Lunacy Bar? On the Eve of the Tri Comeback

The virus that laid me low last week turned out to be surprisingly evil and persistent, more than just a head cold. It made me weak and dizzy, and it was a full week before I had my zip back. Our friends Mike and Will and Jesse came to stay, and we had a low-key couple of days doing summer Sacramento things. Then I went back to work on Tuesday and sometime around Wednesday I realized that I was scheduled to do the Luna Bar Women's Triathlon this weekend. Finally on Friday I did my first exercise in over a week, a bit of a swim. When I got home, I looked at the website and noted that this race was not the sprint course I was expecting.

One of the idiosyncratic things about triathlon is that there isn't much standardization in the shorter distances. I started out doing sprint races with 400 meter swims, 12-mile bike rides, and 3.1-mile runs. Except when the runs were 2 miles, or 5 miles, or the bike was 16 miles, or the swim was 800 meters. I had gotten it into my head that the Luna Bar was a 800 meter swim, a 12 mile bike and a 3.1 mile run. But no. 800 meter swim, a TWENTY-mile bike and a FOUR mile run. What was I thinking? I really have to research these things better before plunking down the credit card. Certainly I planned to be in better shape at this point in the summer.

The Luna Bar Triathlon Festival festively includes a "super sprint" race also, but that hardly seems worth getting out of bed for, let alone driving 40 miles for: a 200 yard swim, a 4-mile bike, and a 1 mile run. Even I could whip that out in just over half an hour. If I was more motivated overall, I'd go scope the course and see whether the 20 miles looked hilly, pleasant, flat, or lumpy. But we've got a house guest coming this afternoon and I have no urge whatsoever to drive down to Rancho Seco County Park.

I'm thinking I'll see how things go tomorrow. If at packet pickup time it seems like switching to the super sprint will be easy, maybe I'll do that. Otherwise, I'll go out and swim, bike, and run as far as I can. Try not to overdo it, but finish if I can. I did a quick bike ride this morning, followed by my first brick run in well over three years. I only ran a third of a mile or so, but it felt better than I expected. Not sure how the legs will feel after 20 miles instead of 5.25 though.

I was pleased to learn that the nuclear reactor in the background is not active, and that the lake in which we will be swimming was (supposedly) not part of the plant's water supply but merely an emergency backup. Too, too Simpsonsesque otherwise. Go, Isotopes, go!

I hope to have a report of a complete race tomorrow, or at least sometime next week. But I'll have a report of something. And I'll get a lot of activity in.

But Then Again, No...

I'm thinking that most of you don't like to read about dithering and whining, so this may be a post with small readership. Tough cheese, readers. I have a horrible, eye-watering, throat-clogging, snot-pouring, beat-me-with-a-baseball-bat cold. It's the kind of cold where you think, "Really? A cold? Cause I feel so freakin' awful it must be the flu." It started couple nights ago, and I tried to kid myself that it was just dust from my pathetic attempts at house cleaning. By the next morning, though, I knew. "Ha!" said the cold. "You are my bitch now." I feel like this awesome drawing by Allie Brosh from the even awesomer Hyperbole And A Half Blog, from the story of her pathetic physical meltdown in Texas.

One of the most pissy-offy things about it is that Tim and I were supposed to be camping up at Tuolumne Meadows tonight. I had the day off, and we were going to meet a gaggle of people up there, some of whom number among my favorite people on the entire planet, people who have adorable kids but live on other coasts and are rarely found in California, even seasonally. But Yosemite became a no-go pretty early on in this cold. Couldn't face 8000 feet of altitude, dry air, dust, sleeping on the ground and no nose-hose to fight the sleep apnea. Couldn't even face going into the garage to find the tent or sleeping bag.

But another pissy-offy thing about this cold is that it's a big garish neon sign, saying "See What Happens?" After the Summer Grants Death March, I was running around, going to meetings for Capital Stage driving down to see my folks, doing the San Ramon Aquathlon, and so forth. With madcap frivolity, I turned an afternoon meeting in Pleasant Hill into 30 miles of bike riding interlarded with public transportation.

And then I got sick, which might seem reasonable, given that I had gone through a stressful six weeks and then celebrated its end with a gumbo of socializing, travel, and exercise. But dammit, I want to be able to play hard! Not like thirteen-beers-and-a-curry-and0-chips-afterwards hard, but I want to be able to go see the people I want to see, spend a couple nights here and a night there, go out for walks and shopping and aquathlons, and even play a raucous game of Chickenfoot.

