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Saturday, August 18, 2007

Gold in the Water


After my first swim in the Dover Harbor I went to lunch with Lynne and Anne. Anne is also swimming the channel, she's in the Q after Lynne and happens to be from Dallas. At lunch they asked me, "What did you think of the green specks floating in the water?" I had no idea what they were talking about. They spoke for a few minutes about these strange green specks that look like bits of gold sparkling in the water.
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I swam in the harbor again today. This time I tried out the water without a wetsuit. Maybe if I do as the locals do I too will see the specks. No luck, I still didn't manage to see the gold twinkle. Maybe there is something mystical that happens when you are a true channel swimmer which allows you to see this special gold in the water.
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It's a bit windy in the area right now so it's looking like Tues is the earliest day for Lynne's swim. The timing of the swim is a bit odd to grasp. Lynne will speak with her pilot at 7pm each night and she'll find out the plans for the next day. As she says, "It's a whole lot of hurry up and wait."
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Yesterday I took a day trip to London. Although I'm not a big city person I needed to be sure I got to visit. After all, I've been waiting to visit London since 1985. I took the train into London Victoria station and realized my highest level of efficiency would result from a double decker tour bus. For someone who has no map of the city and only has a few hours to see everything it was a great idea. I hopped on and off at a few locations, learned some history and took a bunch of pictures from a moving bus. My favorite thing to do was get airplanes in the background. They fly pretty close to the city and I figured Michael would appreciate my efforts.
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I spoke with Michael a little while ago. We shared stories about our morning run. For me, the biggest concern was dogging cars and running on the right side of the road. For Michael & Ali the big concern was not overheating. A mere 2 fuel belt bottles got me through my 2hr run today. Back in Austin, Joe road behind Michael and Ali with water and Gu. The mid 50's in the morning are wonderful. The other night I could see my breath during my run. Although Austin is great, it's not as cool as Dover right now and I'm certainly taking advantage of that.
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Somewhere above Dover is the Duke of York Military school. The theme song of today's run; "The Grand old Duke of York, he had 10,000 men... " Luckily nobody else had to hear me sing this sing over and over during my run.
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I have no clue where I was running today but weaved around A-258 between Dover and Deal. I did an out and back with some extra hill climbing to hit the correct time. The best part of the run was getting within 50ft of a VOR. They look different in the UK so it took me a minute to figure out what it was. Maybe Michael can look at flight maps and tell me where I ran.



2 comments:

Kolzman said...

Mich - What did you like most in London? So glad you finally made it there!
Kolzman (and his Mom - I'm in Pittford)

Mich said...

As funny as this might sound, the colorful doors and the attachments for old oil lamps were my favorite part. I think I appreciated it the most b/c it made you almost feel as if you were able to envision London during the time of Dickens.