Wednesday, October 17, 2012

4.6, IM and 20 years strong

Two minutes after sitting down at the table for dinner last night... the house shook.  
Truly... it shook.  I have never experienced an earthquake in my life. After all, we live in Maine! Our weather is pretty tame. We are mostly spared by huge natural disasters such as tornadoes, earthquakes and hurricanes.  So... a 4.6  earthquake took Us by surprise! It was strange.  
I was putting my first bite of food to my mouth when a Loud rumble started. Mark's water glass was shaking. The two of us just looked at each other with wide eyes as if saying to each other without words, "WHAT THE  &*(^* ???"   My mind went to the furnace. And our pellet boiler. Or.. ? SOMETHING down in the basement was blowing up. I was sure of it. Either that or a huge truck was running into something next to our house.  One of my boys made a wimper of panic. He was scared. I am not sure, but I think it lasted about 10 seconds? Not long. But long enough to be alarming. I think there were 3 distinct rumbles.  It was loud. Mark and I ran downstairs and started searching for evidence of a problem. Smoke? Fire? Anything?? Nothing. 
That was the first time it crossed our minds.. earthquake?? Here? 
So what does someone do here in 2012? I admit, first I did say, "Call your parents."  ( They live 1/2 mile up the road from us.) I did have a small moment of 'old fashion' communication/ inquiry there. 
But the next second, I grabbed my ipad and checked facebook. I was ready to ask if others in our town felt anything. I was late to the game. It appeared that nearly all my other friends had already posted, "Earthquake" on their page. 
Ok- that's it! Strange... apparently it was felt in Vermont, NH, NY, and MA.  But the epicenter was about an hour from where I live.
That is that! My first earthquake.  

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I was up early today and in the water by 4:55. Geez... I am not sure if I am proud of myself for these mornings or if I'm slowly coming to grips with how crazy I am.  
Regardless.. I was in the water and excited for the workout. 
IM day!!!!  Blast from the past! I was an IMer  ( fly, back, breaststroke, free in one race)  and butterflier back in the day. I swam both ALL the time in practice. I could do fly for  nearly the whole workout without thinking twice. Not anymore... 99.9% of the time I swim free these days. After all, my days of racing 200fly and 200IM are long gone. Triathlon is all freestyle so, that is what I swim.  Except for the occasional backstroke during warm up and warm down. 

Yet today was 6 x 200IM!! oooeee!!!  Bring it!

That is one way to get the HR up and boost your cardiovascular fitness!!! Do something you never do and do it hard! Wow, it was hard. But I am proud to say, I did all 300 yards of fly with no 'scooter.' ( aka- 1 arm fly. we called it scooter in HS. I'm not sure why.)  I had fun with this set.  

I will definitely be mixing more 'strokes' into my weekly swimming now.  

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Finally, 20 years ago this past spring, I graduated from College at UVM. 
TWENTY??? sigh.. yes, twenty. 

On Friday, I'll travel to Ohio to spend the weekend with 4 women who are truly the best girlfriends anyone could have.  They were my roommates, my co-swim team friends and captains and my partners in crime. :)  We rarely see each other. We rarely talk. But when we do, it is as if not a day has gone by since we were living together back in our Carriage house on South Union Street.  These friends are the real deal. We have each other's backs. We listen. We care. I know, without hesitation, that if I needed anything, they'd be there.  I truly cherish these rare  friendships and I can not WAIT to spend a few days with them.  

2 comments:

Katie said...

I ever so calmly thought something was exploding in the basement too. My hubby was all "ahhhh, what was that!?" And I was all "don't know, but it seems fine now..." Then he checked twitter and it within 60 seconds knew it was an Earthquake. Twitter is crazy...

Congrats on a great workout!

John said...

Stop talking about IM and different strokes. You're going to give Mary ideas and I'm going to suffer for it.