Cookfest !!!

Easy: Yesterday was a fine day but I didn't swim coz I had to bring Irene to Laco for a Cookfest. Apparently she was volunteered to represent Karen's class for a cookfest in celebration of Nutrition Month (July). How somebody concluded DH is a fantastic cook is anybody's guess. DH was tasked to cook pancit. Not exactly her specialty but... Well that's them at the right with another parent who cooked spaghetti. The Home Economics kitchen at the school is rather spacious. They've got lots of utensils but only one gas stove worked. So the parents had to make do with sharing burners.

After about an hour, the pancit is all done. The bilao and the banana leaf ensemble made it look really presentable. They had a couple of bilaos at the kitchen and someone cut banana leaves from the school's garden. There's the finished product at the right and that's Karen's adviser. Why so much? Well, the food will be shared with Karen's classmates of course. A dish was left for the judges and then there's the requisite portion for the faculty.

Kainan na!!! Finally, merienda time for the classmates at the classroom! Some classmates prepared juice drinks and the whole affair looked like a feeding program! Overall it was a fun activity. They said the pancit really tasted good! Of course it's good, DH cooked it! It was tiring, esp for Irene who slaved the previous night away to precook the ingredients. But seeing people enjoy the food made it all worthwhile and fun! Ahhhh... the sacrifices we parents make.

There's this schmuck at the pool who always showers with the shower curtains open. Now I don't have problems with public showers but those stalls have curtains for a reason. He showers full blast in his underwear and gets the floor on the walkway all wet. And to think he works there. I could only assume that he hasn't outgrown his childhood fear of the "mumu" so he keeps the curtains open. Today was easy coz I'm still feeling the pain in the right knee. The funny thing is, I only feel it on the flutter kicks but not on breaststroke kicks. I have a feeling that the dolphin kicks this week triggered this. I could still do flutter kicks but I'd just have to use the thighs more and not stress the knee.

Another Bum Knee?

Easy: Another easy workout coz I had to rush today. Had to rush coz parking is limited at the office. They decided to dig up some of the parking slots to improve the drainage. I realized today that my right leg did most of the power kicking. During Dog Paddle, I felt a sudden sharp pain in my right knee. It went away but there were certain leg positions, like when pushing back the foot, where I felt it again. Hope it's temporary and will go away. Last thing I need is ANOTHER bum knee.

Some Tips

Easy: It was cold and quite a big downpour yesterday so I didn't swim. I was still aching a little over my stiffneck so that sealed it. I guess the rule of thumb excuses for not swimming are: rain/ thunderstorms, illness or injury. Because of the rain yesterday, the pool water today wasn't as warm and so I wore a swimcap. Those are my present swimcaps on the left. The Voit is a lot more comfortable (and cheaper!) than the Speedo. The Speedo seems tighter.

Tip: To do navigation or sighting on the Elemback, be sure to get a gulp of air first and then hold it - then do your sighting. Otherwise your chest sinks and so does your head. Another tip: when jumping into the pool, be sure to jump with your feet CLEARING the deck. Otherwise you could easily scrape your foot or toes like I did this morning.

Today I did a couple of lengths of dolphins just for warming up. I retrieved a Php1 coin from the pool floor to add to my kitty. Yesterday was a holiday for some people (SONA). Treasure is now at Php17.25.

Swimming at Ricardo's

We went to Ricardo's Swimming Pool at Cerhil, infront of St. Scholastica's Academy in Pampanga. There's no work and school for Metro Manila on Monday coz of SONA. The water from the pools was very nice when we came - bright bluish crystal clear! The pic at the left was taken at the kiddie pool. There were a couple of slides here but the kids didn't use them much. The water surface's height was just right for Renz.

The pool at the right is the bigger adult pool. I estimate it to be roughly 8m by 12.5m and the deepest end is 5 ft. The shallow end is maybe 3 ft. My swims here looked fast coz of the smaller size of the pool and its smaller tiles. The tiles just seemed to whiz by! I did my regular strokes. That's Irene at the bottom wearing my Voit swimcap. The pools have this dolphin images at the bottom that appear moving and life-like from above. They're a little unnerving though if you see them underwater especially if you're accustomed to just white tiles and lane lines.

Left is a shot of the kiddie pool from the top landing of the adult slide. See Sandra prancing into her Swan pose ala Synchronized Swimming. That's Renz at the bottom doing his "Fotoman" (a made-up superhero with a Power Ranger character) impersonation. There weren't anybody else who swam except for a few other kids and a rowdy gang. There were lots of people though who were mostly cooking and eating. There was a heavy downpour around noon and we promptly left at 12:30.

