WI Cabin Fun! (and help a friend)

This past weekend, Pharmie and I spent time out in WI hanging out with her college friends. Her friend Jess has a family cabin on a small lake in the middle of nowhere. Here I am making 50 sausages for everyone on Saturday morning:

Mid-day on Saturday (after all the sausages), Pharmie and I went for a swim. Here we are before the swim, and you can see the “cabin” in the background - it’s really a mini-mansion:

Pharmie adjusted her goggles pre-swim:

We were ready to go:

Pharmie headed out and did a good 52:00 OWS. I wanted to do intervals being I just had a nice, long, open water swim with the ladies on Wednesday. I started at Jess’s diving raft, and swam to the 3rd dock down. Here’s a photo next to the raft, and the dock I swam to is in the shadows under the trees:

I warmed up by swimming it once. According to my time, I figured it was AROUND 100 meters. Who really knows. It was about the distance I wanted to swim. I ended up doing 18 intervals with 30 seconds rest between. There was a definite current on the way back - can you tell by my times?...

1:33
1:31
1:37
1:33
1:43
1:34
1:47
1:39
1:52
1:34
1:42
1:40
1:50
1:41
1:48
1:43
1:49
1:40

1:40.8 / interval average

I’d NEVER done intervals in open water, so I worked on my sighting as I got more and more tired. My sighting tends to go downhill as I get pooped. Overall, it was a pretty good workout!

That night, the “big kids” lit fireworks off the dock as the little kids played with sparklers:

Sunday morning, I got up, hopped in the car, measured out “1 mile” on the curvy, hilly WI roads, and got ready to do 3 x 1 mile intervals with 90 seconds rest between. I ran a 5:42, a 5:30, and a 5:28, for an average of 5:33.3 / mile interval.

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In other news, Little Miss Runner Pants is doing better after her nasty bike spill. She recently had her first semi-solid food in 5 days (mac-and-cheese). She’s still planning to start classes today. I was told that she actually is going to make a shirt that says “Bike Crash” with an arrow pointing up to her face to wear on the first day! She’s still got her sense of humor!

Friends have been chipping-in to pay for dog walking services, house cleaning services, and whatever else a woman focused on healing her face needs. (Update: Donation $$ was also used to get LMRP a new bike helmet and to have her bike inspected, which is happening right now.) It’s KIND OF a secret, but yet the dog walker has already been interviewed and hired, so LMRP has to know that money is coming from somewhere.

If you are able to donate anything to help her get better, a local friend set up a donation site through her PayPal account. Click here to donate ANYTHING that you can. (The link goes to a friend’s blog, and you can donate on the top of the blog.) I had already dropped a check in the mail from Pharmie and I before I heard about the PayPal account. So if you can give a few bucks, it will be going to a fellow blogger / athlete / human being in need. Please give if you can. If you’d like to send a check, e-mail me [stevestenzelphotography@yahoo.com] and I’ll send you an address where you can send a check. And click here to check up on Little Miss Runner Pants.

Have a good week everyone!