6:00 AM

I made the 6:00 am run and in fact, I was early and the first to show up.  There were four of us including a kid that looked like he is ten years old but turns out he is sixteen, I know how that is. We ran 8+ miles starting off with a slower pace than I'm accustomed to but we gradually built the run and it turned out to be somewhat of a tempo run.  I think the last time I did a run at 6:00 am on a Saturday was...actually, never.  It took me awhile to wake up but both Dion, the guy that invited me and Nick, the sixteen year seemed accustomed to being up at this time as they were quite social.  I apologized for my lack of conversation and told them it would take me a bit before I both woke up and warmed up.  After the run, Nick invited me to his age-group swim workout.  Age-group workout, I know what that means, lots of kicking, hypoxic work, and sprinting, all things I can't do right now, especially after an eight mile run.  I was pretty impressed with the dedication of this rather gregarious sixteen year-old who looked and was the size of a ten year-old [and if you're reading this Nick, no offense, I of all people know how you feel].  I took Nick on his offer and found myself in a lane sandwiched by a 14 year-old girl and Rob, the masters swimmer who did 10 x 100 25fly-75 free on 1:10.  Doing the age-group workout reminded me of what a training intensive sport swimming is; that's why swimmers make the best triathletes, they are used to the heavy volume of training.  I mean these little kids, some as young as 12, were kicking my butt.  Yeah, they had half my muscle mass but they made up for it with amazing stroke rate, fast kicks, and a really high anaerobic threshold.  But I have to tell you, though swimming with the age-groupers is hell, it is what I called a type 2 fun...where you think it is fun only after you are done.  Type 1 fun is you're having fun as you're doing the activity and finally type 3 fun is only fun when you look back upon it years later. It was during this workout that I finally felt like a swimmer again, where my pull felt deep and efficient, my kick was in sync with my stroke, I had good breath control off the walls and my body just felt like it was slicing through the water...finally.  Thanks kids.