Steve in a Speedo?! Gross!

Friday Funny 677: Embarrassing Practice Dives for my Swim Meet (and the red chest to prove it)

>> Friday, February 21, 2014

Here's what you came here to see:

That's my chest after just 5 practice dives yesterday. My swim meet is Sunday, and it had been 363 days since my last dive (really), so I figured I should get in a few practices. I'm glad I tried a few dives for another reason: my goggles split at the nose-piece on EVERY dive!!!! The first time I did it, I thought I maybe just didn't tuck my head correctly. But it happened EVERY time. So I got some new goggles last night that are all one solid piece (like my old goggles). It was better to have learned that yesterday than during the swim meet! Sheesh.

Finally, here are some funny posts from my tumblr page from the last 2 weeks:

Athletic-related funny things:

• That's a fast looking bike.

• I'm up to an hour a day on the treadmill...

• Unfortunate faces of Olympic figure skating. Derp.

• A heart-warming story from the Olympics.

• Who else does this when running?

• Running a marathon.

• This kitty works out every day.

• A good reason to watch the Olympics.

• Life is like a track meet.

• I admit it: I've thought THIS before at a race.

• Someone at the Olympics wanted to quit in dramatic fashion.

• SIMPLE steps for how to run a marathon.

• Women's hockey vs the Broncos.

• [GIF] Reaction after winning gold!!

• Olympic low-lights.

• This is kinda motivational.

• Oh, you ran a marathon??...

• A 1984 Sports Illustrated cover predicted the opening ceremony issue in 2014 Sochi.

• [GIF] The Winter Olympics.

• A room with a view.

• [GIF] Tough guy boxers.

Non-athletic funny things:

• The most bad ass color.

• This would be a good prank.

• Delicious? Or weird?

• The end of the world.

• Most of us when we die.

• I don't know if I'd even wish upon my worst enemy.

• How women get that "natural look."

• Dear shaving commercials...

• [GIFs] Man, I really love infomercials.

• Drinking coffee in the winter.

• This year.

• This guy gave up half-way through.

• True.

• That's some bad luck.

• Jimmy Kimmel on The Bachelor.

• I don't agree with McDonalds on many things, but I'm behind this 100%.

• 18-year-olds.

• Interesting point.

• Welcome to winter.

• Women are like bacon.

• Funny condom packaging.

• Conan on the snow in Atlanta.

• [GIFs] The best of Kiss Cam.

And as always, stop by steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com for funnies all week long.

I'm hoping to have a BIKE-RELATED GIVEAWAY next week, so stop on back! Happy weekend!

Friday Funny 676: Bad Olympic Events

Yesterday, I found "BadOlympicEvents" trending on twitter. Here were my 25 favorite:

Those last 2... poor Bob Costas.

I don't know how "BAD" some of those are. I'd actually watch most of those!

RELATED: What if famous natural history narrator David Attenborough narrated a curling event? It might go something like this:

Direct Link

Check out more funny things on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com.

Friday Funny 675: Horrible/Awesome Officemate

QuickMeme shared these 10 formal office complaints directed at David Thorne. This guy is either hilarious, or a giant ass.

Oh man... the business card one got me to LOL.

I really hope these are true. David Thorne is a comedian, and this could be from his day job. Or they could just be made up. But I want them to be real.

More funny stuff on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com!

Friday Funny 674: What You Can Do After Sex

When do you start USING the sloppy Indian food in bed?

Lots more funny things on steveinaspeedo.tumblr.com!

Some Family Instagrams

>> Wednesday, February 19, 2014

We had a lot of fun this weekend. Henry and I went sledding with his cousin Evie and uncle Jon:

"Cousins on a sled!"

"Uncle Jon and cousin Evie!" There's a sled under there somewhere...

"The sled got *pretty* filled with snow by the end of the run...." Seriously, this was our sled full of
snow after going down a hill that hadn't been touched all winter. Nearly 3 feet of powdery snow!

Later that day we went bowling with Henry's other cousins:

"Henry's FIRST throw ever at a bowling alley!!!"

Because I'm a horrible father, I can't tell you Henry's final score from his first ever round of bowling. Oops. Something around 70. Over 60, I'm pretty sure.

Then the next morning (Monday), we got MORE snow. Henry and I got some groceries before going sledding with his "daycare ladies."

"Henry 'helping' to unload groceries. Thanks bud."

"Second day in a row of awesome sledding!!"

Here's a quick video of 1 of his many wipeouts on the awesome speedy little sled from the neighbors:

All wipeouts ended with giggles! Direct link: http://youtu.be/2WqE9ScUQ10

(I'm totally doing the "if I laugh maybe my son will laugh and not cry instead" thing.)

