swim

Swimmer’s block

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I hadn’t swum in over week, which is a little bit of a record for me, because I always swim at least, at a minimum – once a week. Today, after doing a 2km swim this morning, I remembered why I had taken a break from swimming….shoulder pain.

In just a few weeks, I will be swimming around Turkey – a 30-35km swim over 6 days. On average swimming 5-6km a day. I should be training more, me thinks. But with all the swimming I had been doing over the summer, my upper shoulders and upper back/neck are getting sore. Subconsciously I had stopped swimming for about 10 days to give my shoulders a break. I’ve also taken up jogging as well, which meant that I had swapped the pool for the treadmill. I am actually getting into the jogging a bit now … even bought myself new jogging shoes! I’m in need of swimming motivation considering I had slacked off a bit. I’m also getting worried about the swimtrek. I feel underprepared to swim that much, day in, day out. The thought of sore shoulders and back is a little unnerving. Swimming laps in a pool also gets a little boring.

Last night I came across an awesome blog of a gal who a few months back did a swimtrek. Hers wasn’t so much a holiday as it was a swim bootcamp. She had signed up for the Gozo (Malta swimtrek) – this swimtrek is a swim camp used mainly by those who want to swim the English Channel. It’s a full-on long distance ows swim camp, working up to a 6-hour swim. (My limit is 2-hours). It’s a really interesting read of the training and mental endurance of open water swimming training in cold water (15 degrees). I highly recommend reading her three entries on her swimtrek. Start reading from here. And work your way to post 3 of her Malta swimtrek. Her last post is the most inspiring and motivating. Her blog gets brownie points because she makes reference to Haruki Murakami. It was a re-quote from someone else, but I’m pretty sure that Murakami said that in this book, “What I talk about when I talk about running”. (Murakami is a prolific marathoner). One of the quotes that always stuck out in that book for me was: “Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional”. (I think it was also a re-quote from someone else as well). But after reading that book – that quote always stuck in my mind. I think I should re-read that book. Good motivation for mental endurance and perserverance, especially since I’m also hoping to get accepted into the Tokyo Marathon. It was a good insight into what I can expect…although not as full on as that. It will be a similar routine. Up early, breakfast and then hitting the water everyday, swim for a couple of hours, lunch, swim a few more km’s, dinner, a couple of sessions on technique and swim analysis, and then sleep. Thankfully, it’s also a holiday, and not a race, and not a swim bootcamp, so hopefully it will be a little more leisurely.

After reading that last night, I thought it was time for me to HTFU. So even though I desperately wanted to sleep in longer this morning, I changed into my cossies, got onto the train, jumped into the pool and swam 2km. The first 1km was easy enough. Felt good to be back in the water especially having not swum for a while. Between 1-1.5km my shoulders started to get sore. My lower neck, upper back and shoulders are getting really tight and sore though. It doesn’t help that I sit in front of a computer all day at work either. I think I’m gonna need some deep tissue massaging. In my last ows race (the 4.5km one) I remember my arms being incredibly sore, especially around the 3km mark. To the point where I could barely get the, out of the water and they were just pretty much skimming the top of the water, floundering. Should I be pumping iron? Do I have weak arms? I think sore shoulders and arms is normal? The recommended swimming training program provided by Swimtrek seems pretty relaxed to me. Maybe, I am swimming too much. When you also eat as much as I do, there’s no such thing as “swimming too much”. I went back over the swimming training program – which spans 3 months in the lead up to the actual swim.

I leave in 3 weeks, and I feel as though I haven’t done enough training, despite being on track with the program. I barely swim 5km a week, let alone 5km a day for a whole week! They recommend a certain distance per week = target km. I have then recorded my actual distance swum for that week.

Month 1/July

Week 1: Target: 1km Actual: 10km (includes 3km OWS race, plus additional training km’s)

Week 2: Target: 1.5km Actual: 10.6 km (This was the week I competed in the 4.5km ows race, plus additional training km’s)

Week 3: Target: 2km Actual: 1.5km (this was my recovery week after two back to back weekends of ows races)

Week 4: Target: 2km Actual: 1km

Week 5: No target. Actual: 1.7km

Month 2/August

Week 1: Target: 2.5km Actual: 4.1km

Week 2: Target: 3km Actual: 5km

Week 3: Target: 3.5km Actual: 3km (did more cross training instead of swimming – 3 jogging sessions)

Week 4: Target: 4km Actual: 3.5km (lazy week. No jogging either)

Month 1/September

Week 1: Target: 4km Actual: 1km swim (but 3 jogging sessions)

Week 2: in progress Target: 5km Actual (so far): 2km ….but the week ain’t over yet.

