Saturday, September 10, 2011

Cleaning Black Rock and 5/10K Postal

Last night we spent the night camping near Mantua, UT with the extended family.  My alarm went off at 5:30 am and we got our own family's camp torn down and on the road at 6:00 am.  Nice!

We had to get up early because I wanted to participate in the Friends of Great Salt Lake Black Rock clean up.  I was most eager to meet up with other lake enthusiasts, and was a little disappointed with the turn out.  There were about 12 people that showed up that I saw.  Jonas and I arrived at 8am and picked up trash until 9:30am.  We picked up about 12 pounds of garbage.  Then I got changed and combed the inside of the lake about 20-50 yards out.  Spend another 30 minutes doing that and only found 5 items in the water:

A large tube clamp, a stainless steel butter knife and spoon (Which I have kept and will use at work since we're low on silverware), and a very large piece of glass and an unbroken clay pigeon.  The Great Salt Lake is really quite clean.  I mentioned how bad Bountiful Lake is to the organizer and she sounded like she would probably organize a clean up out there.  Maybe....  Crossing my fingers on that one. 

Jonas and I then climbed Black Rock and took some video and pictures.  We saw the hawaiian outriggers paddle all the way to the shallows near the shore and then paddle back. 

After that we picked up Austin at the Salt Lake Downtown train station and took him to the Table Tennis Club and Jonas and I went up to the Salt Lake City Sports Complex to do my swim for the USMS 5K and 10K postal which is due in a week!

The rules state you have to do this event in a 50M pool and this is the only pool that I know of in the valley of this size and so I was very glad that I had the time and the pool was available to do it!  I gave Jonas the split sheet and gave him instructions on how to fill it out and how to reference the stopwatch on every 100.  He did a fantastic job!  He even gave me hand signals on every 1000M just like I asked.  He did awesome! 

I was feeling good and didn't have any pain in my shoulders.  It was hot and sunny the first 2000 M, but then it got cloudy.  But at 5000 it looked stormy off in the distance.  I was hoping it wasn't accompanied with lightning cause I know lifeguards.  They LOVE to kick people out.  Sure enough I heard a long whistle blast as I was nearing the 6600 M mark.  I finished that length and Jonas took the final time. There were clouds nearing that were very black and stormy and I too heard thunder several times.  I was very disappointed I couldn't just finish, but was glad I was able to get in as much as I did anyway and the pace I did wasn't too bad either.  I was aiming for under 3 hours on that and based on the pace I was going I was well under that.


Dang you mother nature!  Always gotta rain on somebody's parade don't you!?


Total Distance: 6600 M
Time: 1:48

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