Fruddled Gruntbugglies

Category: Swimming

  • Midsummer Notes

    Midsummer Notes

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    With July passing into August, we’ve passed what I call the halfway point of summer, and are now looking towards school starting, Labor Day, and the eventual changeover to fall. August started out with pleasant weather, but now we’re getting back into a hotter, humid, summery pattern. August can get pretty hot, but psychologically, it always seems like there’s more light at the end of the tunnel during an August heat wave than in July.

    I’ve been in a bit of a rut the past few weeks with my right calf/right foot issue which I first noted in my July 21 post. The calf gets super tight and sore, and I get foot pain on the outside of the heel area. From my experience in 2020-2021, I know enough to know that the foot issue is not plantar fasciitis/fasciosis. For a little while, I was convinced that it was bursitis, as the discomfort is in an area which several web sites identify as a bursitis hot spot (although in general, most of what I read online seems to focus more on the forefoot area rather than the heel). The symptoms are somewhat consistent with bursitis, but I also tend to favor the calf when it is tight, which may be leading to tissue hot spots that I feel in the foot/heel area. This all started up shortly after swimming season began, which makes it easy to blame on my kicking form, which I know is terrible. As a precaution, I’ve stopped swimming freestyle and backstroke for now, and have doubled my breaststroke and butterfly reps (which I really feel in my shoulders afterwards). I’ve tried icing the foot, which theoretically should help if it is actually bursitis. The calf seems to respond well to the heating pad. Last week, I cut my running mileage down significantly, running 5K on one day and 4.5 miles the next. Lastly, I’ve been using a massage gun regularly on my calves and feet, which helps a lot, as long as I don’t overdo things.

    To make a long story short, it seems a little better this week. The calf is much better today, and unlike last week, I’m walking around barefoot and not favoring it. This morning, I was able to run 7 miles (my usual weekday morning distance) in spite of the return of the heat and humidity this week. I’ll keep doing what I’ve been doing the past few days, and see how things go.

  • Quick notes

    Quick notes

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    We have two nice-for-July days this week (yesterday and today), and I’m trying to make the most of them before the heat returns for the end of the week. Yesterday, we got out on the water for a brief paddle from Solley Cove Park to Tanyard Cove and back. That has been a popular destination for me this year, as I work to get proficient on the stand-up paddleboard. I had to “MacGyver” the paddle a bit, as the cheap metal ferrule that connects the halves together broke as I was taking the paddle apart to put it in the car. As with everything else these days, you get what you pay for, and I guess I can’t expect a top-quality paddle in a starter SUP kit. To get us out on the water, I used a clip from a swimming pool brush, but it is not a perfect fit, as the ferrule is smaller than the hole in the paddle shaft. I wrapped a rubber band around the shaft to keep it from sliding back and forth, and it worked fine, but it looks like my first off-season upgrade is going to be a better-quality paddle. I’ll have to keep an eye out and see if REI has any end-of-season closeout discounts on SUP paddles, as they seem to run more expensive than kayak paddles. I’m also going to see if I can find a replacement ferrule to repair my existing paddle.

    Today, I rode my mountain bike to the office for the first time since probably late spring. As I wrote the other day, I don’t ride off-road much in the summer, because it’s usually either too hot, too humid, or too wet. Even when conditions are ideal, there’s a ton of poison ivy and other overgrowth along the trails this time of year. Today was great — the trails had a lot of muddy spots, but were mostly good. I spent more time on the bike than off. Time will tell if I end up with any spots of poison ivy. The only negative is that my seat post dropper cable seems to be stuck or seized up. I don’t use the dropper much, so it’s not going to keep me from riding the bike, but I guess I am going to need to take it in to the shop at some point.

    I have been pretty good with swimming regularly this summer. Swimming and road biking are the two outdoor activities that I tolerate the best, and look forward to doing the most, during the hottest months of the summer. Very recently (within the past week or so) I’ve started doing the breast stroke portion of my swimming workouts without a tether. I’ve found that it takes me about 20 strokes to cover a length of the pool, so I can complete a 60-stroke set with only two turn-arounds. Next, I may see how it works out with backstroke. If it’s practical, I think a really good way to divide up the workout would be: start out untethered and swim 60 breast, 60 back, 60 breast, 60 back, 60 breast, and 60 back. Then, put the tether on and swim 60 front crawl, 60 butterfly, 60 crawl, 60 butterfly, 60 crawl, and 60 butterfly.

  • Brain Dump

    Brain Dump

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    Just a bunch of random musings for today.

