Going Postal - in the pool

     Every January, US Masters does a virtual race for distance - swim as far as you can in 60 minutes.  Well, we decided to put that in the program for this week, only because it's birthday week.   Yesterday, 51x100s was on the list.  This provided a nice warm up for today's Postal Swim.  For so cal dwellers, we are having so low temps at night.  It was 39 degrees on the pool deck this morning, and our Master's Coach wondered what I was doing there--to go postal, that's what.  Anyway, he recruited an age grouper to take my splits, and off we went at 6:30. 
     Felt very good the whole way.  Split the lane with fellow master's swimmer Cheryl who also was looking strong.  My goal was 4800 yards.  My PR from 2004 (pre triathlon days) was 5,115 yds.  I figure 8 years older means I get to be a little slower.  Pretty much even split the entire swim, and managed to rake in 4900 yards in 60 minutes and 5 seconds.   The 5 seconds basically takes it to a 4875 official distance. 
    By the 1,000s -- 12:12, 12:11, 12:14, 12:23
    By the 500s -- 6:07, 6:07, 6:04, 6:07, 6:06, 6:08, 6:11, 6:12, 6:12 and a 4:52 500.
    By the 1650s -- 20:07 20:13 and a 19:45 for 1,600

     One notable split was the IM distance of 4200 yards (4,155 yds officially) of 51:29.  Swim training for Oceanside and the rest of 2013 on track!

Winter Tour in Yellowstone National Park

     During Jordan's trip to the US from New Zealand, we headed to Big Sky, Montana for a week of skiing and snowboarding.  We took a one day break from that action, and took a winter tour of Yellowstone National Park.  We got down to West Yellowstone around 9:00am.  At our house, 45 miles north, the temperature was +5 degrees Farenheit.  As we drove to West, it got steadily colder and colder.  Minus 22 when we arrived.  Yes, Minus 22.  That snow coach better be heated.

 Here is our snow coach from the 1950s.  The plan was to head into the park along the Madison River, tour some of the hot springs, have lunch at Old Faithful and then head back to West.  Our Tour Guide - Joe Moore owner of Big Sky Anglers http://bigskyanglers.com/fishing_report/
By winter he is the a top rated professional fishing guide, and in the winter, he does the YNP snow coach tour thing.  His lovely wife Molly, when not running Marathons, is a Park Ranger.

Good old Johnna hamming it up at the Artist's Paint Pots.

 At three thousand pounds, try to imagine millions of Bison or Buffalo roaming the plains.  When they cranked it up, it must have sounded like an earthquake.

 Shot of Jordan at Old Faithful. 

 One of three bald eagles we saw in the park that day.  To keep warm they fluff out their feathers and thus appear larger than they actually are.  Their eyesight is amazing, they can focus on a fish in the water from hundreds of yards away.  Their evolution has resulted in the ability to see many more shades of blue than the human eye.

We stopped in the late afternoon in the Firehole Canyon.  The trees get seriously frosted from the steam coming off the river, the Firehole, which is sourced from springs where the water being dumped into the river is over 200 degrees.  It answered the question, how can those geese float along in the Madison when its -22 outside?  Well, the Madison at the point in the river is probably in the 50s and probably feels fine for them.  Anything under 88 is too cold for me.

This tree has been naturally flocked from the never ending steam from the hot spring.

The highlight of this amazing trip was this Red Fox that Johnna spotted as we were driving along the Madison River.  It was on the hunt.  Check out that tail.