Lichen collecting (and swimming)

Who knew there were so many different types of lichen? We went lichen collecting (with a permit, of course) yesterday and then worked on identifying genera and species. I had no idea there was so much variety in the world of lichen. And the books that are published on it, well, I guess that means that people have devoted their lives to lichens. Wow.

I swam long course this morning for the first time ever (yeah, I was a long-course virgin...) and it was tough! I never realized how much umph you get from pushing off the wall every 25 yds instead of every 50 yds. Who knew? I did make it 3000 yds, though. It felt a lot like open water - good training for Berryessa. And, incidently, I registered for the 2 mile swim at Lake Berryessa. Was that really a good idea? I think it'll take me ~1 hour to swim 2 miles open water. Yikes! My first 2 mile swim in open water. What if I get hungry?

Speaking of swimming, I swam at the Pacific Masters Swimming Championships this past weekend in Pleasanton. Actually, I only swam one of the days, which ended up being good because I was sick with a nasty cold. You wouldn't think it would make a difference, but my times sucked so I'm going to pretend it made a big difference. I swam the 1650 free and 200 free and swam in an 800 free relay. The rest of my relay team was a lot faster than me so I felt sort of bad slowing them down. We wanted to get under 9:00 and guess what our time was? 9:00.99 Damn! So close.
Here's the story: So, I swam the 1650 and I felt pretty strong (except for the cold, which was f-ing up my respiratory system) and I swam hard pretty much for the whole 1650 yds. Then I got to rest for a sold 2 hrs or so while they went through all the men's 1650 heats. After that long rest, I thought I would feel pretty good during the relay swim. Not so. I dove in and right off began freaking out that I had false started, that I hadn't waited for the swimmer ahead of me to touch the wall. In spite of the worries, I pushed and felt great for the first 50 yds. After those 50 yds, I just about died. My arms felt like lead and all I could think was oh shit, I 've still got 150 yds left! Crap! I was dying for those last 150 yds and that's why we didn't break 9:00. Oh well.
After that disaster, I had to swim my individual 200 free. My arms were like lead. I didn't even feel good for the first 50 yds. I was swimming right with the women on either side of me until the last 25 yds. At that point, they both kicked it into gear and sped off and I was left eating dust, or bubbles rather.