    • Today was the first run I’ve taken in a long time where I had to stop over a mile short of my intended distance. I totally pooped out just shy of mile 6. I can’t blame the weather, as we are finally getting a brief reprieve from the relentless humidity of the past several weeks. It was still muggy, but the dew point was below 70, and for the first time in ages, my shirt wasn’t completely soaked when I got home. The culprit may have been the 3 vials of blood I had drawn for lab work earlier in the morning. I didn’t think that would be enough to cause issues, but perhaps I was wrong. I guess I should schedule my blood work appointments for days when I am not planning to run. Live and learn.
    • I’ve been battling mild pain on the outer edge of my right heel for most of the summer. It is not enough to keep me from running, but I am noticing that it starts to get worse toward the end of long runs as I get tired. I am also noticing occasional stiffness in my right calf, and I’m not sure if that’s a cause or an effect. I noted almost identical issues in summer 2023, and a similar issue on the left side in late 2023/early 2024. I hypothesized that the summer issue might be swimming related, and it’s plausible, if for no other reason than it started to crop up at around the same time I started swimming almost every day. That said, it’s hard to believe that swimming could be at fault for calf/heel issues. It probably has more to do with swimming working muscles that I don’t use at other times of the year, and imbalances manifesting as muscle/fascia tissue tightness somewhere in my leg that is telegraphing to the heel. I’m trying to work on it by doing toe-squat stretches, foam rolling, and heel walking, all of which help to a degree, but the problem is still there.
    • I made cold brew coffee in the French press this week with some Lidl store-brand pre-ground dark roast coffee, and it was a messy undertaking. The coffee is ground a little too fine for the French press, and quickly plugged up the plunger. I gave it a stir, but then a ton of sludge got past the plunger and into the brew. I filtered it out by pouring it through a funnel lined with a paper V60 filter, which took forever. It turned out OK, but if I’m going to use pre-ground coffee, I think I’m going to need to use something other than the French press to make the cold brew.
    • I have really missed mountain biking this summer. Whenever I want to go, it always seems to be either too hot/humid or too wet. Wednesday is looking like it might work out, and it’s my usual day to go to work, so I’m going to cross my fingers and hope I can finally get out on the trail again. Same deal with paddling — I haven’t been out since Delaware in late June. Hoping to do something about that tomorrow morning.

  • 2025 Pool Season

    2025 Pool Season

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    It was a late start to pool season this year, thanks to a very cool and wet month of May (not that I’m complaining by any means). In most years, we try to have the pool open by Memorial Day weekend, but this year, we held off for another week, uncovering it on June 1. My first swim was yesterday (June 6), and the water temperature was still only 76°F. I used the tether, and picked up right where I left off last year, swimming 3 sets of 60 breaststroke, 60 front crawl, 60 butterfly, and 60 backstroke, for a total of 720 strokes. I’m going to try to swim more days than not this season, and we’ll see how that goes. I missed today because I was too busy vacuuming and cleaning the pool. The good news is, I think there is light at the end of the tunnel with regards to the massive chore that is spring pool opening.

    This is our second year with a variable speed pump. Even running it 24/7, it uses less than half the electricity than our old 1hp single speed pump used running 12-14 hours/day. Most of last year, I ran the pump at 2600rpm in the morning, 1750rpm in the afternoon/evening, and 750rpm overnight. This year, at least for now, I’m running it at 1750rpm for 13 hours and 750rpm for 11 hours, with occasional “boosts” to 2600rpm to run the pool cleaner. With electricity getting more and more expensive, the VS pump has been a big win, but the trade-off is that the skimmers don’t work as well at the lower pump speeds. Last year, I found myself manually skimming the pool surface much more often. I’ve ordered a Betta SE Plus solar-powered skimmer robot, and am hoping it will help. Also, anecdotally, it seems to take more work to get the pool fully clean and clear during opening. The past two seasons, I’ve been vacuuming to waste, then running the Polaris to pick up the larger debris, and then vacuuming again to the filter to get the rest of the fine particulate crap up off the bottom. In prior years, the final vacuuming step was not needed. This may be more an issue with the Polaris not working as well as it should, though (long story that probably warrants a separate post).

