Swimmers Recover

Last week I swam 650 m. I was pretty happy with that. Throw in that I did the last 150m continuous, and maybe I am seeing some improvements. Weird thing was that as I soaked in the hot tub I bumped into a former co-worker and we chatted for a bit. Then as I left the building I bumped into someone else I know.

This week was similar to last week. I did 650m again, but this time my longest stretch of continuous swimming was 200m or 250m. The lane was pretty busy and I tried to stay out of everyone’s way as much as possible. It was odd that the slow lane I was in had two other pretty fast swimmers in it and the fast lane had a very slow swimmer in it.

The hot tub was nice and relaxing too.

The one thing that I have figured out about swimming is to relax. When breathing I often end up with water in my mouth. During my first few swims when this happened I would panic and inevitably stop swimming to recover. Now I can keep going and recover on my next breath. Sometimes I bump the wall, or the lane markers. This also used to throw me off, but now I can recover mid stroke and keep going. I must be getting better.

Year Things

Today would have been Yoshi’s 12th birthday. Lots can change in a year.

I still think about Yoshi a lot, and I still miss him a lot. Some things really remind me of him. Simple things like the way a dog shakes his/her head, the sighs a dog makes, or even the excited noises a dog makes.

Yoshi was an excitable dog. Start throwing anything for him and he perked up and was happy. Stop throwing and he would get insistent and whiny. It bugged me at the time, but I miss it now.

I am looking forward to having another dog, but I do admit life this summer has been a lot easier not having a dog. There was no need to make arrangements when going away for the weekend, more room to pack with in the car, and the ability to get up and go was nice. Still, I long for that faithful companion. Soon, soon.

Excited Rolling

We looked after Plum for three weeks recently. She is a very sweet Lab/Retriever cross who was very easy to have in our house. She settled in quickly and didn’t seem to mind the chaos that erupted once in a while.

One thing that was interesting about Plum was that she had a couple behaviours that reminded me of Yoshi.

Plum is a protective girl. She barks when she sees something happening outside. She was actually taught that when she is barking to go look for a toy to put in her mouth instead. Seeing her frantically looking around for something, anything, to hold was cute. Often she would head downstairs and grab a dirty sock if she couldn’t find a toy.

Yoshi was like this. Before Elliot and Amy I can remember coming home and he would greet us at the door. If he didn’t have a toy with him he would give out an excited whimper and start looking for one. Sometimes he would come back with something strange like a shoe or a towel. We always kept lots of toys around for Yoshi for this reason. From very young he loved his rope toys. Something in his mouth had a calming influence on him.

The other thing Plum did that reminded me of Yoshi was scratching her face and back in the dried grass. Last summer Yoshi got in the habit of heading outside after eating his dinner. Out in the yard he would rub both sides of his face through the rough scratchy grass. He always looked like he was blissing out when he did this. After the face was thoroughly massage he would drop a shoulder and roll around on his back a bit. Once done rolling he would stand a give a great big shake.

I still miss seeing him shake those ears. I still miss his stubby little tail that seemed to vibrate when he was shaking his ears. I still miss him a lot.

Swim Tub

I swam and played a bit in the water last week while at Sproat Lake, but I didn’t actually swim. My last swim wasn’t so good either.

I decided to head to the pool last night, but as I arrived I saw that the two length swimming lanes were pretty packed (around 7 or 8 people). One guy was even swimming lengths with his son on his back!

I almost bailed on the swim, but went anyway. By the time I got to the pool deck most people had moved on and I was able to share one lane with someone else.

I did a 100m warmup then concentrated on not stopping too much between lengths. The last 100m I did without stopping at all. In total I swam 600m.

I would have liked to retire to the hot tub, but it was closed 🙁 Next week.

The one thing that made the night less enjoyable was the super chatty naked guy soaking in the shower.

Saanich Donkeys

Monday we headed out to the Saanich Fair. It was a gross day. It was cold, wet, and windy, yet we wanted to go anyway. The kids had a bit of fun seeing some of the animals. We same some llama’s, horses, rabbits, chickens, pigs, cows, and donkeys.

Since it was raining so much, I also didn’t bring out my camera to take a lot of pictures.

We also got to go check out the inside of an ambulance. I think the kids liked that the best. Closing in on lunch time we were cold, somewhat wet, and had seen enough. We headed out and grabbed some lunch on the way home.

Sproat Lake Bombers

Last week I was up at Sproat Lake at a cabin my Mom rented for the week. It was a great vacation, and the weather was spectacular the entire week.

We were only a couple doors down from the Water Bomber base and everyday we saw Hawaii Mars out in the lake. We went for a look in their museum, and Sox, Elliot and I went for a tour on Phillipine Mars. What was really interesting about this visit was that
Elliot has a book about the story of Hawaii Mars. The plane is named
Martin in the book. In the book there were lots of other characters based on other base vehicles. Wandering around Elliot and I spied many of the characters in the book. Our tour guide even had a role in the book. It was pretty fun. Here is their website.

On one of our first days there, the base personnel took Hawaii Mars out for a short flight. I never got to see it take off, but they landed right in front of our cabin.

To give a little perspective on how big the plane is, here is the co-pilot sticking out of the front hatch, ready to fasten the plane to a buoy.

These next few pictures are from the tour.

My son standing behind the nose hatch I talked about earlier.

Sox and Elliot in the pilot seat.

The engineers station.

Thumbs up for a good water drop.

Stepping into one of these flying boats is like stepping back in time. I had not expected to see a metal and wood desk. There were two of these. This one was for the navigator, and the other was for the radio operator.

Silly time on the beach.

A few sunset shots.


Lochside Ride

I’ve wanted to share riding with both my kids for a while now. I saw Elliot have a great time when we got him his first pedal bike and that brought lots of smiles to my face.

Today we went for a nice ride along the Lochside Trail. We find a section that was pretty flat which was important since this was Elliot’s first ride outside of our yard. Elliot did extremely well. We started before the 14 Km mark and rode past the 15 Km mark before turning around. I’m guessing we rode around 2.5 Kms.


Here we are taking a short break.


Nice form!


Having a good time.


Beautiful day for a ride.


Smiles all around.


Water break.

Here are a couple videos of Elliot in action. After we turned around we took a couple rest and water breaks on the way back to the car. Once there Elliot and Amy played on a playground for a bit before we headed to Matticks Farm for lunch and ice cream cones. Great family time.

Pool Track

Since Ulti is over for another year I decided that for tonight I should revert to swimming on Wednesday nights.

Tonight was my first time in the length pool in a very long time. I was slow, it felt a little awkward at first, but eventually I got into a rythm.

There was one other person in my lane, and she was even slower than I. I had to weave around her several times, but that was ok, it gave me a chance to take a breather every now and then.

The one thing about swimming is that I have a hard time keeping track of how far I swim. I keep losing track of how many lengths I have done. In then end I know I did at least 30 lengths and as many as 34. This means I swam between 750 metres and 850 metres. Not bad. Next time I will work on swimming more than 25 metres at a time without stopping 🙂

Off for a quick sit in the hot tub, then a short walk home. Nice.