Lion King Anchorage Weekend & The Deep End

This past weekend Nora, Stuey and myself ventured to Anchorage to see friends, family and watch the Broadway musical, The Lion King. For years I've wanted to see the Lion King, and figured we should take the opportunity to watch it here in Alaska. Meghan and Bruce, Nora and myself all attended the show. It was spectacular. Amazing. Breath-taking. Tear jerking. Whimsical, modern...words really can't describe what an incredible production it is. Nora loved it as well-I was concerned about her not sitting through a 3 hour production, but she did great. There was so many dynamic animal characters that kept her laughing!! In between scenes when the crowd clapped, she would clap enthusiastically then give me little kisses of joy on my cheek. And she was a very enthusiastic laugher at the funny parts...at times I had to rein her in a little bit. :)
(Stuey stayed with my brother in law, Todd, and had a grand time as well!)

In Anchorage, we stayed with Patrick's cousin (now my cousin, too?!) Will and his wife, Beth. We enjoyed many meals with them and the kids really enjoyed going down the stairs on the stomachs, as we don't have stairs here so they are quite the novelty. Fun times and great conversations were had.


DEEP END
I think I may have conquered the deep end at the pool.
Tonight I did lap swimming for the first time in 5 years and by the end of the session, it occured to me that my heart wasn't pumping any faster as I swam over the deep end. Part of me thinks that doing the ocean swim in Mill Bay really helped with that.

As I was swimming in the pool, I would think "Zoya, you swam in the ocean, which is much scarier than this silly deep end. You're strong. You can conquer this. You're doing a triathalon. Swim like you own the pool" and the more I told myself that, I really started to believe it.

Also, what helped was having Jennifer Eubank in the lane next to me-she is training to swim the English Channel next summer. At one break, we talked for a few minutes, she asked me about the Catalina Triathlon and was very encouraging.

"How long is the English Channel Swim?" I asked her.
"Oh, 26 miles, but probably more like 28 or 29 with the tides" she replied.

Oh my. All of a sudden my VERY MEASLY 1/2 mile ocean swim seemed even more measly compard to what she is training for. 1/2 mile is like a speck in her WARM UP program for the english channel swim.
Makes you realize how race challenges are all relative. For instance, when I did the ocean swim in my wetsuit, I got tons of facebook replies of "wow-you're crazy, you go girl, etc...". However, thats NOTHING compared to what Jennifer did. She was doing long ocean swims this past summer in the waters of Kodiak without a wetsuit! Now thats hard core. Serious hard core.

It feels fabulous to get back in the water. I love the whole body workout feeling which comes with swimming. And Jennifer had the name of a gal who is giving swim lessons and was a collegiate swimmer, so I'm excited to get on board with her for a couple of lessons the next month. I'm getting more and more confident that perhaps I will in fact finish the triathlon. Yes, thats right, just finish. Thats my goal.

Zoya

Photos:
Nora, myself, Meghan and Bruce at intermission Lion King.
Will and Stuey
Beth pouring drinks for a wonderful dinner.