    My Autopilot salt chlorinator is acting as flaky as ever this season — a lot of the time it works fine, but often, I see intermittent “check/clean cell” and “low amps/cell” errors flashing on the display, with volt/amp readings all over the map when it is happening. At one point, I got the error condition to clear up by going into the maintenance menu and selecting “force reverse”. Last year, I had the same issue at one point, but it cleared up and the system ran flawlessly for most of the season. I am wondering if it is finally time to replace my salt cell, which is way past its prime. It has outlived the original DIG-220 control unit as well as the original tri-sensor. The cell has been in service since 2009! Its stated lifetime, per Autopilot, is 60,000 amp-hours, and it has about 43,000 amp-hours with the current controller, which I put in service in 2019. That’s about 7200 amp-hours per season over 6 seasons. Before 2019, it ran with the old controller for 10 seasons (2009-2018). If we assume similar usage over those 10 seasons (I never checked the amp-hour reading on the old controller), then the cell has seen about 7200*16 or 115,200 amp-hours of usage. That’s almost twice the expected lifetime!! I’ve had a new cell on hand for 5 or 6 years, and every year, I debate whether to put it in service, but the old one just seems to keep on going. Maybe the time has finally come to retire it.

    In any case, I’m hoping that within a week or so, I’ll be spending more time swimming than I am maintaining the pool.

  • Farewell 2024 Pool Season

    Farewell 2024 Pool Season

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    Looks like pool season is over for the year. My final swim of the season was September 21, 6 days later than 2023’s final day and 6 days earlier than 2022’s. This year came in third since 2021 in total swims (74), second in total strokes (52,564), and first in average stokes per session (710). This will be the third straight year with no swimming in the month of October. Like last year, the culprit was the onset of a multiple-day period of overcast, humid, drizzly weather. Almost every September features a stretch of this kind of weather, which is why October swimming is so rare around here. Hope springs eternal for next year, though.

    I have to figure out how I’m going to winterize the pool this year with the new pump. I plumbed it with unions to give me the option to remove it and store it inside for the winter. However, the wiring will likely make this somewhat of a pain. I may still try it, although I may hate myself for it next spring. I figure I have until around the second week of November to decide, as that’s when I usually finish winterizing the pool. I’m hoping to get the winter cover on it this weekend or shortly thereafter.

    After starting it a few months ago, I’ve finally got all of my web infrastructure moved out of AWS RDS, and I shut the RDS instance down this evening, with the intent of deleting it if I don’t see any issues. Also, I’m in the process of switching domain registrars for lpaulriddle.com. When I initially registered the domain (at least 10-15 years ago), I used Yahoo! Small Business, and while slightly pricier than GoDaddy, I was happy with it until it ended up morphing into Turbify. Last year, the registration renewal fee jumped to $45, and this year, they wanted $55, which was enough to motivate me to switch. After some research, I settled on Cloudflare, and the transfer is now in progress, with a pending completion date of 9/29. In the meantime, I moved the DNS over to Cloudflare, which went off without a hitch. If all goes well with moving the registration, I’ll probably move my other domain (currently at GoDaddy) to Cloudflare as well. I’m not doing much with that domain, but I do have email forwarding set up for it, so I’ll need to figure out how to do that with Cloudflare. I will say that their registration fees are much cheaper than GoDaddy’s, let alone Turbify’s.

    Edit (9/29) just in case it’s helpful to someone: I got a confirmation email from Turbify/Tucows a few hours after initiating the transfer with Cloudflare. It said that if I took no further action, the transfer would complete at 2024-09-29 01:30:17 UTC. That time came and went and nothing happened, so I revisited the email and noticed that there was also a link to “visit our website” at the end. I clicked the link, and it took me to a page with options to approve the transfer immediately or cancel. I clicked the approve button, and the transfer completed a few minutes later (verified by an email from Cloudflare). Not sure if it would have eventually happened automatically had I not done that, but it’s done now, and reflected in WHOIS. Now to go cancel the Turbify plan…

  • Swim Notes

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    I just finished moving the database for this blog off AWS RDS and onto a MariaDB Docker container with the database files hosted on EFS. RDS turned out to be overkill for my use case, and it was costing me more per month than I had expected. By contrast, EFS storage space is cheap, and the EC2 instance I’m running MariaDB on is free until the end of 2024. The trade-off, of course, is that it’s almost surely not going to be as performant as RDS, although I’d be surprised if I notice any difference. We’ll see. If I do, I can always try something like a persistent object cache and/or page cache.