Here’s what I need to cover over the next 2-3 weeks…

Week 3: Target: 5km

Week 4: Target: 3km Moral of the story. No pain. No gain. And must find good masseur.  I also need to fit in another open water swim session (instead of laps in a chlorine box), so I signed up for another race (my last one for the summer) which is in a week and a half away, and I’ve not done much training for it. It’s a 3.84km open water swim race. If you’re thinking 3.84km is a weird distance, it’s because I will be swimming the length of a bay somewhere in Chiba prefecture, and apparently that’s how long the bay is.

Minami Boso, Iwai beach, OWS numero 3

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Another swimming Sunday to start off the month of August. I set off early for the 2 hour train trip to Iwai beach which is in the Minami Boso region of Chiba prefecture. I was up at 6am and took a limited express train (a semi shinkansen) to Iwai. I was lucky to make the Sazanami limited express train from Tokyo. What I didn’t realise was that the platform at Tokyo station (the Keiyo line) is a good 1km walk from the regular JR train platforms. If you’ve ever taken the train from Tokyo to Disneyland, you’ll know it’s that underground platform far far away from all the other trains. Just making the train in time, I at least traveled in comfort to Iwai. It was pretty empty at 7.30am.

The weather was hot and muggy but really overcast and smoggy. I got to Iwai station a bit after 9am and followed some other guys that looked like they were also there for the swim (they were). I got to the race venue just a tad before 9.30am. The mercury had already hit 33 degrees and Iwai beach was packed. It was the most crowded beach I have ever seen in Japan. The amount of people that were there well before 9.30am was unbelievable. I’m guessing it’s a pretty popular beach.

Iwai beach was the setting for my third OWS and the third prefecture (having already done Shizuoka and Hokkaido). I was registered for the 1km swim. A nice standard distance at a beach (an ocean swim). This is kind of my comfort zone at the moment. Like the Atami swim this event was an JIOWSA swim event. I had initially wanted to spend the weekend in Chiba near the beach to save me the trouble of an early start on the Sunday. But alas, there was no available accommodation whatsoever. This is becoming a bit of a problem. Next week’s swim in Shizuoka again, I was not able to book anywhere. Iwai is a small coastal beach town so accommodation is limited and what is available was already snapped up, despite my efforts to try and book accommodation 2 weeks in advance. I tried like every single accommodation near Iwai to no avail. I can now see why there were no available lodgings. That whole coastline was packed. I guess it didn’t help that it was a hot summer’s day, a weekend, and school holidays to boot. The conditions were hot andI was sweating like nobody’s business. Even the sand was too hot to walk on barefooted. There was no shade whatsoever. The heat was relentless. Vitamin D intake exceeded.The sun cream I was applying was basically turning to sweat. My race didn’t start until a bit after 11am. By this time as well, I hadn’t had anything to eat. No time in the morning for breakfast, I had just made the trains in the morning and hadn’t eaten anything on the 2 hour journey.

When I got to the beach, there was of course no food nor vending machines. I was hot and wanted to keep hydrated as well, but also need to preserve what little water I had for after the race as well. I had wanted to squeeze in a conbini run but didn’t come across any. There was quite a decent turnout for this race. I even recognised a couple of people that were there from the Atami swim. 1km isn’t that far, but when you look out into the ocean, 1km looks really far. Those buoys look impossibly distant. The first race was the 400m event. They then moved the buoys even further out for the 1km course. It was a triangular course, swimming out to the right, then across the beach parallel to the shore, and then back into the shore.

There were enough competitors to have two starts for this event. All up, according to the program schedule, there were 33 females and 87 males for a total of 120 competitors in the 1km swim. We were given bright orange swim caps for the 1km. The water temp was beautiful, I reckon about 24 degrees, The first 300m or so were hard. I always find the first few hundred metres of a race the most difficult as the body is trying to warm up and adjust until you find a rhythm. The start is also where it’s the most violent and you wait for the pack to thin out. I was enjoying the beautiful water. This was probably the most enjoyable ocean swim to date. I didn’t think too much about the race and was really enjoying just being in beautiful water and being able to cool off.

