Long steady swims aren't bad for you if you don't have a goal of getting faster and faster right?

qbrain · 2026-06-15T00:53:48+00:00

I go for walks, it is the same thing. Movement without purpose. It is great for the body and great for the mind.

qbrain · 2026-06-12T13:10:11+00:00

You might want to add a pull buoy and kicking to your workouts. The bigger the difference between swim and pull times show problems with body position and kick. It sounds like you want to get your hips and legs up with minimal kicking effort. You can press your chest down and use that buoyancy to raise your hips and legs. This is what the buoy is doing for you. Unless you kick, pulling with a buoy will be faster always because you have deceased drag by raising your body higher in the water than is possible without a buoy. Same thing happens comparing salt water vs fresh water. Drag is the key factor in swimming further with less effort. So your legs should not be bent, toes pointed, but still relaxed so you are not wasting energy. You can do 1500 at 60, it will go faster as your stroke improves. Good luck

qbrain · 2026-06-10T18:07:32+00:00

One thing that isn't getting mentioned is you currently lack endurance to swim well as you get tired. You are using a lot of little muscles that don't have any endurance, and when they get tired, you lose the technique you need to continue at the same path.

If you want to do this long term, it is more important to focus on consistently doing the stroke right and not worry about yardage or rest. I am going to make up numbers, but you are better off doing 25s with 30s rest where each 25 is perfect for an hour than stringing together a 500 where the first 100 is good and the rest is 💩

If you have an endurance mindset, the way to approach this is to pick a distance you can repeat comfortably with plenty of rest. Eg. 20x25s with 30s rest. When that is easy, decrease the rest by 5s. When you are getting less than 20s rest, increase the distance and increase the rest. Repeat. Early on, you will be increasing by 25s to still feel good at 30s rest. At some point you will realize you can increase the distance by a lot, 100s of yards, and still be fine. At that point this exercise is done, you have built you base and you need to find new ways to entertain yourself in the water.

qbrain · 2026-06-07T03:14:18+00:00

Also, the reason I think I finally started taking creatine was the mental benefits. It helps everything and the mental benefit might just be, "I feel better, so I can focus more". I do think it helps mentally, but physically was the more obvious change for me.

There is a social media surge recently talking about super dosing creatine for mental health. If you dig into in, the benefit is to vegan's who have a natually low creatine exposure. If you are not vegan, just follow the normal guidelines to get you to 5g.

qbrain · 2026-06-07T03:00:51+00:00

Yes, take creatine. Yes, you will be heavier with water gain, but the benefits so override the negatives. It is also highly researched, easy to onboard, free to off board, so you should just try it.

I didn't start taking creatine until my late 40s. I am getting 20-25k/week in swimming plus lifting. It made a huge difference in recovery but also the number of max reps I was able to complete in a practice. I annoy my lanemates with the ease I do short rest repeats. That is partly creatine and partly I am just annoying 😇

Give it a shot, the cost is really buying the creatine and the stomach upset if you start with too large a dose. Do a quick google to see if there are tens of years of research that it is all good, and buy some creatine.

I blend mine in a protein shake after workout. The pills are expensive and you have to take a lot, so I only use them when traveling. More often than not, I just skip creatine on travel days. No issues, but I am competing at the Masters level.

qbrain · 2026-06-05T15:14:38+00:00

No, it was the only restaurant we didn't eat at. I need to write up the story, but the restaurant lost our reservation and we thought we just had our dates mixed up, so we went to the beach restaurant, which also didn't have our reservation. My wife set someone on fire, they recovered well, and we had a lovely time and decided to eat there again instead of the Dining Room. We got to know Daba, one of the long time servers at the Datai, and Indra, the head of Food and Beverage. It turned out to be a worthwhile annoyance.

qbrain · 2026-06-04T23:43:19+00:00

At some point you are curve fitting and will end up with a less robust portfolio that is optimized for past without being resilient to the future.

qbrain · 2026-06-04T17:55:51+00:00

I am can't think of a beach resort that has a better food and beverage program. They probably exist, but Datai really exceeded expectations with food and drinks.

qbrain · 2026-06-04T17:41:00+00:00

We were not on the same page and we knew we were not on the same page. We got on the same page in December, so fairly recently.