Meanwhile, I spent the middle part of this week dithering about Budapest and the Aquathlon Worlds. I had been planning three days in Bruges with my aunt, but, good sport that she is, she said she'd go to Budapest instead. The USAT promised me that I could buy my Team USA uniform online and that a lovely travel person was helping out with the travel, including a transfer package and custom city tour. So that seemed cool. But the travel lady didn't seem to want to help with my flight, and the Team USA hotel was sold out. There were a zillion hotels nearby, mostly pretty reasonable, but I started searching flights from London to Budapest. They seem to be either (a) expensive –at least $450 per person round trip – or b) leaving from Luton or Stansted, when I'm arriving in Heathrow (c) at the wrong time, e.g. arriving in Budapest at midnight or (d) some combination of the above.

Furthermore - and this should come as no surprise to anyone - Team USA triathlon uniforms do not come in extended sizes. Not even a men's XXL. I'm sure USAT imagined that the only people who would qualify for Worlds would be "normal sized" triathletes. I emailed USAT and they said, oh, no, we don't think we have any other sizes, call the "USAT Store" directly. I did. The woman there suggested I try a men's XL. I said, um, that really won't work. Normally I would take this as a call to arms and a challenge, but right now I feel too sick and tired to fight about that.

And if I could get a reasonable flight leaving Heathrow at a reasonable hour that didn't stop for 10 hours in Milan or Zurich or whatever, I would say, ok, cool. I'd wear my black Junonia swimsuit and tri shorts and if anyone asked, I'd just say loud and clear, "USAT did not have uniforms in my size." And I would have a good time.

But getting to Budapest will be way more expensive than Belgium and there will be a lot of running around (packet pickup Tuesday, aquathlon Wednesday, parade Thursday, in my ill--fitting parade shirt). It might not be as much fun for my aunt as I might hope. She is kind of shy and not someone who will strike off on her own in a big city. And she is my favorite aunt, so I want her to have an awesome time. Also, I now have a stinking rotten cold, which kind of acted as a reminder to me of what happens when I run all over the place like a crazy person. Or like a sane person who just wants to have a lot of fun in a short time frame. And I can’t even get a uniform.

I dunno. This cold is messing with my positive outlook, but maybe the sane thing to do is just to go to Bruges with my lovely aunt on the lovely Eurostar, have a nice little vacation with no schedule at all in a beautiful small city, and then go on over to Wales for some quality time with the extended family, some walks in the hills, and some curry and chips. Maybe then I could come back and go to work without being exhausted and getting sick as a dog after the travel. Maybe.

In my dithering, I asked the Magic 8-Ball online: "Should I go to Budapest?" "Not in a million years," it said. "Should I go to Bruges?" "Outlook is good."

So I think it's Bruges. I'll let you know.

I Am Aquathalete (sic)! Race Report

San Ramon Aquathlon: August 15, 2010. 1.5 mile run, 1000m swim, 1.5 mile run

UDATE: 8/20/2010: That is NOT ME in the pic! I WISH. It's Leslie. And yes, she looks great.

As noted in my last entry, I was facing the San Ramon Aquathlon with a little trepidation. I know I say this about every event, but I was dubious about being able to finish even though the event was quite short (see above). My left foot was hurting; I hadn't run in weeks; and I had read on the website that the course was hilly, which wasn't my fave even when I was fit and lived in an area with hills.

I had three major motivations for signing up. First, most importantly, I wanted to hang with my tri-soul-sista Leslie from Chico (pictured above), who I never see enough of. Second, I wanted to get reintroduced to the multisport world in a relatively non-threatening way. Third, I wanted a t-shirt that said "US Aquathlon National Championships" on it because this little obscure race was in fact the USA Triathlon national championships for this obscure sport and the qualifier for Worlds. One of Leslie's tri-gal friends, Darlene, had already qualified for Worlds in duathlon and sprint triathlon (she's damn fast in the 55-59 age group!), and she was pretty determined to qualify for aquathlon too. I was impressed.