Oh, and one final image: here's a photo that my wife POSTED ON FACEBOOK last night:

"10 minutes ago Henry took off his pants to watch the Olympics
then Steve took off his to foam roll. Like father, like son. #nopantshousehold"

Swimming "Race Expectations Calculator"

>> Tuesday, February 18, 2014

So being I'm trying my first 500 yards at a swim meet this weekend, I went looking for swim calculators to try to help me predict my time. I'd love to break 7:30, but I don't know how realistic that is.

I found this calculator which states that...

Peter Riegel did basic formula for predicting race time. The formula is really simple as it essentially states that roughly speaking, a person's speed declines by around 6% when the distance doubles.

So I plugged in my 1:10 100-yard time (in terms of meters, that's 91.44 meters) being I just swam a pool-start 1:09 100 against Devon recently:

So converting meters to yards, those numbers look like this:
109 yd = 1:17
218 yd = 2:40
437 yd = 5:35

Which means 500 yards (457 meters) would be around 6:28.

WAIT, 6:28?!? That's under 1:18/100 average!!

I was hoping for under 1:30/100 average, but I don't think I can get THAT far under 1:30 pace!

Maybe it's like that running pace calculator issue I posted about 2 years ago where I noted that I was always faster than they thought if I put in my distance times (to predict shorter races), and I was always slower than they thought if I put in my sprint times (to predict longer races).

I mean, I'd LOVE LOVE LOVE to do a 6:28 this weekend, but I think that's way out of the cards for me. (I'm also nervous to be swimming "blind" - I ALWAYS take my 100 splits on my watch, so it will be STRANGE to not know how fast I'm going during the race!)

And thanks to everyone for their advice. I've gotten a number of tweets, and there were some nice comments on this weekend's post:

Goal #1: don't shit in the pool. Goal #2: finish. Goal #3: don't pass out.

I hope I have the guts to race it hard enough from 100-400 but withOUT going too hard! We'll see how this all goes this weekend!!

Source Hydration Giveaway WINNER

>> Monday, February 17, 2014

Last week, I posted about a Source hydration pack that I brought back from Israeli that I wanted to giveaway.

There were 58 comments, and a total of 126 entries "in the hat" once people were credited with extra entries for tweeting or liking on FB. I loaded my numbers onto random.org and picked a winner:

#6 coincided with Laura (from LunaChickRuns). Congrats Laura! (She's been posting baby-bump pics, so congrats on THAT too - honestly, THAT'S probably a bigger deal than this hydration pack. Probably. Maybe.)

To all the non-winners, I'll probably be doing a bike-related giveaway either later this week or next week. So CHECK BACK!

I've Become Friendly with the Pool

>> Saturday, February 15, 2014

It's true. Look at how much I've swam over the last 5 months compared to the same months over the last few winters (the purple bars highlighted in red):

- 5,600 yards in 2012
- 27,300 in 2013 (with 11,100 of that in Feb alone)
- 51,100 in 2014 (and I still have half of this month to go!)

After logging a decent number of miles (for me) since September, I've finally just NOW started to see some speed develop. Well, up until recently, I was mainly focusing on getting the endurance for my half iron man in the Red Sea. Some speed showed up in 3 recent workouts:

1. Fast 50s.
I did that 30x50 workout that I've started to like, and as I posted about 2 weeks ago, I did my 6 final "all out" 50s nearly 3 seconds faster than at the end of last year (average of 41.0 last year, and average of 38.1 recently!).

2. Fast 1500.
About 10 days ago, I posted my fastest 1500 swim since BEFORE HENRY WAS BORN over 2.5 years ago! I did 1500 in 23:46, or a 1:35.0 / 100 average. My last swim faster than that was in March of 2011 (where I did 1500 in 23:30, or 1:34.05 / 100 average).

3. Fast 100s.
Earlier this week, I did my fastest 100s ever. Sure, it was only 10x100, but I did them with a 1:25.5 average! I looked back through my logs for a few years and didn't find ANY 100s workout that was faster!

Oh, and on top of those 3 workouts, I also had some fast 400s yesterday. I really don't ever do 400s, so I have nothing to compare this to. But I did them JUST over 1:30 pace: 6:11, 6:09, and 6:01.

SWIM MEET NEXT WEEKEND!! As I mentioned earlier this week, I'll be doing my first 500 at this meet. I don't know WHAT to expect for my 50 (I haven't tried diving since my swim meet last year, so THAT will be ugly), but I'm hoping for maybe a 100 PR (sub-1:10?) if I'm not too fried after the 500.

And speaking of the 500... Coach Jen (who's not coaching me at the moment but who got me to a 4:50 road mile on a slow course last year, and a 59:05 10 mile) gave me some "advice" yesterday:

Well now I'm REALLY looking forward to that. She has such a way with words.

I'd love to break 1:30 / 100 for the 500. That's 7:30. We'll see. And then, as I mentioned above, I'll have to see if I have any gas left in the tank for a fast 100 just 2 events later.