Jumping in the lake

Day 5 of running this week for me.  They haven’t been huge distances but combined with my classes and activities, I was bound to hit the wall and I did.  The wall came somewhere around the 30-minute mark, the only thing that got me past it was the thought of jumping off the floating bridge into Hayward Lake.  Who am I kidding, the only reason that I ran this morning was so I could jump off the floating bridge and into Hayward Lake.

This swimming ritual has been going on for years now and is reserved only for early morning runs and of course our end of summer group run.  We talk about the swimming ritual in the middle of winter when it is pouring with 2-degree rain as we run over the bridge, it’s what keeps us going sometimes.

This morning Conny and I lived our beer commercial life for the second time this week just after 8am, and it rocked!  The water was refreshing and chilly enough to numb the aches and pains without turning my lips blue (which is a usual winter/spring occurrence).   Conny lowers herself in where I am a diver, if I had to lower myself in it would probably take me 10 minutes to get in and it would be time to go, so I get it over in one swoop and spend the 10 minutes alternating between breast stroke and floating on my back admiring the lagoon.

I don’t enjoy getting out, there is nothing graceful about getting back up on the dock.  There is a place to put your foot as you hoist yourself back up, but with every approach that I have tried (and there have been many) I end up sprawled out like a wet noodle on the side of the dock…perhaps I need longer legs or a really new approach.

Running in the same area for so long, you seem to run into the same people and dogs over and over again.  This morning we ran into Charlotte, her friend, her Mom and her Mom’s friend.  Charlotte is a beautiful weimaraner dog ( or as I like to call them weimar-heimar-schleinar dog), she is quite memorable, we were told her name once a long time ago and we have never forgotten it,  but we have no idea what Charlotte’s Mom’s (human Mom) name is.  We always get a kick out of Charlotte’s Mom and her friend, we always seem to be way more underdressed than they are, or maybe they are more overdressed than we are, either way it’s funny because we are in the same place but dressed for two completely different climates.  This morning was no exception; you should have seen the look of surprise on Charlotte’s Mom’s face on hearing that we had just been swimming.

Feeling refreshed after our swim we were ready to go again, we got back on the trail and tackled the last three hills.  I think that the swim was exactly what I needed because we finished the run with a negative split, 1:45 to spare.   All runs were not created equal, but even with my tired legs this morning it didn’t matter…I love summer runs.