Couple 'O New Trunks

Easy day and some Dolphins: Elementary Backstroke is just so, so relaxing. Sometimes my mind just drifts as I see the various wisps of clouds above and the occassional plane passing by. Since I remembered it's been a loooong time that I haven't done dolphin kicks, well I tried them again today. Surprisingly, I don't feel any awkwardness at all. And during the whole workout, there wasn't any soreness at the back. I guess I need to push the turns. Mental Toughness! Focus on completing laps without resting. Just do the damned turns!

Finally here's a picture of the swim trunks I now have. I had to bring and wear my old crappy cotton/ polyester trunks yesterday at the pool just so I could have this picture taken! That old cotton trunks of mine doesn't wear well when wet. The cotton material just cling too much to your skin when you get out from the pool and it can get embarrasing. Anyway, the two shorts at the left are what I use regularly. The top one is very old and faded but tough, ToUgH, TOUGH! I think it's made of some nylon material probably invented by some deceased Nobel-prize winning scientist. I just might use it for 10 more years coz I don't see them being sold anywhere anymore. I alternate it with the one at the bottom left. They're both SnS brand. The 2 ones at the right (Nautilus brand) I got on sale from Market Market. They don't look as stretched out as the ones on the left coz they're new.

Septic Blues

Hard: Why do I feel that my sidestroke isn't getting the distance that I used to get? Don't I gliiiide enough? Is the kick lacking? Am I too impatient? I practice my sidestroke kick at a pool corner just to be sure I do it right. I just don't know if I actually do it. Coz I feel the top leg doesn't move too much forward. If it does, it breaks much streamline. It's the lower leg that "whips" the kick.

After the morning swim, I proceeded to inspect the work being done on the septic tank. Jerry, his kid Jericho and another guy were at it. Wheewww, needless to say, it was gross. To most of us, the work is really dreadful. You don't know the kind of diseases you could contract by working near, around and inside a filled-up septic tank. I paid Php5,000 for the job which, in total was done in less than a day (broken in 2 days). Well, I think the quality of work was worth it. There's no better guy I think to do the work other than Jerry coz he built it! I took some pictures of the cleaning to study the septic tank's structure just for my reference. But I'd rather not post those pics here. Yup, this is just one of the things a landlord does. It isn't all just waiting and collecting the rent!

Market (Market) Day

Easy - T-E-P: After waiting last Saturday, we learned that the Septic Guy (sorry, for lack of better word) wasn't available again yesterday, Sunday. I was so upset and disappointed that I finally decided to go shopping with the family at Market Market. What can I say, I just needed to release the stress and make the most of the day. Besides, we read on the papers that they had a sale there for the entire weekend. So off we went with Gay, Mama and Beng.

There are so many blogs I see that feature all these fancy, exotic dishes with tongue-twisting names (read: expensive) they've had in all the fancy-dancy restaurants they've been too. The blogs show photos of the food and facade/name of the restaurant and the details of the food as well like they were copied verbatim from the menu! I think they should be paid by these restaurants for free advertising.

Well, I'm not to do that myself, coz there's nothing really fancy in what we had at Market Market which wasn't a fancy place either (take a hint from the name, will ya?). It was just rows and rows of food stalls. Anyway, shown at the left is some of what we had: Inihaw na Hito, Adobong Pusit, some seaweeds (Ar-arosep is what Irene calls them) with bagoong, diced onions, mangoes and tomatoes.

Fried shrimps served in a small kawali which I thought was cute. See the pic at the right. They're simple local dishes but they were sooooooo goooooood !!! I guess food there is really good in the first place coz it was so damned hard to get seats.

Why did I even want to go to Market Market, swimmingwise? Well, I thought I could buy some new trunks, caps and goggles. Well, it turned out I only bought Nautilus swim trunks - both on sale for < Php150 each. Speedo sells these kind of trunks (same material from what I can feel) for Php900+ each !!! What's up with that, Speedo? The caps of the Voit brand weren't discounted much. Besides, I hardly use caps in the pool I go to. I'll post a pic of the trunks when I got time.

I digress too much. I went to the pool today after the Septic guy, Jerry, gave an estimate for the job. In the pool, there was debris (mostly leaves) everywhere. I guess it was a windy day yesterday. I moved lanes between laps and found a Php5 coin. Ha! Another coin-diving session yesterday I suppose. My treasure chest has now Php16.25 worth of coins! I just love it when I spot these sunken treasures!