Packet pickup was at the Sports Basement in Walnut Creek, always a bonus for the massive shopping opportunity. While we were there, we learned that there were only some 60 people registered. That seemed cozy. We listened to the tiny race production company (they have 2 events, total) give a little pre-race talk. Apparently there had been some difficulty figuring out how many laps around the 50 meter pool we would be doing, since the swim had to be "open water" style. You'd think that wouldn't be too hard, but you have to figure in the lap distance once you place buoys in the pool... anyway. I bought new running shoes, hoping that the trusty Gel Nimbus model would cushion the ailing foot. Thumbs down on the Gel Kayanos. For me.

Four of us packed into a double room in the Courtyard San Ramon. I tried not to move all night, and woke up in the morning feeling a little stiff, but my bed buddy, Nikki, survived. I didn't roll over and squish her. It was great to be doing pre-race routines again - checking for swim cap, goggles, race number, water bottle, etc. I had been a little troubled about what to wear, since I no longer have a form-fitting tri top that fits my form. I opted for the Enell bra (of course) under the tank-style swimsuit, with a pair of mesh shorts that I would slide off and on as needed. I knew this would cost me a few seconds in transition, but I was not too concerned. In fact, I didn't care at all.

Pre-race breakfast of Smart Start cereal seemed like a mistake right away. I never eat breakfast that early, but I was afraid of skipping it entirely. As we rolled up to Dougherty Valley High School's ridiculously plush pool complex, my stomach felt absurdly full. It wasn't helped by the sight of all the elite age-groupers in their 2008, 2009, and 2010 Team USA gear. Almost everyone was already going to Worlds, it seemed like, or had been. Or both. Darlene knew them all. Leslie and Darlene said that pretty much everyone who finished this event would qualify for Worlds too. The Chico tri-girls keep up on this kind of stuff.

The transition area was tiny, since we didn't need room for bikes, and we each had little designated areas with our names on them. It didn't take long to get set up, so I checked out the pool, the ins and outs of swim and run transitions, and the restrooms. Nothing much happened in the latter. Alas. I jogged around in the unseasonable but welcome fog, trying to force my stomach to feel less bloated and my legs less leaden. It didn't work too well.

The wave start was unusual in that they sent off men and women together, oldsters first. Leslie's and my wave, slightly less old, was second. And of course we missed it cause we were yakking up by transition. We ran down the stairs and started out some five seconds late. Oops.

We had scouted the course the day before and everyone but me was shocked by the length and steepness of the hill that made up the first half-mile or so of the run course. Having read the website, I was merely appalled. I was no less appalled as I turned the corner past the football field and saw the trail looming up into the fog. I started walking almost right away. No point dying on the first half of the first run. My foot felt like I had a big marble stuck in it, right at the front of the ball. Gah. I plodded up, and up, and up. My wave was way in front of me and the wave behind hadn't started yet. I saw a field mouse scurry across the path. I wasn't moving fast enough to scare him.

Finally the hill seemed to level out, and then, oh, bliss, it went down and there was an aid station at the turnaround with two volunteers. I felt a little silly getting Gatorade after less than .75 miles (there was a 2nd turnaround near the end - odd course), but the volunteers were eager so I took a couple sips. In reverse, logically, the uphill was short and the downhill was long. I jogged down the hill, but I didn't feel like I was moving much faster than when I walked up. There was a tiny little out-and-back to the end of the run, where I goofed with the volunteers, pretending I was running in super slow motion. Then a couple turns and a STEEP driveway up to the football field, and another STEEP ramp up to the pool.

My first ever swim-to-run transition. Huh. I hadn't really thought this through, other than planning to shuck the shorts and tee I ended up wearing cause it was cold, and the shoes. Did those things, grabbed the goggles and cap and waddled to the pool deck, favoring the sore foot. Realized I had forgotten a hair elastic and tried to stuff my unruly curls into the cap while walking. This took way longer than it should. Goggles on, into the pool, merging with the swimmers with caution yet decisiveness, like an LA freeway at rush hour.