    I also wanted to write a quick note about swimming this season. It’s been a good season thus far, and the hot summer has led to a lot of time spent in the pool. As a matter of fact, according to Apple Health, I’m only 7 or 8 swims away from eclipsing last year’s total, and we’re only halfway through August. The best times of day for swimming are mornings before 9:00, and afternoons after 4:00, because that’s when the pool is out of full, direct sunlight. On really hot days, I’ve occasionally done pool running in the mornings in lieu of “real” running, as I have a hard time getting over 3-4 miles on really hot, oppressive days. Most of my swimming has been in the afternoon and evening, with a tether, same as in recent years. In July, I typically swam in the late afternoon before dinner, but this month (August), I’ve been swimming more in the evenings, sometimes going as late as 9:00pm. Usually, I do 3 sets of 60 breast stroke, 60 front crawl, 60 butterfly, and 60 backstroke, for a total of 720 strokes, which takes me about 40 minutes. I’m happy with how my backstroke has progressed this year — I first started doing it regularly about midway through the 2023 season, and it felt awkward and uncoordinated for quite a long time. Lately, it has improved quite a bit.

    As with every year, the end of the pool season can be a wild card depending on the weather. In 2022, I was able to swim until October 4, but last year, a persistent bout of cloudy, cool weather brought things to an early end on September 14. We will see what this year brings. We set the record for latest day in the pool (October 9) in 2007, and it still stands. I wonder if it will ever be broken?

  • Nerve

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    Still dealing with some off-and-on nerve pain in the ball of my right foot, which cropped up around the third week of August. It’s close to the same area where I had a neuroma back around 2016-2017, and while I can’t rule that out, the symptoms aren’t quite the same. In 2017, when I saw a podiatrist, I got a cortisone shot in that area, which I don’t think did me any long-term favors. Oddly, it seems to bother me most when I’m sedentary, and in particular, in bed when I wake up in the morning. It’s just a generic kind of aching pain, and the nerve feels kind of “weird” when walking barefoot and when swimming. Running does not bother it at all, but I’ve aggravated it a couple of times while climbing. On Monday, I did a bunch of lead climbing, and I could tell I tweaked it on the first route I climbed. This morning, I climbed 6 routes on top rope, and had no problems. I was really careful with the foot, sticking to mostly overhanging routes with juggy holds, using the bad foot mainly for balance and trying to avoid putting too much weight on it. I also wore a metatarsal pad on the right foot, which I think helped. It definitely helps while walking on the treadmill and with static standing. It looks like I can keep climbing for now, but I’m going to need to baby it like this until the issue clears up. I suspect I’m going to have occasional issues there for the rest of my life, and the key is going to be to manage it to prevent flare-ups. The silver lining here is that the whole experience with the neuroma is what convinced me to start wearing minimalist footwear and “Correct Toes”, which was a long, tough transition from conventional footwear, but absolutely worth it in every way.

    Notwithstanding our current September heat wave, pool season will be winding down for us in just a few short weeks. According to Apple Health, I took my 48th swim of the season this afternoon. That’s about 20 fewer than this time last year, but I never intended to match last year’s total. My first swim this year was June 2, so I’ve managed to average about one swim session every other day this season. That average will drop a bit, as I’ll be missing a week this month due to travel, but all in all, I’m pretty happy with how the season went. I’m swimming more strokes per session this year as well (703 strokes for 2023 vs 651 for 2022). One really weird statistic: for the first time in the 22 seasons we’ve owned the pool, this is the first year that nobody outside our immediate family has been in it. Times have definitely changed since the days when we used to throw a massive pool party every summer…

  • Late-season swimming report

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    It’s that time of the year where I’m wondering where summer went. I figure we have at worst 4 weeks of swim season left, and at best 6 weeks. Our record for latest swim of the year (October 9), was set in 2007, and still stands after 16 years. Will it ever be broken? We’ll have another shot at it in a few short weeks.

    I would guesstimate that I have been getting in the pool and swimming laps about 4 days a week on average this year, which seems like plenty to me. It’s less frequent than I swam last year or the year before, but I’ve got more going on nowadays than in 2021 and 2022. I am still swimming with a tether, and tracking the workout by counting strokes. I typically do 720 strokes, which consists of 3 sets of 60 breaststroke, 60 freestyle, 60 butterfly, and 60 backstroke, in that order. It takes me a little over 30 minutes. This is the first year I’ve swum backstroke regularly, and it is still decidedly a work in progress. For some reason, I struggle with coordinating the arm movement and the leg kicks. It reminds me kind of like trying to pat my head and rub my stomach at the same time. I also occasionally splash water into my nose, which is not the most pleasant sensation, and staying straight (with the tether perpendicular to the pool wall) can be a challenge. I expect that I will improve over time, but it may take a couple of seasons.

