Memorial Day Challenge

If the kick off to summer is the Memorial Day we kicked it off in a big way.

To celebrate my friend Jen and I planned a big workout that ranged from pool swims to open water and back all before 10:15am.

We started at Wayland masters with 6:00am practice. It was my first swim in the pool with the bubble off. It was overcast and dreary but that was ok because we were outside. It was a spunky 4700 yard workout. After a big six hour swim two days before I felt pretty good.

It was a quick change actually a towel wrapped around my waist and trip to Lake Cochiuate ten minutes down the road. The open water swim session was up next. We changed at Pam's beach and set off for a swim. The water was a bit cool likely in the low 60's. It may have been a bit accentuated with the clouds. We swam first to the public beach on the other side of the lake. Jen was a bit chilled so we headed back to Pam's. Round trip it was 1.6 miles.

Warmed up in the car for a bit and then went back to Wayland for the 9:00am practice.

The weather continued to be cool, cloudy and the wind picked up. Frankly, it was easier to jump back in the pool than stand on the deck in the cold.

With a full warm up and a 100 warm down It was a 5,000 yard practice. The same sets as the prior workout. While I completed the full workout I didn't fare quite as well on a couple of the more challenging sets. That's ok! 

All in all, it was a 12,500 yard morning. Not too shabby and a great pool and open water kick off to the summer.  Sure glad Jen is training for a long swim and was a willing participant in this triple threat Memorial Day swim.

Minimalism

My good friend Zach is really into the minimalism movement. You know concepts like; less is more, buy one article of clothing and get of rid two and love people/experiences not things. I have even attended a minimalism lecture with him. It's beginning to rub off on me.

When you think about it swimming is the ultimate minimalistic sport. All you need is a body of water and a swim suit and goggles, if you so desire. 

This week I brought my swimming back to the bare minimum with my first open water swim of season in Boston Harbor. Some consumption oriented people that don't adhere to a spartan mind freeing lifestyle join fancy health clubs like Equinox for their fitness needs. I have gone the other way and have gone back to the basics by joining the Curley Community Center aka the L Street Bath House in South Boston. The Community Center serves a very authentic Southie clientele not necessarily the young Equinox type professionals working in the Seaport or Financial District's. 

The Bath House is an large older build that sits on Dorchester Bay . It has basic weight rooms and cardio rooms and even a boxing sparring room. It is also divided by the men's side and the women's side. Some areas of fitness facilities are for single sex use only. The impetus for me to join was that the locker rooms open up to the beach for easy open water swimming access and have steam and sauna rooms to warm up after a chilly swim. There is a men's beach and a women's beach. 

As it was my first time at the club I was a bit more observant than usual and noticed that exiting from the men's locker room to the beach that the "old timers" were let's say a bit immodest with their swimming togs if any, at all. Interesting. 

The water was a tepid 55 degrees. It took me a bit of time to ease into the water but nevertheless-I persisted. Once I got in and started swimming I felt just fine. I stayed in the water for about 25 minutes. I didn't swim far but that was ok as this was more of a "mental" challenge than an actual workout.

I took a quick steam which felt great and went about my Southie day. Shannon, Zach and I had brunch at Local 149 and then Zach and I had a beer at a very minimalistic Shannon's Tavern next to Zach's new uncluttered home. 

Looking forward to more open water swimming time at the L Street Bath House this summer.

Was Whitey Bulger was an open water swimmer as I'm quite sure he frequented the Bath House?

To be a Trojan...Is to be an adventurer

To be a Trojan...Is to be an adventurer~Virgil

It's been 1,361 days since I've swum in these two pools consecutively. I have swam countless yards and in 56 different pools at home and abroad. The swimming adventures during that time period have been many and memorable. But none quite as memorable as August 21, 2013 when I swam in both the Mc Donald's Olympic Swim Stadium and the Los Angeles Swim Stadium pools in the same day. You see it's because it was on that day 1,361 days ago I dropped Ryan off at the University of Southern California to start his college career.

This week as a family we celebrated Ryan's graduation from college. Wow-how time flies! It started with a very chic dinner at Nobu in Malibu. It was a quintessential LA scene with beautiful people all around and a primo table right on the water. We were joined by Ryan's friend Mayme as Sean hadn't arrived from Boulder yet. Sean would have loved the setting but not likely the food.

The following day we enjoyed walking around Silver Lake, lunch downtown and resting for the evening festivities. Thursday night, the was the family graduation party at The Bungalows. Affectionally known as The Bungs they are a unique and special living complex with about ten small individual bungalows surrounding a courtyard. Ryan lives there with there with 12 of his good friends. The setting is ideal for hanging out. With all the time the boys spent in the courtyard enjoying each other's company and partying it was the perfect place for a family grad party. The Bung mom's decorated the courtyard and had BBQ catered. It was great to meet the parents of Ryan's friends and catch up with the boys and celebrate their achievements. I've had the good fortune to spend time with some of the boys over the years-a great group of young men. It was truly a magical evening and a highlight of the trip and one which I know all will remember for many years to come. Wish I could say it was an early night for an early morning for the big commencement but...no.

It was an early morning for Shannon and I as were on campus by 6:45am to save seats for commencement ceremonies as they were expecting 60,000 people. Commencement was filled with pomp and circumstance from the regalia and robes of the faculty, the cardinal and gold landscaping, marching band music and the releasing of white doves at the end of the ceremony. The commencement speaker was Will Ferrell. He did a great job of mixing humor and advice to the audience. It was then a mad dash to the engineering school's ceremony to safe seats yet again. It was here that we got to see Ryan walk across the stage or at least on a big screen tv. There were 650 graduating engineers so it was a long ceremony. The featured speaker was Andrew Viterbi the namesake of the engineering school and the inventor of the 50 year old Viterbi algorithm. Not entirely sure what the algorithm does but it's drives much of the technology we use today. It was time for more pictures and I don't think Ryan was too pleased but that's part of the drill! We then all went back home to rest before a family dinner. Not sure how we did it but we all eventually rallied for our last family dinner. It was memorable day of formal celebration of well-earned academic achievement. 

Shannon and Courtney then headed to the airport to take the red eye back to Boston as it was Courtney's prom on Saturday night. Since she was going to prom with swimmer I can post a picture of them in this blog. Look how beautiful she is and what a great looking couple they are. 

On Saturday, Sean, Ryan and I hung out for a bit before we went to the beach in Santa  Monica and then to our final family graduation event at a Bung bros parents home in Bel Air (that's what the Snapchat geotag said). It was a lovely setting and a low key way to wind down. 

It was a perfect four days to spend time with family, make new friends and to celebrate current and future successes. 

Ryan's successful adventure in college has in many ways been shaped by the goal setting, self discipline and the hard work he learned in swimming (see I could tie this back to swimming).  While there is one more year of grad school left this was certainly a big life milestone and new chapter starts today.

Ryan we are all proud of you and look forward to seeing where your adventures take you in the future.

While we are a family of Huskies, Trojans, Buffs and who knows what else in the future let's all take heed of Virgil words and be adventurous like Trojans!

#Fighton #USCGrad