The pool has challenges every month.  This month’s is swim the distance from Bahrain to Saudi Arabia (we just call it Saudi) during the month of April.  The distance is 20,000 meters, which is 400 laps.

I signed up today.  Already  I have done 1500 meters.  And that’s just in one day.  I put a ticker on this blog so everyone can keep track of my progress (and help keep me motivated).  Look at the bottom of the sidebar to see the ticker.  Only 18500 meters to go!

Then we did curl-ups or if you like, sit-ups.  We have two minutes to do as many as we can.  I did 44, which is the minimum for my age group.  It just wasn’t a good day for sit-ups for me.

Then we did push-ups.  Again, we have two minutes to do as many as we can.  I always reach the “as many as I can” well before the two minutes are over.  I’ve never been good at push-ups.  This time I did 17, which is good for me.  I only have to do 13, so I’m quite pleased with my results on this part.

And then finally, we did the run, the part everyone dreads the most.  We have to run 1.5 miles.  For my age group I have 16 minutes and some odd seconds to do it in, but I was aiming at 15:30 and then I felt I was doing well enough I could maybe do it in 15:00 minutes.  But I did it in 15:18 instead.  So it was a little disappointing for me, but I passed.  I passed everything.  So that’s good.  Now I don’t have to do it again for six months–theoretically–due to the climate here, it’ll probably be in March.  And it was warm (I don’t know the temperature, but when I say “warm” I mean anything between 85F and 99F) and humid.  And I’ve never run well in humid weather.  So I guess I should be satisfied.

Today I’ve been a little sore, but that will pass.  If I ever stop working so many hours (I’ve been working between 60 and 70 hours a week) I’m going to go back to swimming at the pool.  If I can get off by 1700 (5:00 p.m.) every night, I can go to the pool for an hour or so before supper and home.  If I work hard, maybe I can swim the PRT next spring.  That would be cool.  No more running and wheezing and my lungs hurting!  (Hopefully that won’t happen with swimming.)

I also got sick yesterday with a migraine that didn’t respond to medication, even two doses of migraine medication (Zomig).  Up until now, Zomig has worked just fine.  So I had to go home early, and today I still have a headache, but since I’m 90%  better I’ve been ignoring it.  I’ve been really tired and sluggish today, though.  I hope tomorrow’s better–I have a real busy day tomorrow, with a big project to do that I’ve been putting off and which is due tomorrow.  (Isn’t it amazing how many things you find to do when you’re avoiding a particular task?  You can be so productive and get so much done when you’re getting everything but what’s truly important done.)  So tomorrow I have to get it done.

And I have to be at work tomorrow at 0500, so I think I’ll call it a night.  Good night.

So today when I got home from work I went swimming.  It’s gotten warm enough I could do that.  I didn’t get off work until 1800 (6:00 p.m.) and it was getting dark and then my battery in my car was dead, so I walked home.  Thankfully I live close enough to walk.  So when I got changed and went up to the top floor (the roof) it was dark.  It was odd swimming in the dark, but at least I didn’t have to worry about sunburn!  I spent half an hour in the pool and was the only one there.  I enjoyed it.  I may make a regular habit of it.  I know I need to do more exercise than what I get in command PT (an hour 3x a week), and I do do tae-kwon-do, which is two hours on Saturday, but I feel I need to do more the rest of the week.  Either that or cut back on the junk food.  And I don’t like running; so swimming may be something I can do.  We’ll see.

The main reason I went because “they” say that exercise is a good stress-release.  I’ve always found exercise to be stressful, so I don’t like to do it.  But maybe that’s because I don’t do a kind of exercise I like.  So tonight I did a kind I like.  So we’ll see if tomorrow I feel less stressed.  I know it will be just as busy as today and yesterday, and even though it is supposed to be a short day (Thursday is like your Friday–the last day of the work week), I know it won’t be.  So we’ll see if “they” are right.

Don’t be surprised if posts are erratic in the near future.  I may not have much time to write posts.  So bear with me.

And swimming is fun even though I’m not very good at it.  Maybe I can develop this “culture of fitness” the CNO wants all sailors to have, yet.