Saturday, December 5, 2009

Saturday


This is a picture of the sunrise this morning. Scott took it as he was on his way to the north shore to go surfing. I thought those of you who are enjoying snow right now might like to see it. Waves are huge right now on the north shore... they may hold the Eddie Aikau surf competition on Monday which is only held if/when wave heights reach like 40 feet. Yep. That big.

Luckily on the south shore the waves should not be quite so big. The Double RoughWater swim is tomorrow morning on the south shore. A couple years ago on the day of the race there were white water crashing waves that we had to duck dive through on the way out. That made it way harder for our kayakers than it was for us. Lots of kayakers that year got dumped over. I don't mind swimming through waves. I kind of like it actually.

Anyway, I'm not afraid of the ~7000M ocean swim tomorrow. Well, I'm not afraid of the distance anyway. I AM afraid of the cold though. The water is in the low 70's which I suppose is fine for some people but for me right now, it's cold. My arms go numb after like 30 minutes in that water and this swim typically takes me just over 2 hours. That's a long time to have numb arms. Wetsuits are not allowed because it's a swim race, but I'm going to bring mine anyway and may ask the race director if I can wear it (which will obviously DQ me from any awards). Might be a smart thing to DQ myself from the beginning so I don't get some crazy urge to actually race the thing half way through... Anyway, I'll make the decision in the morning.

I capped off another decent running week today with a 10 mile run. I have fallen into a steady 9:05ish pace for all my runs these days... whether its 2 miles or 10... I'm obviously not trying to run fast and while normally I wouldn't be so thrilled with 9:05 pace, cruising through 30+ miles for the last 3 weeks in a row at that pace is just fine with me since I'm pregnant and all. I keep reminding myself of this HUGE base I'm building for myself by logging all these easy miles. That said, it did occur to me today that if I would have been able to keep it together to run this same 'easy' pace in Kona, I would have gone 10:50 and been top 10 in my age group. I guess 'easy' all relative. ;)

We took Moana to a birthday party today... a friend's First. Let me just say that I AM SO GLAD we did not go to this party before throwing Moana's. I would have been so freakin' intimidated. This was one of those real local style first birthday parties... I'm telling you... people here go all out throwing these things. There must have been 150 people there. It was like a wedding. Except they had a bouncy house.

Moana had fun in there. She did her best to get up and walk around but kept falling down and (most of the time) laughing about it.

And it turns out she's not afraid of balloons anymore. Obsessed may actually be a better word.
Ok. I have to go pack for the morning. Gonna go dig out that wetsuit...

11 comments:

H said...

Happy swim Michelle :) It's 9am here & I'm just off in the cold, wet, dark, English rain to get 16 miles in...what I'd do to be swimming in the ocean instead!! Good luck :)

Lizzie said...

That last photo is just beautiful! Good luck with the swim!

GetBackJoJo said...

Hope you have a great swim! I think 70 degrees is cold, and I'm from New England. :)
That photo is gorgeous. I'd like to see a 40 ft wave.

Beth said...

I would just like to say that our wedding had less than 100 people at it so...a first b-day party with 150??? Yikes! :)

I hope the swim goes/went well!! I would totally be in a wetsuit. Low 70s without one is chilly!! And that's a long time to swim!! Can't wait to hear about it. :)

PS Great job with the running!

Anonymous said...

Hope you have a GREAT race and that 70 degree water sounds freakin' cold to me :) HEHEHE

Running and living said...

Get the suit! I bet they'll let you. 70 is v cold for such a long swim!

Ange said...

Have a blast at the swim!!! I hope it's warm enough ....our pool temp dropped to 76 last week. It was Brutal!! We swim in ocean/lake water that's around 60-64 (lakes do get warmer) but we're wearing wetsuits of course.Why is the water so much cooler out there now?
can'tw wait to hear about it!!

GoBigGreen said...

Oh I hope it went well. Even tho i act all hard A$$ about cold I do NOT tolerate cold water well either, so i hope you did ok w or w/o the wetsuit.
Thanks for the sunrise pic. Love it!

Rebecca DeWire said...

Hope you had a great swim and stayed warm enough. It looks like Moana had fun at that party and the bounce house is awesome, but that is a lot for a 1st birthday.

X-Country2 said...

It's snowing here, so thanks for the beach pics. :o)

PS- sorry about the rambling, over-sharing, selfish, jealous comment about your Honesty post. Turns out, it turned out exactly how I'd hoped. (OMFG!) I'll be reading here extra close now. You're double my inspiration and role model.

Katie said...

Good for you on the 10mi run and on the swim! Way to listen to your (pregnant) body :) And you're right about the base you're building - it's worth it!

Inspired by you, I swam 3000yd on Sat, instead of my usual 2000 or 2500 (lately). And it felt GREAT! Thanks for getting me thinking about that "all in your head" stuff again :)