Friday, May 30, 2008

Masters Swim


I joined a Masters Swim club this week. It's the first time in my life I've ever done any sort of organized swim training. My first swim with the team was on Wednesday. What a butt kicking!

The best thing about it was that I swam pretty hard for a full hour without getting bored at all. Normally the thought of more than 30 minutes in the pool bores me to tears.

I spent the evening in the #2 slow lane, so there's plenty of room for improvement. Coach Dan said I had a good fundamental freestyle stroke, but there were plenty of things he can help me work on to improve my speed and endurance.

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Tombstone

This picture shows the boulder (called Tombstone) that flipped us. This picture was taken on our 4th run down the river.
tombstone
You can't see me very well in this picture, but I'm in the front left seat wearing my Drymax trail running socks. They really had to work overtime to try to keep my feet dry that day. The bachelor (sitting front right) almost wore a pair of cotton socks on the raft, but I saved him at the last minute and gave him a pair of my drymax socks before we left camp.

Sunday, May 18, 2008

Rafting on the Kern

A very good friend of mine is getting married in July. This weekend, I went with six of my best and oldest friends (since Jr. High) on a rafting adventure down the Kern River in California. This was definitely a top 10 adventure for all of us.

The pictures below are from our third run down the river. After each run, we'd switch positions on the raft so we each had opportunities to ride in the front, middle, and back of the raft.

The best part of the day was when we got high-sided on a boulder and the raft went completely upside down and dumped all of us. We got to ride IN the river for a few hundred yards while the guide got the raft back upright and we all climbed back in.

If you ever get a chance to go rafting, I highly recommend it.

(you can click on the images to see a higher quality version of each picture)