The Spirit, and the Water, and the Blood.

I'm getting ready to go home for a couple days soon and I've been getting progressively more homesick. Some people think of food or family, I've been missing the ocean.
Today, the water gods repaid my loyalty to them by flooding my back yard.

In a couple weeks, I'm heading back to the beach to tour a sub and spend a couple days with the family- there was my birthday, Mother's Day, and Jopoppa's birthday so good timing all around.

I've been talking to a triathlete friend who's down there about meeting up while I'm home and he told me about his tri team. It pretty much embodies everything I miss about the beach, weekly Open Water Swims, biking flat safe roads, laid back beach atmosphere. I am really, really envious of that training group. The pictures of the ocean were enough to make me want to cry and call home. Don't get me wrong, DC Tri is great, but they are unquestionably focused on the elite athlete. Kind of like the difference between hashing and racing.
I'm not sure I could give up life in DC, but sometimes moving back is incredibly tempting, especially during the summer. No rowing to be had there, but the ocean ...

Since I've been kind of a sensitive royal PITA this week, I figured a night to myself was in order. If for no other reason than to spare everyone else my company when I'm this annoying. So I actually made it to church, and then to swim for the first time since the surgeries.

Swimming went surprisingly well. My goal was to make it through 500 yards no matter how ugly it was. I alternated 100 yards of freestyle with 100 yards of kickboarding and breathing drills. When I still felt out of sync, I went back to the old standby ... Kajagoogoo. I cannot explain why that works, it just does. The last 100 yeards I felt like I was swimming like I wanted to, if a little awkward. And I still am not an ambi-breather, but just being back in the water helped to center me a little.

This morning, I paid for that swim in spades. The shoulder is on fire, and icing not helping too much. We'll see what the PT has to say about it tomorrow.

Meanwhile, there's also a tri while I'm home. Registration is closed, and there's no way I could manage an ocean swim now anyways, but I might volunteer. If I have to be on the sidelines, I may as well be at the 50 yard line, right? And volunteering I will be a safe distance from the evil jellyfish.

http://www.coastalracing.org/
http://www.breezypointtri.com/