The Numbers Game

Lots of numbers in the last few days. 

• I went for my contact lens training session. In other words, I learned how to hold open my eyelids and not freak out as I inserted foreign objects into my eyeballs. It took 6 tries to get the first contact in. It took 5 to get the second. I took 8 tries to get the first one out and 6 to remove the second. It took 60 minutes for the entire lesson. 

• I went home and braced myself to put them in again. I was told to wear them for 4 hours the first day so I put them in at 4:30pm so I could take them out at 8:30pm. It took me 10 tries on each eye to get them in - or 15 minutes. Good lord!  

• Doug and I went to cycle the big bad Park Hill for a pre-race practice ride. The nasty hill is actually three hills in one, the last one being a 19% grade. The hill was both harder and easier than I remembered but we both made it to the top. I kept my eyes on my Garmin during the ride up and down. On the way up, I crawled along at 9km/hour. On the way down, I applied full brakes and never slowed below 35km/hour. The hill is so steep that I felt like I was going to flip forward over the handlebars. Don't worry - I didn't. But I don't mess with this hill - it just feels too steep, too fast and too dangerous to even ease up on the brakes. Other hills I will push my comfort zone. This one I will not. 

• Monday morning, I went to the pool. Christine is away on vacation this week so Deliah has been coming over from Brock University to be our coach. She put us through several routines, one of which had me swimming 12x50m. On the even numbered ones, I had to practice getting as much glide as I could on every stroke. On the odd numbered ones, I had to build. I had to get a little faster (one second or so) on each one and the last had to be the fastest of the lot. My second last one was 52 seconds. My fastest (timed) 50m to this point has been 51 seconds. I pushed off and gave it everything I had - and got back to the other side to hear Deliah say "48 seconds!". She doesn't know me enough to know what a big deal that is but I gave her a huge grin and told her it was a world record.  The one speed wonder has broken through the barrier! 

• I ran out of VEGA Whole Food Health Optimizer the other day. I love that stuff and have a breakfast shake with it most days of the week. But it's expensive. So I went online looking for a deal and found one. Regular price is $70 but I found it for $40. So I ordered 2 of them. They are the older version (before the changed the container and the formula) but I liked the old one so I'm happy to go back in time a year and save a few $$.