Ahhhh. Water. Lovely, lovely water. It felt so good to be in there, even with all the thrashing, kicking bodies around me, that I didn't really put a lot of effort into the swim for a while. Maybe a long while. It was hard to get a rhythm, swimming in laps around a rectangular pool with highly competitive age groupers around me. On the other hand, it was fun to be in water so clear I could see who was passing me. And pretty much everyone did, except for the people who were out of the water already. After a lap or two, I sort of found my arms and made them work, but I was still trying to stay so far out of everyone's way that I kept bumping into the side of the pool. Eventually the pool cleared out as all the other swimmers finished their laps, and that was nice. It was just me and Stuart, whose wife Megan had talked him into the event, and Pamela, who was recovering from a serious neurological disorder. Like no kidding. They told her she had ALS and she was going to die, but fortunately they were wrong on both counts.

After my 7.5 laps, I could hardly climb up the pool ladder, but the promised volunteer assistance was not forthcoming, so I scrambled out and duckwalked back to transition, where I spent a ridiculous amount of time getting my shoes on. I eschewed the technical tee for this leg, feeling like I'd enjoy the cool air, but I did slide the mesh shorts on. The running seemed a lot easier this time around, at least until I hit the big hill again. I concentrated on walking a little faster than last time - nothing to save my energy for on this last go-round. I looked down to the little arroyo on the left, where there was a perfectly lovely dirt trail that hardly went uphill at all. I wondered why the race organizers hadn't used that for the run course. I also wondered why I had chosen mesh shorts, which seemed to have absorbed a ridiculous amount of water considering they were, you know, mesh.

Strangely, I had gone directly from feeling bloated and uncomfortable to feeling like my blood sugar was a little low, with no middle ground. I sucked down a gel at the first turnaround, a gulp of water, and then headed back up the little hill before the long downhill. Stuart was coming up the hill towards me. His wave had started long after mine, so he was not going as slow as me, but we high fived and celebrated being the only two people left out on the course.

I really tried to run down the hill this time, and I succeeded to the extent that I wasn't actually walking, but I didn't want to overstride and pound on my feet and knees too much. I checked in with my left foot and found that it was actually hurting a lot less on this lap. Maybe it was some sort of cyst that just needed to be beaten into submission?

The volunteers were cheering as I rounded the second turnaround, which was nice of them. "Good job!" they cried. "Lie to me!" I responded. I really wanted to walk up the steep ramp to the football field, but a volunteer yelled "C'mon!" behind me, so I reluctantly picked my feet up a little. I was actually able to muster a bit of a sprint toward the finish and got a pretty good cheer as the final finisher. I was a little winded, but otherwise unscathed.

All my buds placed in their age groups - Nikki and Darlene third in theirs, Leslie second in ours, though initially the organizers thought that she was third place in the men's 45-49. "Excuse me, I'm a girl!" Leslie called out as her name was announced. Tri DNA sheepishly acknowledged that she was and recalculated the results. Pamela, who had told me earlier that she would be walking the run because she had sprained her foot as a consequence of the still-healing neurological issue, came second. I called her a sandbagger as she went to get her award.

The post race food was darn good, the atmosphere was congenial, but we left right after the awards because most of us had forgotten to bring dry clothes for the post race hanging out portion, and it was still foggy and cool.

Leslie assured me that I had arned a place on the Worlds team in Budapest, but I thought that couldn't possibly be right. Surely there was a minimum standard qualifying time that any Team USA member would have to hit? Leslie said no, and I would get an email from USAT confirming this. Sure enough, on Monday afternoon I received a congratulatory email encouraging me to follow the enclosed link to register for Worlds on September 8. So now I'm in a quandary. Should I go? I'm already booked to be in the UK in September; I'd just have to change my plans from a 3-day trip to Bruges with my aunt to a 3-day trip to Budapest with my aunt. Always wanted to see Budapest, and it would serve USAT right to have me there, with such lax qualifying standards.

What do you think?

Overall I was completely delighted with the experience, my first multisport event since the onset of the mysterious chronic fatigue-y syndrome in 2007. I felt sore the next day, but not very, and I felt pumped up to keep training and do some more racing.

Darlene told me that in Australia (Worlds 2009), they pronounced the sport "aQUAthlon" instead of "AQuathlon," so I decided to call myself an aQUAthlete, or aQUAthalete, as we Amurrikins like to say. I AM aquathalete.

Decision on Budapest to come

Not Really Training, but I Napped Afterwards Anyway

I've been proud of how I've maintained my modest level of fitness during what I've come to call the Summer Grants Death March. I managed to keep my routine of exercising just about two out of every three days throughout a stretch where most of my colleagues in grant writing went on vacation for most of the time, and we had a major federal grant due every week for six weeks. I'm all in favor of my colleagues taking vacation, but seriously, someone in "management" should do some "managing" when it comes to everyone who can fulfill a certain task being gone at the same freakin' time.