As far as beaches in Japan goes, this one was pretty good. Not too many waves, although bouncy enough out there, perfect water temp and clean clear salt water. There were patches out there in the ocean though where the water was really cold and then you’d hit a warm patch again. It was a most refreshing swim and I felt comfortable with my pace. Vision was my biggest problem in this race. After passing the 400m mark my goggles started to fog to the point where I couldn’t really see the buoys so I had to spend a couple of seconds treading water and clear them but when I put them back on again a little salt water had gotten in and I didn’t want to waste time letting the water in, so one eye got a bit of salty water in it for the rest of the race.

One thing I find with ocean swimming is that I often swim semi-blind. Because I wear glasses and obviously don’t wear glasses or contact lenses in the water, and I’m only wearing goggles, it means that I can’t see long distances out in the ocean. I actually have trouble seeing the buoys and I actually just rely on other swimmers. I follow other swimmers and let them guide me. They really need more buoys between the main buoys to guide your way to the next one. When there is no buoy for 400m or so until the next one, it makes it hard to know if you’re on course or not. I remember feeling quite thirsty out there too – all that salt water in my mouth. After passing the 2nd last buoy before heading back into the shore, I came upon a little problem. I was not alone either. We had just swum across the ocean and were heading back into the shore but after coming around that buoy we couldn’t see where to go next. Myself and some other swimmers had to stop for a second to get our bearings. After coming round that buoy and looking back into the shore, all we could see was a totally packed shoreline and we had no idea where our set-up finish line was because all we could see was people along the whole coast that we had no idea in which direction to head back in to. One of the other swimmers yelled out to a nearby patrol guard for the direction and we were pointed the right way. I then tried to follow other swimmers as best I could using them as my eyes. When I could see the sand at the bottom of the ocean again, I knew that I was getting closer to the shore. When swimming in to the finish line, I never know at what point to keep on swimming or stand up and run to the finish. Is it faster to run through the water, or swim through??

I got position 44 out of 120 of all competitors in the 1km swim, which I thought was pretty decent. In the top 3rd. I felt my time would be average around the 20 minute mark. My time in fact was 21 minutes and 16 seconds for a 1km ocean swim. I placed 8th out of 10 in my age category. I’m always placing 7th or 8th. And placed 19th out of 34 women across all age groups. An average swim result. But it was a swim that I really enjoyed. I felt good in the water. By now I was pretty hungry, thirsty and damn hot. The day just kept getting hotter and the sweat just kept coming. The next event was the 3km. There were more people in the 3km race event than there were in the 1km – I thought that was pretty impressive. I think the longer distance events are quite popular. 3km – that’s pretty hardcore. The buoys had been moved out even further and they had to do do two laps. Just before 1pm I headed back to the station to head home. Not a single conbini and no food in sight. By this time I still hadn’t eaten a morsel of food since the night before. Iwai is a real inaka place – it’s a place that’s in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by mountains and a coastline. Not much by way of facilities. No conbinis, nor eateries. I came across an omiyage store near the station and settled for a pineapple ice block. Hot, sweat and hungry I downed a water from the vending machine, and two ice creams (the aforementioned pineapple calippo-like ice block and a vanilla Coolish which I ate on the train back. Coolish is a soft serve ice-cream in mini bladder bag which you suck out. Tastes better than the way I have just described it. Still two ice creams was not very substantial.

Made it back to Tokyo with time to catch a movie with a friend in the afternoon – Toy Story 3 in 3D, dubbed in Japanese (yep, my friend booked tickets to the wrong one – the dubbed Japanese version rather than the original English). It was still such a great movie though. Highly recommend. It was funny and touching. The Ken montage scene to Le Freak is GOLD! I really want to see it again in English! By the by, the first day of every month is cheap movie day in Japan. It’s called “First Day” all tickets on a tsuitachi (first day of the month) are 1000yen. 1300yen because we saw it in 3D. This weekend was also the opening weekend in Japan for Inception which was actually our first movie preference but tix were sold out. A satisfying Sunday.