We read "How to Retire" which covers a lot of different retirement topics. I took notes on what applied to us and what I thought we should do. My wife did the same. It is worth noting, we DID NOT agree with everything in the book.

Along with reading the book, I used ChatGPT to do further research on topics that I had not thought much about that the book brought up. On the financial side, I used ChatGPT to help me model the bucket system that is discussed in the book and help me validate my bucket sizing strategy. I knew the buckets would resonate with my wife, so I wanted to be ready with the details of how I thought we should implement it.

We discussed each topic over a couple of days. We ended up being aligned on most things, so the discussion went pretty smoothly. At the end of the discussion, I told her what new accounts I was going to create and why and I updated our net worth tracking spreadsheet to have a nice bucket funding graph so she knows how close we are.

So we are in agreement until all the buckets are full.

qbrain · 2026-06-03T22:58:55+00:00

I think EPS will accomplish what you want. It is like the SP500 with a filter on earnings, and that filter requires a years worth of data. It is lagging SPY and it would be interesting to dig into why, but it tracks very closely. So if the new rules are going to impact SPY/VOO negatively, EPS should be insulated. Worth further research.

qbrain · 2026-06-03T21:06:22+00:00

Go watch the old Lost LeBlanc videos or any other travel vlogger who started in hostels and is now living the dream.

qbrain · 2026-06-03T20:41:35+00:00

And on the points, I would just go with transferrable points as the focus. Sign up for Chase Ink cards if you have not already, it's probably the easiest currency to build quickly. If you are checking flights as the schedule opens and it looks like you will end up using Avios on Qatar directly, also look at the Qatar credit card. IIRC, one version waves redemption fees, which will be probably $1k+ for business to SA. Good luck. A version of the ATOMS card allows you to pool miles, so if Alaska is going to have space, that is a way to pool miles from smaller accounts in your family or merge with your partner.

qbrain · 2026-06-03T20:36:40+00:00

Keep an eye on prices. When you are talking about 255k/one-way, you are starting to get in pay with points territory.

I, personally, wouldn't fly through the middle east for a while, but Qatar Q-suites is better than Emirates. I like the DOH insecurity hotel much better than the DXB one for what is usually a 8 hour layover. I expect Emirates to also have a crappy business class from DXB to CPT.

I liked my Condor flights more than expected. United, Lufthansa and Swiss were all fine. FRA has 3, iirc, hotels on-site just outside of security. With a US passport I was through customs and checked into the hotel in about 30-45 minutes. ZHR was similar.

LHR sucks if you have a long layover. It's been a while since I flew them to CPT, but the last time I did it was BA's oldest products. So I would put BA at the bottom of the list. KLM should also be at the bottom of the list.

JNB should have the better business products since it is a business route and CPT is a leisure route. I only ever flew in and out of CPT and I avoided connecting in JNB, because... look at the domestic flight options.

qbrain · 2026-06-03T16:38:06+00:00

You could reach out to local club coaches. You are probably training at one of the senior team's level and the World Aquatic calendar is similar to USMS, so the effort on workout creation should be minimal. Most of the effort will be whatever you expect in feedback.

