My back's telling me IMLP is close...

I can tell Ironman Lake Placid is close, my back started tightening up this evening. It's definitely mental tension. I'm constantly reminding myself to move slow and take deep relaxing breaths.

I'm also very irritable. It started yesterday. I've been snapping at everyone, even Alyssa's Winnipeg friend Stephanie, who's staying with us.

I think I blew her hair back when she kept asking me questions as I was trying to read my emails. Eventually, I snapped at her, "why do you ask so many questions?!" She was a little gun shy after that one. I forgot she wasn't immediate family and probably isn't used to taking "a puck to the head" and being able to blow it off.

Today I did a 6 km long swim. It was 4 km longer than I was supposed to do. It wasn't an easy swim, at the 1800 meter mark, I fought the urge to quit. I preserved, I felt I needed this long swim for a variety of reasons.

I hadn't swam since last week and my arms were feeling weaker than normal. I knew if I gave them a good blast, there was still plenty of time to build strength and recover before Sunday. This swim was really a "last minute cram session". It was to make up for the last three weeks of less than normal swim training.

Other factors included, building my swim confidence. I wanted to know I wasn't going to be sore and tired during the IMLP swim. I figured if I could do 6 kms, then 3.8 kms shouldn't be a problem. I'm also concerned about my calf cramping during the race and knew it would be less likely if I gave it more pool time.

The final benefit was the cool water, it was helping my legs recover from the past couple days of longer training sessions. Swimming isn't hard on the body compared to running and biking and a long swim session is still kind of like a recovery day.

I'm glad I did the swim. At the beginning of the swim I was sore and by the 1800 meter point would have loved to have quit. I didn't. I kept thinking, "I NEED this swim, if I finish it, I'll have NO REGRETS at the start line at Lake Placid".

I just kept persevering and before I knew it, I was done. There's no greater feeling than finishing a 6 km swim. The only disadvantage of being in the pool for two hours during the YMCA kids summer camps, is the amount of pee, long hair and floating devices in the pool.

During the summer, the pool is filled with kids of all ages and you know they are peeing away. Heck, who among us didn't pee in the pool when we were kids or still do? What bothers me most is not the pee, it's when girls long hair gets caught on my hands or face as I swim. It's so annoying, it tickles and is tough to find and pull off.

Another problem is the floating noodles or kick boards that somehow make it into my lane and I end up swimming into. I have to stop, throw them out of my way and continue on. The part that bothers me most is it breaks my rhythm and spoils the interval time.

If the pee, the hair and the floating distractions weren't enough, I had one more problem today. All the lap swimmers got crammed into one lane. The problem was it was me and the other four were beginners.

It was like a traffic jam at times and often people wouldn't stop and let me pass at the wall. I was constantly have to pass in and out. The worst was the 100 year old lady in my lane. She couldn't see and kept swimming over the black line and directly into me. Or she would swim the middle and I had trouble passing her.

It also grossed me out having to look at her old body in a bathing suit. Especially when I'm swimming up from behind her and she's doing breast stroke and opening her pastie white varicose veined legs to whip kick. That's a sight that "leaves a scar".

It's too bad she still didn't have the bathing suit she wore when she was a teenager. I remember seeing old black and white photo's where they had legs on them or they were like full dresses that covered everything up.

The upside was she wasn't drenched in perfume like the other "old birds" that do water aerobics. There is nothing more foul than tasting and smelling perfume in the water when you swim. I'll take pee any day over perfume.

On my way back from the pool I picked up a couple of new batteries for my bike computer. I put them in and everything seems to be working fine again. The real test will be on tomorrows ride.

My main focus right now is to RELAX and get rid of any tension. I'm stocking up on vitamins and still eating healthy for the third day in a row. The upside is I did lose another 0.4 lbs and the scale now says 185.6 lbs. I'm not too worried, my best Ironman races, I weighed in at 190 lbs at the start from water retention.

Long Swim - 2:09:22 / 6000 meters

185.6 lbs