Mellow Friday

Our Masters Swim Team has a tradition known as "Fun Friday". This means that the Friday coach (usually me) is supposed to come up with sets that are whimsical, creative, and enjoyable for all participants. To me, that means something like 4 timed 1000s with 15 seconds rest between them, but I've come to learn that the other folks don't necessarily equate hard distance sets with "fun". I've also learned that my powers of persuasion are inadequate to change their minds about this...so I've been forced to fill Fun Fridays with all sorts of silly nonsense.

This Friday, it was a mixture of one-armed butterfly, vertical kicking, and triathlon drills. The funny thing is that nobody actually likes vertical kicking, but because it's something we don't do very often (and perhaps because their faces are out of the water and they can continue talking), they seem to consider it a component of making Friday fun.

Hmm, I may have just figured out the secret -- give them more opportunities to talk. I'll have to think about ways to do that.

Anyway, despite the fact that that we didn't achieve my normal criterion for a "good workout" (ie, arms to tired to lift up to apply shampoo in the shower), most people seemed to leave the pool in pretty good spirits to go about the rest of their Friday.

My workplace is on a 9/80 schedule, which means we put in two weeks of work (80 hours) in nine days, which theoretically gives us every other Friday off. When we're working a proposal, "off" Fridays, weekends, and holidays do not apply -- but right now we're under no such obligations, so I had the day to myself.

I did my grocery shopping on the way home from the pool. Probably should've eaten something first -- because any nutritionist can tell you that when you shop while hungry, you're likely to end up with 18 extra packages of Oreos, horridly carcinogenic frozen pizzas, and enough Jell-O pudding cups to feed the entire Huxtable family. Of course, being a coach and on my own disciplined training program, I can resist such urges better than most people. The only decadent food I ended up with was a giant bag of gumdrops and a Vasily Alexeev-sized carton of Junior Mints.

But don't worry, I also got lots of fruits, fresh salad ingredients, yogurt, and a loaf of grain & nut bread so chock-full of healthy goodness that even Jack LaLanne could only handle one slice at a time.

I also picked up the ingredients to make my world-famous pizza-- additional details to follow.

After shopping, I spent the remainder of the day at home, doing unpleasant tasks such as cleaning toilets, scrubbing countertops, and checking online bank statements to remind myself that I need to strengthen my retirement planning by buying more Lotto tickets.

Overall, though, it was an excellent day. It was just exactly the type of day I needed to prepare for the exertion scheduled for Saturday. With a long run, a video project, and a baseball game on the agenda, it looked to be a lot of fun. Stay tuned to find out.

And have a great day!