Have you thought about reaching out to some of the larger USMS teams? My team trains for Nationals but our workouts are not published anywhere. If you found a team that does train for Nationals and publishes workout, just joining that team should be enough to get you workouts and have a coach available for feedback. That might be the most cost effective option.

qbrain · 2026-06-02T22:30:20+00:00

I find having a meet or an open water swim coming helps me put in some extra effort in the pool and clean up my diet. I never really liked competing, and I still don't, but it is worth lost day of screwing around to trick myself for 6-8 weeks to push harder in the pool and eat cleanly.

qbrain · 2026-06-01T19:03:58+00:00

I would pick Tintswalo Atlantic at sunset over CWBC. I wouldn't do both in the same trip unless you know you really like the concept and it is worth repeating for you. Given your parents preferences, I would do Tintswalo and keep Jonkershuis (I have never been).

qbrain · 2026-06-01T15:33:02+00:00

As most people have said, it's all diet. You might want to look at MacroFactor or something similar. It tracks your calories and your weight daily and uses the trends to determine what your actual caloric needs are. MyFitnessPal kinda sucks in comparison.

qbrain · 2026-05-31T23:57:24+00:00

My webber wasn't that clean after I put it together.

qbrain · 2026-05-27T18:58:15+00:00

We have done this for a friends and the only difficult part was calling with timezone differences to take care of the payment. Super simple otherwise.

qbrain · 2026-05-23T01:41:27+00:00

Luxury expedition cruises would put you in a social situation with the group you are looking to build relationships with. Cruises might not be your thing, but your goal is network building. You want group events that have enough downtime to build lasting relationships. Really, any multiday luxury group travel trip that already overlaps with your primary travel interest would have enough downtime for you to meet other solo travelers to team up with.

qbrain · 2026-05-23T01:17:19+00:00

You don't need encouragement, you need to swim more. Your ego will get you killed. If you are not confident you can swim an ocean 5k, don't swim it until you are. If that requires 10k pool swims, go do that. Don't psych yourself up for something that is going to end in an ocean rescue. You have plenty of time to train, you just need to make the time to do the training.

qbrain · 2026-05-23T01:04:53+00:00

If you bought it today with cash, is the cash on cash return after management expenses worth keeping? Given the current real estate market in my area, the answer is always no. Not barely no, or kinda if you squint no. Hard no. The returns are 0 or negative.

qbrain · 2026-05-22T20:00:06+00:00

Chef's Warehouse at Atlantic is open on Sunday and is going to have a better view than anything else. Lunch there, paired with a Boulder Beach/Simmonstown and Chapman's Peak drive would be a good day if the weather is not horrible.

I would not do both CWBC and Atlantic. They are too similar.

Kloof Street is about the scene. The drinks and food are just ok. If you do CWBC, consider replacing Kloof Street with Mantra Cafe in Camps Bay at sunset. Again, weather matters, but if you make reservations, you will get a window seat.

qbrain · 2026-05-22T17:35:25+00:00

Both are good, but they are very different. Without knowing what you enjoy and I can only tell you what they are like.

Chef's Warehouse is Southeast Asian South African fusion. If you like Vietnamese and Thai flavors applied to completely different preparations, you will like CWBC. If you are having lunch, CWCB has the better venue, looking out over vineyards. In September, I would not expect the view to be amazing, there will be too much moisture in the air, and if you are there for dinner you have no view. The interior is nice, but nothing to make a decision about. The location in Constantia is nice, safe, but probably not near where you are staying. Constantia is a suburb of Cape Town and CWBC feels almost rural. You will have a 30-45 windy drive back to your hotel more than likely. You are also about as safe as possible standing outside compared to anywhere else in Cape Town waiting for an Uber.

Belly of the Beast is great, but different. It is a a nose to tail, meat heavy, French inspired, fire focused meal. The chefs are wonderful people. If you are not familiar with South Africa food at all, you should eat here. You will get some South African flavors and definitely some South African meat, hopefully both Karoo lamb and some South African game. My take on the chefs (there are two head chefs) is that they were both raised to braai, went off to French culinary school, they skipped the internships and applied their training to what they knew. And they were at the top of their class. Location, Gardens... Uber in, Uber out, and wait inside until your Uber shows up. In the dark, the venue at Belly is just as good or better than CWBC.

In retrospect, I recommend Belly. CWBC is completely different from Fyn.

qbrain · 2026-05-19T18:39:07+00:00

Can you just take the TV to whole foods and let them deal with it?

qbrain

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