But I didn't open this window to bitch about my day job. Especially since, this being the Internet, someone might conceivably read what I write.

I managed to keep riding to the train, most of the time, and sneaking in bike rides and swims on a regular basis. Last weekend much of my exercising involved walking around San Francisco, and not the seriously hilly bits either. It was going from the BART station to the bar at 15 Romolo, in North Beach, and from there to Giordano Brothers' awesome Pittsburgh-style all-in-one sandwich shop and then, much later, back to BART. Then on Sunday we went to a Giants' game, which always involves a lot of walking if you do it right. In this instance, we walked from the Gordon Biersch brewpub/restaurant on the Embarcadero to the ballyard, and then afterwards back to the car... Hey, it was my birthday. And at least we did some walking. And the Giants swept the hated Dodgers, which always makes me happy. I actually did feel some soreness in my shoulders and arms the next day from all the clapping I had done.

But my next swim, I swam the fastest 200 of the BFFC to date. Which is good, considering I'm signed up for an Aquathlon next weekend. Eeek!

I say eek because I have not been able to run for several weeks. Not that I've been trying that hard, but every time I have tried, it's felt like I had a marble in the ball of my foot, right between the ball of the big toe and the ball of the other toes, if that makes sense. I think it's the transverse arch of the foot. I've been trying to baby the foot, but even walking barefoot or wearing the wrong flip-flops is a little painful. So I'm not sure how the run part of the run-swim-run Aquathlon is gonna go. It'll be fun anyhow. Going down there with the always amusing Leslie C. and some of her tri-gals. If I DNF, c'est la vie. I ain't goin' down to San Ramon to win a prize.

Today, the day after the official end of the Death March, I did a very brief stint of paddling on a Class 2 section of the South Fork of the American River, in a raft that was a little, um, unstructured feeling. I think the whole escapade took about 40 minutes, but when I got home, I took a nap anyway.

Stay tuned for an Aquathlon report!

Jayne and the Cannibal

Not much time right now for fiction or blogging - all my brain is taken up with a series of large, high-stakes, complex grant applications for various important clients. Long days, some weekends, and needing to conserve my wrists for the job that pays my mortgage. And throughout this stressful period I've had some truly icky dreams (dismembered bodies in a parking garage), and some simply bizarre ones (magically proliferating smartphones, none of them my own).

But last night, I had I dream I wish I could preserve on video. I was at the Tour de France, watching a big mountain stage, just on the downhill side of the summit of a huge climb. The Tour is something that I can always have on in the background as I work, so soothing are the voices of Phil Liggett and Paul Sherwen. And of course I am completely obsessed with cycling. So it's not surprising I dreamed I was at the Tour.

Anyhow, some rider in my dream had a mechanical problem with his bike, and he tossed it aside like a used water bottle. I ran to snag it as a souvenir. Whoo hoo! It was an old Bianchi, vintage 1982 or so, steel frame, leather saddle, and classic celeste paint job. But, this being a dream, it was light as a feather and fit me perfectly. So far, so good.

I was walking the bike down the hill when I found I was walking next to the greatest cyclist ever to turn a pedal in anger - Eddy Merckx. Eddy appeared to be in his early 50s in this dream, though now he's 65. "You like my bike?" I asked. "It's pretty nice," Eddy answered, "But you should have an Eddy Merckx."

"Those bikes you supplied for Team Quick Step look super cool!" I told him. "If you have a spare one, I'll take it."

"I'll see what I can do," said the Cannibal.

The dream changed scenes. Eddy and I were lounging on couches in an apartment in a French town, watching Tour coverage on TV, chatting about cycling, completely relaxed, as though we had been friends for years.

Sometimes you have a dream so great you hate to wake up, but this dream was so unbelievably cool, so perfect, so delightful, that I woke up excited just to have had it.

Oh, and Eddy, if you're reading this, I'd gladly ride an Eddy Merckx, if you have one to spare.