Some Days Suck

Easy: T-E-P. Swimming today sucked on sooo.... many counts.

1. Nasal Congestion. My allergies hasn't cleared up entirely inspite taking Virlix 3 days in a row. I had to get some meds at the clinic to help clearup my stuffy sinus and chest.
   
   
2. Spidering on the blue goggles. Some things are too good to last. My spanking new blue goggles now has that spidering that my former blue goggles had. I really don't know what's causing this. I've never had this with the amber goggles. Is it the heat? Is it the really cool "jungle" goggle pouch that caused it? Or do BLUE Super Marlin goggles just really get this over time?
   
   
3. Some problemo at the apartment. One of my tenants reported a leak on the cleanout plug of the spetic tank. His garage is sitting on top of the apartment's septic tank and that's why he reported it. I went there before the swim at noon, and yup, it leaked. It's clear liquid but the smell is gross! There's the apartment pic at the right and the tank is underneath the garage at the leftmost end. Ya know, I may not live there but as a landlord who tries to be responsible, I feel for my tenants. I just hope I could get someone to help fix it by tomorrow.

Anything nice to write about? Well, I guess I can confidently say that the 7 cycles per length is now a given. This means I can do 14 strokes per length anytime, at will! The speed may not be something to brag about, but hey, it's a breakthrough for me. During the noon swim today, I realized how much I've saved on sunscreen lotion eversince I swam mornings. But the noon swim today made me see the water in a different light - literally. As I was doing dog paddle, the waves infront of me appeared to be a very smooth sheet of aqua glass that was warping and rolling forward. It may not be something to crow about, but sometimes, you tend to appreciate this small things.

Brain Going Haywire?

Easy: P-E-T. Yesterday, something fantastic happened (to me, anyway). The night before yesterday I was thinking of a software problem that a co-worker posed to me. I said to myself "Self, there has to be a way to do what my co-worker wanted. Maybe tomorrow morning at the swim, I can just add it among those things that ramble in my mind." Unfortunately, I forgot to analyze the problem during the swim. But guess what, and here's where it gets creepy, as I was going to the office after the swim, I started to have some ideas on how to solve the problem! I could suddenly visualize a solution. The ideas were fuzzy but seemed to be workable. I worked on it the whole morning, and yes! Voila! A solution! This proposed solution saved this co-worker's team much effort from restructuring tables, databases, reprogramming and such stuff. Ah yessssss. "Mens Sana In Corpore Sano" does it again.

For the past two days, I've been drinking a tall glass of water aside apart from the coffee and bread. I've heard that old folks stay healthy because of the habit of drinking two glasses of water first thing in the morning upon waking up. Sounds difficult? Well, it is. I'm used to drinking cold water only, but not drinking it first thing in the morning. So I just mix cold and hot (from the airpot). So far it's okay. It may not guarantee me long life, but it will fulfill my water needs before the morning swim.

The pool was so much clearer today that upon jumping in, I just wanted to backfloat and enjoy the water. And not only that, I did my stretches while floating. It isn't so hard. I just need to keep the legs moving/ kicking so they don't sink. I also can't put both my arms forward like on my chest or I'll sink. Well, I truly enjoyed the experience. Talking of stretches, I'm forgetting to do the early morning back stretches that were recommended by my rehab doc. Better get back at them.

I tried to consciously exhale today through the nose. I can't get it to work, coz there's the tendency to get the water further in. This is at the instant that I take the effort to get it out. The end result is I get chlorine water up the sinuses and it hurts. Maybe I'll just settle for the exhale primarily from the mouth habit. It's more relaxed. Well, we'll see with what I can't tweak from this breathing problem...

Water up my Nose

Hard day. This is the second day that I use the new goggles and I must say 'yes, what a difference looking life through rose-colored glasses' oops, blue-colored goggles. The water's still wonderfully warm today. Yup, there's been no rain the whole week so far.

Something that I guess I unlearned all this time is to exhale through the nose while swimming. I say unlearned coz I was conscious about exhaling from both mouth and nose when I was beginning. And recently, I realized that I kept clearing my nose of pool water at each length. I should try to consciously exhale from both mouth and nose next time and try to come up with an easy technique.

