant very early Friday morning – like 3AM Friday morning. Jodie had a cake decorating class scheduled for Thursday that did not end until 9PM – but she graciously decided to skip the class – she make take the class again since she already had to miss one other class due to a conference in Philadelphia. I think we are going to stop in Nashville for the night.

That being said I think that we will leave around lunch time on Thursday just after my class. Yes, I am actually taking classes this year. I have been talking about taking classes ever since I started working at the university 3 years ago. I am taking a computer programming class. It has not been quite what I expected so far – but I have only been to one class. In October I am taking an ‘Adventure Training’ class. It will teach land / water orienting, problem solving, etc. – they did not have these kinds of classes when I was in school!

For lunch I just did an easy swim. It was supposed to be a day off but I really did not know what to do with myself during lunch. The swim was as much social as it was exercise. I talked with Jen and Sheryl and then just swam easy. I did not even count laps or anything – just really easy swimming. I swam for 30 minutes and then called it a day.

Even though I am not training as much my appetite is through the roof. To help combat the hunger I have surrounded myself with lots of fruit. Yesterday, during the day, I had two toasted peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and 4 pluots (plum / apricot mix) and 4 bananas. I think I overdid it and I will try to be a little better today – actually I have to be better today – I ate most of my fruit for the week. I have a bag of carrots to take into work for today. That should help.

I went my Terry L’s house after work to pick up his 12 – 27 cassette that he said I could borrow. I always like to return things better than when I borrowed them so I was going to give his cassette are real good cleaning. I took the cassette out of the box and it had a mirror finish that you could eat off of! I thought that I took care of my equipment. Anyway I took my cassette off and cleaned each gear and went to put the 12 -27 cassette on – damn – I did not even think about it but the cassette was a 9 speed. Oh, well – the 27 gear was really just an insurance policy anyway. My 12 – 25 cassette went back on the bike. I am sure that I will be fine.