So I’ve accomplished my goal to do at least three open water swims this summer in Japan. But I’m not stopping there. I’m already registered for another two swims. The distances to date have been quite tame. I am ramping up the distances from hereon. Next weekend another swim – a 2km ocean swim in Shizuoka prefecture again. Not sure how I will go with these longer distances. It’s been a while since I’ve done some real long-distance swimming. Even more concerning is the 4km ocean swim in another few weeks! Here are some open water swimming advice/tips that appear in the swim program. The whole program is written in Japanese except for the following three bits which appear in English, which I think is really random: “‘Distraction’ means keeping your mind busy and away from negative thoughts, thinking thoughts unrelated to your swimming – eg. going through lists of things in your mind, such as your favourite movies, books etc.” “Open water swimmers require a completely different type of mental toughness to pool swimmers, as there are completely different aspects and challenges they face when out there in the open water.” “some issues you encounter under the stress of open water swimming can be extremely difficult unless your mind is programmed for mental toughness.”

 

Lake Toya swim

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With swim number 2 behind me, I’ve got another ocean swim race ahead of me this weekend. Here’s a recap of last Sunday’s swim. I arrived in Hokkaido on Saturday morning only to be greeted by clouds and rain at Chitose airport. Upon arrival in Hirafu I had a hearty brunch.

Given the weather conditions for the day, Fi and I had a chocolate bake-off for the rest of the day, but that, my friends, spawns another blog post. In short, there was a lot of drinking and eating had on the Saturday, topped off with a night at the pub for trivia where several glasses sparkling wine and meat pies were consumed. On a very full stomach and a few alcohol units, I somehow managed to get up early on the Sunday morning.

Departing Hirafu at about 7.30am we made good time to Lake Toya. The weather was gorgeous. What a fine day indeed it turned out to be. It was about 29 degrees that day and the sun was out. Courtesy of the sun’s appearance I am now sporting a decent tan despite applying generous amounts of suncream. I’ve got a pretty severe cossie tan. It was a great day to re-visit Lake Toya. I swam in both the 800m and 1.5km swims last year, and was entered again for both this year. Unfortunately, my times were a bit disappointing. It was definitely a slow swim day for me, but not bad considering how little training I did and the amount of food and drink I consumed the day before. Probably not the best training diet. Don’t try that at home kiddies. A sensible diet and an early night’s rest is ideal the night before a race. Oh well, good times were had anyway. It was really quite a miracle that I did not sink in that lake. Lake Toya is a freshwater lake, so the swim was a bit of a struggle. We swam across the shoreline. And man, I really felt the distance in this race. First up was the 800m swim. The distance felt a lot longer. My time was 15minutes and 11 seconds for that one, and placed 8th in my age category of about 17 people. A considerable difference between that and the 800m swim at Atami beach which I did in 10 minutes. The age category was all females under the age of 39. That was a pretty broad group of competitors. I felt really slow in the water and the distance felt like forever. I think the salt water in ocean swims really make a difference. Either that, or I was carrying a lot more weight through the water this time around, coz I felt heavy in that water. That swim was then followed by the 1.5km. That was a struggle. Especially after doing so poorly in the 800m, I didn’t know how I was going to double that. It was two laps of the same course (which would make it 1.6km ja nai?). I was slow and felt like I had been swimming forever. The finish line didn’t seem any closer. Usually I guesstimate my time by the length of a TV show. This swim felt like the Director’s Cut of Titanic along with preview and credits. The whole time I was swimming that 1.5km all I could think about was “how the hell I am going to swim 4km?”. During the week I had sent off an entry for a 4km beach swim. That was more than double what I was doing now! That’s going to be a solid 1.5 hour of swimming in the ocean. 4km! What was I thinking! “I’m struggling to swim 1.5km so how the hell will I finish 4km!” What was also frustrating about this swim apart from being slow and sluggish in the water was the two ends of the course were marked by blue raft boats that we had to swim around, yet they had lifeguards in other blue raft boats that were paddling along the course, so every time I would look up to see how much further I had, I kept seeing these moving raft boats which were the wrong ones and kept thinking I less to go than what I actually had to swim. I spent over half an hour in the water moving my arms and legs. My time ended up being 32minutes and 38 seconds. Another disappointing time.