    We have a new winter safety cover this year. The old one lasted a long time — I installed it in fall 2002, and we used it through this past winter. It was in rough shape by then, and we really should have replaced it last year, but I’m not going to complain about getting 20+ winters out of it. The covers have more than doubled in price since 2002, but with any luck, this will be the last one we have to buy while we’re in the house. Next season, it’s looking like I may finally have to replace the pump. The current pump is a 1hp Hayward Super 2, and the previous owner installed it, so it’s at least 22 seasons old. It’s on its second impeller and second or third shaft seal, but now, the motor is finally starting to go, so I’m going to have to replace it before it gets loud enough to annoy my neighbors and then eventually freezes up. I may try to take care of that in the early spring, but I first need to decide if I want to swap out the entire pump, or just the motor, and then there’s the question of whether to go with a variable speed (VS) motor. Lots of stuff to think about there.

  • Hot Day Hybrid

    Hot Day Hybrid

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    Day 3 of the heat wave: after skipping Thursday’s run in favor of the pool, I wanted to run today, even if it was only a short one. I hit the road at 8:15am, when it was still below 80°, and although it was plenty humid, it did feel slightly less oppressive out than it did yesterday or Thursday. It might just be that I’m getting acclimated to it. Whatever the case, I ran 4 miles at 10:00/mile, and felt pretty good. When I was finished, I put on my swim gear and ran for 30 more minutes in the pool. It was the first time I have done regular running and pool running in the same session, and I think it worked out well. Four miles is long enough that I felt like I got a decent run in, but short enough that I didn’t overheat and lose a ton of fluids, and the pool was a great way to cool off afterwards. Ideally, I’d like to get out about an hour earlier, but I didn’t wake up until close to 7 today. I must have needed the sleep.

    My experiences with running in the heat and humidity this summer have convinced me that I’d like to pick up a running-specific hydration vest, but there is a mind-numbing variety of them to choose from, so I’m going to have to do a little bit of research. I’ll probably hold off on buying anything until REI has their next sale and 20% off coupon (maybe around Labor Day).

    Here’s something that has never happened to me in 22 years of pool ownership: I walked outside earlier and saw that the Polaris tail sweep hose had come disconnected from the main unit. I retrieved both of them, and nothing looked broken. I was able to easily push the tail back onto the ferrule, but it was kind of obvious that whatever secured it there was missing. I found a parts diagram and saw that there’s a plastic clamp that’s supposed to go there, but it was nowhere to be found. I’m guessing it just broke. A new one costs about $3.50, but I jury-rigged it with a zip tie for now, which seems to be working. I don’t expect it to last too long, but who knows.. maybe it will surprise me.

    Update (9/13/23): The zip tie fix lasted until today, or just over 6 weeks. I just put a new one on, and will add the $3.50 clamp to my list of items to buy for next season (it might be cheaper over time to just keep sacrificing zip ties, but it would be much more annoying 😀).

  • Pool Running

    Pool Running

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    With our first real heat wave of the summer upon us (fortunately only forecast to last 3 days), I took my first pool run of the season this morning. I was considering trying to get out early for a “regular” run, but quickly decided against it when I stepped outside. I find pool running to be excruciatingly boring, so I usually only do it on extremely hot days when I don’t feel like doing anything else outdoors. Last summer, I only recall running in the pool once or twice.

    In contrast to swimming, which I typically do in the late afternoon, I like to get my pool running in by 9:00am, when the water is coolest, and before the sun starts hitting the water surface. I don’t go underwater, so instead of goggles and earplugs, I wear a flotation belt, hat, SweatHawg headband, and (occasionally) sunglasses. I also usually put my airpods in to have something to listen to, which helps with the boredom.

    Today, I hit the water at right around 8:00, and ran for 30 minutes. The pool water was a comfortable 83°F, but I still worked up a good sweat. It was my first time running in the pool with my Apple Watch (which I bought late last summer) so I was able to get a sense of how much I was exerting. It was about what I expected: my heart rate mainly ranged between 100 and 110 beats per minute, which is faster than I average during a brisk walk or a swim, but slower than a conventional run. The biomechanics of pool running are similar to regular running in many ways, but different in others. The water adds a lot of resistance to leg movement, which works different muscle groups; and there’s no impact to the lower body, which is why it’s a popular activity for people recovering from injuries. It probably wouldn’t be a bad idea to do it once a week or so during the summer as a cross-training activity, but I’d need to invest in a better flotation belt, as the one I have is not the most comfortable.

    Anyhow, based on the weather forecast, I suspect I may be doing this again on Saturday.