First day of school.

So I packed my lunchbox (=gatorade) and my gym clothes (=swimsuit) and my school supplies (=fins, goggles, pull buoy, more fins) and went to the first day of school. I could hardly sleep the night before, I was so nervous, but the other kids were really nice and the new teacher seems like he'll be OK too.

Here's the thing, though. What I could not find was . . . the wall.

Turns out the new team swims in a 25 METER pool instead of a 25 YARD pool, so I would keep expecting a given lap to be over, only to find I still had about 3 strokes to go.

But the water in the new pool is cooler--which is a nice change. (Check back with me in January)

And the first practice was pretty relaxed--good long swimming with strong technique but not a lot of speed work.

The new coach made the mistake of asking me about my previous training, how much swimming I used to do and what kind. I gave him a pretty routine answer for the "what kind," but what he did not know before he asked me "how much" was that I had spent a bit of last Sunday making spreadsheets for my yardage data from the previous 3 seasons. And graphs! That was fun, because I could see where the peaks came in the season. What my data does not show is what the intensity level was in any given week, but really: this is a hobby. Anyway, I was able to tell him that last season I averaged 11,300 yards per week, and that I had 3 weeks where my total yardage was over 20,000. What he really wanted to know, it turns out, was roughly how long I swam in each practice. Oh. That's easy, and does not require a spreadsheet.

But graphs!