Because I had entered both races, I could only choose one which would eligible for placings. I chose the 800m as my main event. For the 1.5km swim I wasn’t placed in my age category, but rather was lumped into the Open category. I didn’t improve on either time from last year’s results. Oh well. I’ll just have to do better in the next one. At least I didn’t sink. I will admit that after the swim at Lake Toya, my arms were a bit sore and my shoulder and back muscles were a bit tight. Doing non-arm strokes for over 45 minutes is kinda tiring. Also it’s kinda funny but I also got a sore neck after this race.I think it might have been from straining when looking up to find the buoys and water markers. During the race, a couple of swans even crossed the course. I was careful to get out of their way.

With the two swims behind me, it was time for lunch which was a delicious spread put on by Jojos. The lunch is worth the swim. Of course, most sane people would skip swimming 1.5km and just go to Jojos instead to eat their food. This year’s NAC t-shirt was also a really nice colour compared to last year’s grey t-shirt. Swim number 2 done and dusted. This Sunday I’ll be off to Chiba for a beach swim. That’ll be swim numero 3. I much prefer beach/ocean swims. It’s a standard 1km swim which is the minimum distance I swim whenever I go to the pool. I would like to do it in under 20 minutes as a personal goal but will prepare myself for a time anywhere between 15-25 minutes. Will let you know how it goes. I believe rain is forecast for this weekend though.

race gear

getting my race number texta-ed on my arm

Lake Toya on summer Sunday morning

in the water

Off to Hokkaido for swim # 2

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Most people get woken up by an alarm. This morning I got woken up by an earthquake at 6am. Such is life in Japan. Awake and albeit reluctantly, I hauled my ass to the pool for one last “training session” before the weekend. Open Water swim race number 2 for summer 2010 is this weekend, on Sunday. It’s been a fortnight since my last open water swim race. I’m travelling up to Hokkaido for this one heading up tomorrow morning.

This event is the only open water swim race in Hokkaido, and I use the term ‘open water’ deliberately in this case. This swim is not an OCEAN water swim. It’s in a lake. More specifically a volcanic caldera lake – Lake Toya, a beautiful lake in a nice onsen town. Here are some interesting facts about Lake Toya: – Lake Tōya is said to be the northernmost lake in Japan that never ices, – and the second most transparent lake in Japan. – The 2008 G8 Summit was held here This particular swim event is a private/non-official race in that it is not endorsed or organised by the Japan Open water swimming association. This race is run by a local adventure/outdoor company in Hirafu/Niseko.

This swim is kind of close to my heart for several reasons. Firstly, Hokkaido was my first experience of Japan ever. I first came to Japan as a uni exchange student and I was placed at Sapporo University (not my first preference at the time). Our flight from Sydney was to Chitose airport in Hokkaido so I never even landed on Honshu before arriving to Japan. I lived in Sapporo for one year. It was where I first fell in love with Japan and knew that I would return. After graduating from uni I was back to Japan on the JET program. I also visited Hokkaido again during that time.

After finishing JET, I then moved back to Hokkaido and lived in Hirafu, Niseko (a major ski resort town) for a year and a half. Sunday’s swim race is called Big Swim Toya and it is hosted by NAC (Niseko Adventure Centre). I lived within walking distance of NAC and spent some time there. They have a great restaurant/cafe called JoJo’s – it’s a beautiful casual, spacious restaurant with delicious food to boot. They have a little shop and an indoor wall climbing facility too. They also run heaps of activities and tours all-year round like rafting, snowshoeing etc. In addition to the Big Toya Swim event, they also put on the Hirafu 10km Trail Run which I also competed in last year – the most gruelling 10km run over. It’s not a road run, it’s a trail run – up and down mountains and ski slopes. I also competed in this same swim last year, so it will be nice to do it again and hopefully improve my time from last year. So there you have it – me and Hokkaido go way back. I always like going back to Hokkaido – it’s also one of the most prettiest prefectures in Japan in my opinion. In fact, Hokkaido is awesome – great climate, powder snow, awesome coast line, great onsens, majestic mountains, delicious seafood and miso ramen, gigantic national parks, festive festivals, pretty flowers (Furano and Biei), home of Sapporo Beer and Royce choco, etc etc, stop me now… So this Sunday’s swim at Lake Toya will be a little trip down memory lane.

