Love of my Life Guard

Last week Mike and I celebrated our 15th wedding anniversary.

And today, the man who has given me the best of everything for a decade and a half (and more, if you count all the good stuff that happened before the jewelry was exchanged that September afternoon in 1994) delivered another really great present.

I had a hard time rallying pals to for a lake swim today, but was really eager to go. It's gorgeous out, but summer is fading fast. Every opportunity to get into the water has become a precious one. As well as I know the southbound course from Madison Park, and as buoyant as I am in a wetsuit, you can't deny the dangers of swimming alone.

Mike volunteered to play lifeguard for me, hanging out with a book and a bagel on the beach while I swam for about 50 minutes. It was so reassuring to flip over as I rounded the dock out of the swimming area to see him standing in the bright morning sun, watching me.

There was a wicked little wind out there, pushing me south and creating some challenging ripples to overcome on the inbound trip.

When I returned to the beach, Mike had my NEW! monkey slippers in hand. What a sweet morning.

Wetsuit Welcome

Today I swam for the first time since La Jolla Cove. I have had to prioritize work, traveling and also giving up the pre-work swim to get in the office before 6 am.

Today's dip almost made up for it.

I wore my wetsuit for the first time since mid July. The lake temperature is still really nice; somewhere in the high 60s. Tatyana, Ruth, Jan and I enjoyed an easy round trip to the Cove, and I loved skimming on top of the water with the added buoyancy the wetsuit provides. I missed the feel of the water on my arms and legs, though.

I hope to hit the lake a few more times before flying to LA for a week on Tuesday morning and possibly hanging up my earplugs in for the season. It has been such a long lovely summer of swimming and so much more. I can't remember a happier one.

Since my last post I paid a visit to the loveable and capable Dr. O'Kane, who has referred me to a colleague who specializes in knees. Oh, and knee surgery. We are going to do one more diagnostic (something to do with a treadmill and lidocaine) on 10/14 and then we'll know for sure if exploratory surgery is the only thing that might bring me back to good.

It has taken almost six months, but I am actually starting to miss running. Maybe that's because it's autumn, the temperature is perfect, the leaves are changing, and all the stuff I'm allergic to has either died off or gone away.

I am dedicating the winter to fixing my knee -- it is my singular training goal.

I want to do triathlons again, perform well, and enjoy the lean fitness of that life.

I weigh 120 pounds today but don't think I've been this soft in a dozen years. Swimming makes me happy, but it doesn 't make me skinny.

I came home from NYC Wednesday to find a trophy from Danskin in the mail box. I guess I was third in the amateur elite category. I'll take that.

I will post the grinning idiot photo soon, and close the book on my 12th time around that race course.

Campfire Song

Allow me to begin with a brief photo essay of beautiful girls.

And our natural habitat.

Tatyana captured it best, didn't she, when she said that looking into the waves is like looking into a fire.

I have always found the ocean more mesmerizing to the ear than the eye, but I liked what she said.

The ocean has sung three words to me, commanding over and over, since I was a little girl: Return Unto Me. Not return to me. But return unto me. Somehow that extra syllable completes the musical phrase perfectly with every crash and ebb.

So over the last few days, we did just that.

Tatyana, Jan, Liz and I traveled to San Diego to take part in the 79th annual La Jolla Rough Water Swim.

There is too much to say about the magic of the weekend to do it justice. Consciousness streaming is wimpy writing, but it's the best I can do with the things I hope I'll never forget.

Lily's sparkly shoes.

Cheering for the waves, and making them bigger. (And diving into them anyway.)

Little kids being tossed on 6 foot waves and swimming on.

Having the race live up to its name, and then some.

Jan's hardware.

Liz's pace per 100: 1:39.

My pace per 100: 1:39.

Finishing 8th out of 18.

Chatting with Michellie Jones and not knowing it.

Being pictured as a horse on her twitter site.

Jan's "run through Architectural Digest."

The lifeguard towing the old local guy out of the cove on Monday morning, and wanting to be that guy, 40 years from now.

Taking pictures of random houses at Windansea hoping one of them was Raymond Chandler's. (They weren't.)

Tatyana's bikini bottoms anchored to her fins in the foamy wave ends.

World class body surfing in Del Mar.

Sand in your hoo hoo (and everywhere else).

La Jolla Love Suites.

Liz flirting with the guy with the red surf board.

The rest of us flirting with everyone else.

The best dang nachos on the planet at Karl Strauss.

The sparkle in Liz's eye when I said as day broke Sunday morning, Do you want to go for a walk?

My nose is peeling.

Return unto me.

Someone over the weekend said it was a cruel joke to have been born with arms and legs, and not a tail and fins.

Tribute to Earplugs

"There's something nuanced about them. It's like magic." -- Joseph (who wore not only earplugs, but a wetsuit this morning)

Pumpkin Spice Warm Down

So today for the first time I thought to myself, this has stopped being sensible. Not that it is going to keep me from charging into the lake in the rain and dark for as long as I've got company, but today it really seemed silly.

Geoff, Liz and I met at Caulkin's Landing in the windy rain, shuttled to Luther Burbank Park, shivered down the path to the dock, and hopped in. For the next 2.5-ish miles, I never got warm. The water was surprisingly smooth until we rounded the north end of Mercer Island and the wind turned toward us. I love swimming under I-90. Something about it seems so naughty. Liz and I swam the distance in just over 1:10.

Despite the "flashdance" shower of hot water from a gallon jug brought from home, I stayed awfully cold. Liz sat on my lap as Geoff drove my car back to LB, which was snuggly and warmed me up a little. Geoff saw I was still shivering and suggested we stop at Starbucks for some tea top off our core temps, which to me meant only one thing: a Pumpkin Spice Latte. PSL, which Starbucks serves up between 9/1 and Christmas, signals autumn to my taste buds like little else. I felt smug drinking one after a non-wetsuit swim. Fall, you can't catch me.

We ran into Mike, Tom, Tatyana and Howard chilling out over coffee after their MSC swim. Why do swimmers make me laugh like no one else? Do other sports have things like pull buoy humor, clock nazis, upside down lane dynamics and fin throwing rancor at 5:08 am? I don't know. But I'm glad we do. Dude, I think your cap's too tight.

It's been a really fun long weekend of swimming. I know our ranks will thin in the coming weeks, between chlorine addiction and diminishing daylight, but I'm in it as long as I can be. Trick or Treat.

You can Spin the Light to Gold

The same things look different.
It's the end of the summer.

For the first time in my life, I will go kicking and screaming into autumn. I will dig my heels into the thin layer of beach along the waterfront until they freeze.

They will tow the diving dock away next Tuesday. In the past I've loved this harbinger of fall. This year I don't want to face it.

Tatyana sent a note toasting a shiny new September.

Liz went back to MSC, fulfilling a promise she'd made herself to return to the pool first thing this month.

It was 5:55 before we were able to safely launch this morning. We talked of scuba lights and glow sticks.

Joseph said he would swim until DT's birthday on 11/4.

I swam to the cove today with two caps and earplugs. Thanks for waiting, boys of summer. And God bless you, Brendan.