As I rewrite some parts of this blog somewhere, I discovered so many things that I've gone through in learning lap swimming. Some of the drills, stretches, techniques have either disappeared or changed in my present routine. In revisiting these old posts, I'd actually like to revive these "obsoleted" ideas! Ah.. the power of journaling.

Blue Goggles

Easy. The temp of the pool today was surpisingly warm. Come to think of it, it hasn't rained yesterday so maybe that explains it. Anyway, I didn't feel the need for the swimcap. But, you say, how warm is warm? Well, maybe next time I'll bring a thermometer just to get a measurement. It kinda reminds me when I counted the tiles (1 sqft per tile) just to know precisely how long and how wide was the pool. It's 25m by 12.5m.

I decided to use the new blue goggles today and reused the "jungle pouch". Look at the picture at the topright. Isn't the pouch design cool? It's actually a pencil case! Who would have known, huh? The size is just so perfect for my goggles. I really thought it's nice so I bought 2 more of these pouches and stashed them away. That's just me. When I see something really "perfect" for me, like this goggle model I use, I tend to hoard just for backups. Speaking of goggles, since I already have some spare parts of old blue goggles then using this color for training will be more practical. Yup, those are the new blue goggles inside the pouch at the picture.

Today, I used all the lanes. The pool has 5 wide lanes. Actually, I was scouring the pool too for items to pickup. I've already collected Php 11 worth of coins in this pool so a little more own't hurt. Where do they come from? Well from the horseplayers and waterthrashers. You now, those gangs who bring booze, drink and then play (not swim, I'd be surprised if they knew how) in the pool. They'd have these dive-for-coins contests. I guess when they're just too tired or drunk, they leave their coins. And that's where I come in.

All Free

Did an all freestyle workout today for 10 laps! Guess I was feeling a little stronger today or was it the guilty feelings of having done 2 easy workouts in a row? Anyway, the first 5 laps were slow. I didn't time them coz they WERE slow. Laps 6, 7 and 8 clocked 33, 31 and 33. Again, clocking here isn't Olympic accurate. Heck it isn't even Barangay level accurate.

I realized that to be fast, the pushoff glide cannot be maximized to the hilt (until you're very slow). You just have to go stroking when you feel you can be faster than the glide. Just remember to have a very strong and super streamlined pushoff.

Note to self: Remember to return Karen's amber goggles and pull out one of my remaining 3 Super Marlin models. I think I'll use the blue one so it'll be different from Karen's. Now the blue crappy one I have, I'll just put it in the "spare parts" box for blue goggles. What a waste.

New Hard Sequence

New sequence for Hard is Side-Brst-Back
Again, not a lot of traffic today. Was at the pool pretty early even - maybe 7:10am. Pool was still green and it really reeked of chlorine. It was still cool so I donned the swimcap. Workout was regular.
Breaststroke was 43 secs.
It's really better to start with the sidestroke first, then breaststroke and then backstreamline last. so the BBS is now actually SBB. The reason being: Sidestroke is quite taxing and I just need to be fresh to have good technique. The backstream on the other hand doesn't require a lot of technique but can be tiring for the quads. It is also very slow. So by putting it at the last, I can just pause as I get tired and no technique degradation to worry about. Am just glad that I can do these other strokes. I get to hammer other muscles as well and not just those that are called by freestyle.
Prince was there today and was early too.

Bad Tummy

Easy. Ooops... two easy workouts in a row!

But what can I say, my tummy was feeling bad. I must've been constipated from too much eating yesterday (or was it the leftover pizza sauce?). I had bopis and half rice and palabok for 2ndbreak at the canteen. I woke up today a little feverish (from constipation?) maybe due to the cold weather.

I swallowed a little water today but I didn't gag! Was it because of I drank a glass of water before leaving the house? I just continued swimming (as should be the case) and not thinking much about it. Can't expel the water anyway. I wore the blue Voit swimcap again today coz the water was cooler.

You're One Year Old

Easy: Happy FIRST Anniversary, Blog! Didn't do the last free coz half the pool became chlorine green. Bought new pair of gray sandals from SM Southmall yesterday. These will be used for alternating with the black ones to keep feet dry. Need to replenish algar drops. I missed the usual warm towel from the noon workouts. Now the towel is cold when I use it.

Side Mess

Hard: Sidestroke was a mess! Wore a swimcap today. The fit felt really good and trapped heat on the head. Gagged today on the final free (2nd length) after turning. Remember, don't stop, don't think about it. Just gulp it and continue. Be relaxed. Why not combine elem and free for a continuous lap? Do elem to deep and free to shallow?