I competed in the 800m and the 1.5km swim back to back last year, and will be doing the same again this year. Lake Toya is a freshwater lake, so again these are different water conditions to what I’m used to. For one, the water temperature is a lot colder. Wetsuits are a given at this one. I don’t wear a wetsuit. I don’t own one, and even if I did, I wouldn’t wear one. Plain old togs do me just fine. Also, there is no salt content in the water, which means less bouyancy than an ocean swim. I know my times are definitely going to be slower. On the upside, there is virtually no current. The water is very flat, still and cold. It also means that the water is also quite pleasant to drink should you accidentally gulp some of it. I recall from last year that the water was quite tasty. Cool, clean and fresh – the way water should be. So it’s been two weeks since my last race event. I’ve done a little bit of training. Not as much as I would have liked. The first 800m event I’m not too worried about. I will be fresh so my time will hopefully be ok. My goal is to improve on my 800m swim time from last year which was 14 minutes and 39 seconds. The catch-22 here is that the faster I swim the 800m the greater rest time between that race and the start of the 1.5km swim. But the faster I swim, the more tired I’m going to be for the 1.5km race. From memory last year, I had about a 20min break between the two which was not too bad. As for the 1.5km I don’t expect my time to be so great, just average. After having already gone flat out in the first 800m event, I’m already going to be a little tired by the time I have to compete in the 1.5km. All up, it’s 2.3km all on a Sunday morning. The 1.5km is basically two laps of the first 800m course. If I can improve on last year’s time I’ll be pleased. Not 100% confident that I can pull it off though. Here was my 2-week swim plan in the lead up to this event after the first Atami race: In bold was my planned training schedule (i.e what I told myself I should do). In parentheses next to it is what I actually ended up doing.

July 12 2km swim (nothing. did not go to gym -I was actually sick after the Atami swim)

July 13 1.5km swim and 45min walk(1km swim + 250m swim)

July 14 1.5km swim and 45min walk (nothing)

July 15 1.5km swim and 45min walk (45min walk (4km) and 30min cycle)

July 16 2km swim (45min walk (4km)

July 17 3km swim and walk/cycle (1.5km swim)

July 18 Walk (5.5km walk) J

uly 19 1.5km swim and 45min walk (nothing)

July 20 2km swim (45min walk (4km))

July 21 gym closed nothing

July 22 1.5km swim and 45min walk (1.5km swim and45min walk (4km) – stuck to the plan – yay)

July 23 2km swim (1.1.km swim)

July 24 no swim. Never swim the day before event (will be sticking to the plan)

July 25 Lake Toya Swim Day Race event: 800m and Race event: 1.5km

The above suggests that:

a) I am way too optimistic when I plan my training schedule

b) I am an unrealistic goal setter

c) I am an underachieving lazy human being

d) I spend way too much time blogging about swimming than actually swimming

e) I should take up walking as a sport because I spend more time walking than I do swimming

f) all of the above I blogged a breifly about the Lake Toya swim last year. You can read that old post here. If you should feel so inclined to participate in this swim next year, info can be found on the NAC website here. If you email them (English or Japanese) they can send you an application form in the post. You can then pay by furikomi. Application form, documents etc are available in Japanese and English. double entry for both swims is 8500yen. One event is 5500yen. This cost includes a t-shirt and yummy all you can eat bbq lunch feast and a participation certificate. Also the chance to win heaps of lucky dip prizes. Placings also receive prizes. NAC do a great job of putting on this event. Super organised and friendly staff. You can even camp at Lake Toya the night before. Kudos to the competitors who sleep in a tent and then swim the next morning. I prefer the comfort of a bed the night before a swim race.

Bex made a video of last year’s Toya swim race. You can watch it below: WARNING: A most unflattering video of me. All my wrong angles (why is it always the side angle???) and I’m wearing a swimsuit in pretty much nearly every scene…not a pretty sight coz I ain’t no skinny bitch. I like my food and lots of it too! You were warned. Oh, and I hate my voice too. Maybe I should go drown in Lake Toya rather than actually swim in it. Clearly I belong behind the camera rather in front of it. So apart from me starring in the video, the video is great. Very entertaining and big kudos to Bex for making it. Thank you, Bex! It was actually a fun day and I’m looking forward to doing it again this weekend. I’ll be sure to be blogging about it next week. Here’s hoping for better weather this time around. Last year was wet and rainy, grey and overcast. The lake was kinda eerie with its low mist. So at the risk of personal embarrassment I am going to upload the video. (Video duration: 5min, 24 seconds – – – 5 minutes and 24 seconds that you will never get back from your life again). (Just tried uploading directly onto my blog. Exceeds my blog media file limit. Will upload to Youtube)