5 things I did this week
In an attempt to circumvent the feeling of ennui arising from Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions, perhaps a good focus is towards what we HAVE done, not what we’ve missed. With that in mind, here are 5 things I did this past week:
1- Russ Barber’s Swim Coach Network
One of my favourite ‘new’ things this week was joining in two zoom conference calls hosted by British coach Russ Barber. The first was with Dutch coach, Jacco Verhaeren and the second with British Ex-pat turned Aussie, Barry Prime. Both were super early for me on the east coast of North America right now, however my logic was that I didn’t have a whole lot of things demanding my specific time so I could just go back to bed for a couple of hours after. As always when engaging with colleagues in dialogue and personal development I was very happy that I made the choice to do this, and look forward to the next opportunity.
2- Duolingo Turkish
Finding ways to keep productive during a period of relative downtime because of Covid, I finally decided to start putting more effort into learning Turkish using the free website/app Duolingo. I’m currently at 12 straight days of logging in and doing at least something on there, which isn’t going to make me fluent anytime soon, but at least is keeping me honest, and I’ve also got to the point where I want to protect that streak. I’m actually looking forward to getting back to Turkey and trying to improve my pigeon Turkish now!
3- Run a long way
Yes, I realize that compared to many people I frequently run a long way. One thing I’ve tried to learn over Covid is to make the most of the opportunities I have. Right now around Ann Arbor, Michigan I have access to some great trail networks, and although relatively flat they are pretty expansive so I’m trying to focus my run training on getting some big mileage runs in. This week I only did 4 runs, but the longest was 35km, which was actually my 8th farthest training run ever. I’ve also learned over the years to celebrate anytime you hit a ‘Top-10’ performance, as they are rarer than you’d like to think, and get harder every time you do it. This run also grabbed me the Strava ‘Local Legend’ status on the 28km/18M “Potawatomi” trail loop, which I’m quite proud of, but I’m sure everyone knows that the ‘real’ local legend on said loop is Chaz Hornburg who’s run it over 60 times, or Zach Ornelas who’s done it faster than anyone else.
4- Sending sessions to Estonia🇪🇪 and South Africa🇿🇦
Working on keeping things going for the middle distance crew despite not being able to get back together in Turkey currently I’ve been writing plans and sessions to send over ‘the pond’. It’s not the easiest to do those grind-y sessions on your own, and the boys try to get a decent training group cobbled together. That being said this will be our third straight week over 60k, so they’re staying honest.
5- Estonian Coach of the Year
And speaking of Estonia, Kregor Zirk was named Estonian Swimmer of the Year for 2020, and I was honoured to be named Coach of the Year as well. Very cool to be recognized for the work we’ve done together for the last few years and I’m quite happy for him!