Well, my sister graduated yesterday - after seven years of having one or both children in it, this household is officially done with the International Baccalaureate program. Yay us. We had a little get-together lunch yesterday with the four of us, all three grandparents, two aunts, Mom's old college roommate (whom we also call 'Aunt'; Catie and I have known her since birth), and a co-worker of my dad's, plus my sister's boyfriend and his parents. Full house! But it was a good time; we don't usually do stuff like that, so it was nice to break out of the mold a little. And I loved seeing all my old teachers at the ceremony - especially the old principal and IB coordinator, who have both just left the school, and my old teachers for biology and English. They look different to my eyes than they did three years ago; I had such 'tunnel vision' to go talk to my old English teacher that I jabbered on for a good three minutes before I realized that another of my old favorites was standing right next to her, waiting patiently... LOL!

Anyway, it's been a bit of a weird day - I had to work from 2 to 10 AM, which meant I came home, stuffed my face, and went to bed until 5:30. Then I went to swim practice and swam all of 700 meters before the lightning started kicking up and we had to leave. I got frustrated at not getting a workout when I felt like I really needed one (remember my earlier post about how my 14 weekly pool hours have been cut to 5, and how inopportune the timing is?), so I went home in a black mood, changed clothes, and went back out into the storm to go to the YMCA. Only to find... that their power was out. I got all of 15 minutes of weights in before they gave up hope and closed (JEA had called to say it would take another 2.5 hours to get the power back on), so I went home, in an only slightly better mood, and went out running in the rain. (That's not as weird as it sounds; it's nice to have that 'cooling system'.) Anyway, that took care of it; I was all better again once I got home. Sigh. I am such a freak. You do not want to be around me if I go a day without exercise. Can you be called an addict if you're addicted to your own endorphins?

But seriously - going from 14 pool hours a week to 5 is not a good thing five weeks before a 12-mile race. Like I said before, I can replace some of my weekly yardage with dryland, but not that much. Running or spinning (on the stationary bike) keeps my cardiovascular conditioning up, sure, but not my sport-specific training. It's common sense - you spend the bulk of your training time on the sport you're training for. If you were practicing for a marathon, you wouldn't spend 2/3 of your workouts ice-skating.

(...Not to mention that I want these new clothes we just bought to keep looking as good as they did last week, thanks very much!)

Anyway, but I'm all set for Saturday's race, at least - just booked the hotel and Mapquested all the directions (I-95 to the swim office, swim office to hotel, then the next day, hotel to shuttle pickup point and, after the race, shuttle pickup point back to I-95), so I think that's all I need. I really have no clue how I'll do in this race, but in looking at last year's results, it seems to be a pretty fast course (it's a river/harbor course, not beach). Either that, or I'm going to be way outclassed. :) At the beach on Sunday I usually finish our mile and a quarter between 25 and 35 minutes, so I was going to aim to finish these 2.4 miles at around 50 minutes, but last year's winner did it in 34 and the dead-last finisher did an hour and 10 minutes. So maybe I can do better than that. We'll see.

Anyway, that's enough swimming talk. In other news: I have unpacked and repacked my Netherlands stuff about six times in the past two days, and ended up with it right back in the same bag I started with - but this time I've got my Eurail backpack fitted in there, too. I'd rather travel with only one checked bag - that's only one bag they can lose :) - and then pack my Eurail stuff when I get over there. The other perk to doing it this way is that then I have an extra bag when it's time to come home - because everyone knows your gear has multiplied by ten by the time the trip is over.

Work 11:45 - 0.05 tomorrow, work an as-yet-unknown shift on Thursday, drive to Charleston on Friday, swim and drive back on Saturday ... and then have a few uneventful weeks until the Brunswick meet on June 11th. I mark time by these major events... the meet on the 11th, Key West on the 25th, Renate's graduation on July 1st, Harry Potter VI released on the 16th, the second Jacksonville Triathlon on the 17th, the fourth Gainesville biathlon on the 23rd... and then the Boston Light on August 6th, and thus the start of chapter two of Jess's European Adventure. :)

Good night, all.