Data Quest

I have a fairly well-developed geeky side; my close friends and relatives will attest to this. I enjoy a well-designed gadget, handy piece of software, or random piece of knowledge. I enjoy clever maps using Geographic Information Systems, baseball statistics, and good grammar. And my passion for my Droid has been documented. I once worked for a semi-dot.com, and I have been to multiple Renaissance Faires. In costume. As a member of a guild.

So when I decided I needed a new heart-rate monitor, I did a little research. I was pleased to find that the Garmin wrist-mounted GPS units, the ones that also happen to tell you how fast your heart is beating, have really come down in price over the last few years. Score! A few clicks later, and my new Garmin Forerunner 305 was on its way. Whoo hoo!

However, when the thing arrived, I was in the middle of something or other with work, and it took me quite a few days to open the box. When I finally did, I was chagrined to learn that I would need to update either my Mac or my Windows operating systems in order to run the Garmin software. And in order to upgrade, I need more disk space. I may be a little geeky, but it doesn't mean I always have the latest hardware.

Still, I could use the heart rate monitor and watch, I just couldn't upload the data and make maps and graphs and charts out of it. So I strapped on the rather bulky wrist unit and the chest strap, went outside and powered on. I watched the satellites load and my heart rate show up on the little screen and then, as I started my warm-up walk, my pace. It was really quite cool, all that information. Unfortunately, it was kind of hard to tell what the data was without my reading glasses.

I had hoped that having the Garmin would inspire me to run, or at least jog-walk, more often, but so far not too much. Two nights ago I went out for 2 miles, though. As I had suspected, I was still slow. But at least now I know how slow I am, exactly, and what kind of heart rates I'm generating.

This morning I decided to get heart-rate savvy on the bike, and got all geared up. Went outside, turned on the wrist unit... damn, battery low. I waited for a while, but apparently "battery low" is a synonym for "not gonna work, sucka." Yeah, bitch, my battery is low too.

At least the Garmin doesn't tell me I'm obese every time I finish a workout, like my old Polar used to do when I would scroll through the workout data: HR average, calories burned, time, Body Mass Index (OBESE! OBESE! OBESE!), etc. So that's a plus.

One of these days my brother and I are going to clone both partitions of my hard drive onto an external drive, install a nice big 500GB drive into my MacBook, and update both my Mac and Windows OS. Then I really will be the Data Queen.

Stay tuned for charts and graphs.

Random Musings: Bike Bits, Swimmy Swimmy, Pain

The world is waiting, I know, for every shimmering pearl of wisdom that may form in the clamshell of my MacBook. Ooh, labored metaphor alert. Ouch. But hey, I'm out of practice. Been working a little bit on the fiction, but not too much. The old day job has reared its ugly head with a vengeance and is failing to allow me much free thinking and musing time. Even more annoyingly, my old nemesis, the extensor tendons of the right wrist, were flaring up big time, even before my workload got heavy. So in the interests of continuing to receive a regular paycheck, I cut back drastically on all non-work keyboarding. Facebook, blog, novel, Twitter, email, the lot.

Even now I feel the soreness coming on so I'm going to be succinct.

1. Bought some new aerobars for the LeMond, but installed them wrong, so I'll need to take the armrests off and put the spacers in and put 'em back on again.
2. Need to buy another little saddle bag, as I keep forgetting to switch my one bag with my tire levers and spare tubes between bikes. This bit me in the ass yesterday on the way to the train
3. Swimming is lovely. My 100s are getting a little faster, my 400s a little less labored. I even managed a full 25 yards of rather languid butterfly the other day. As the Sacramento summer really kicks in, though, I realize I need a non-black swim cap and some anti-glare goggles.
4. Running - eh. Not so much. Not feelin' the love right now. Gonna try a quick waddle tomorrow. Even the acquisition of a Garmin Forerunner 305, with all the lovely geeky data it provides, has not inspired me to get out on my two stumpy legs. Tomorrow it's supposed to be cooler, and I will get up early and trot about.
5. Played another two rounds of disc golf, getting kind of ok at it. If only I had space in the schedule for another time-intensive hobby!
   
6. Wrist pain curtails not only writing but also longer bike rides. This officially sucks.
7. Additional pain is found down in the area of the sacrum, which is sort of familiar, but it seems to be abating. I really need some body work though.
   
8. Better get on the stick - registered for the Luna Bar Women's Tri in August and the Golden State Tri in October.

More pearls before too long. We hope. Meanwhile, have fun out there. Go swim.