Lessons of the Square Watermelon

A friend at work forwarded me a story w. the above caption - and yes, in Japan, there really are square watermelon!

The timing of the lesson could not have been better - I'd been dragging (as you can see from yesterday's post) and I never actually made it to the pool. Ugh. That weighed on me. Skipping workouts in favour of sleep/couch time is not a good way to prepare for one's first Ironman.

Part of me dreaded the workout - there were drills intercepted by a 500 & 400 yard straight swim. Ugh x 3!

I made it to the Fitness Centre. A woman in the change room was quite chatty - it seemed she was a breast cancer survivor (noted by the scars on her chest) and was just getting back into swimming. She was so enthusiastic, I felt guilty for avoiding the pool. She was quite complimentary, too - telling me I looked fantastic. We discussed that body image/fitness is all relative. What is important is to get out and be active.

Once in the pool, the water was FREEZING! The jets near my lane were channeling icy cold streams. Brrr. I started the workout and quickly lost count of my warmup laps. How many was that exactly!? After 40 minutes, I guessed I must be done and went right to the Main Set.

I was amazed by how easy the 500 yds straight felt after the drills! I just put my head down and counted the laps until it was time for the next drill set!

I finished the ENTIRE workout in 100 minutes - only 10 minutes longer than the time specified. As noted in one of the Lessons of the Square Watermelon:

Impossibilities often aren't: If you begin with the notion that something is impossible, then it obviously will be for you. If, on the other hand, you decide to see if something is possible or not, you will find out through trial and error.

So not only was it possible to finish the workout, it was possible to do 500 yds straight and still have reserve! I AM GOING TO BE ABLE TO DO THE 2.4 MILE SWIM IN LAKE PLACID! Just a matter of time - maybe only a month from now, I'll be knocking out a full 4600 yd workout in 90 minutes!

Oh, and if you are curious about the Watermelons, check out this link:
http://www.financialhack.com/2007/12/04/10145_lessons-of-the-square-watermelon.html