Swimming Humility; Evolutionary Biology Question

Workout notes 4000 yard swim; 5 x 100 on 2 (warm up), 5 x 100 fist on 2 (warm up)
10 x 100 (25 fly, 75 free) on 2; mostly 1:42-1:43; one 1:44, two 1:41s. Then 10 x 100 on the 1:45 (first 8 were 1:38-1:39; last two were 1:40, 1:41). Then 5 x 100 on 2 (sfs, 3g, 50 free, fins), 500 cool down (3 100s with paddles, 2 without).

Frankly, I wasn’t motivated at all. Don’t get me wrong, I enjoyed the swim. But that’s the problem; I enjoyed it. There was no fire, no sense of “I have to swim these intervals this fast”; it was strictly “fitness for fun” stuff and NOT training. I just had no desire to break out of my warm, fuzzy comfortable cocoon.

Humility This pool/gym does NOT cater to the “swimmer” crowd; most of the folks here are, well, dog paddlers. But there are some good swimmers who show up; there is this one somewhat short but well built guy who just kicks my butt every morning. When he is doing a long, relaxed set and I am doing hard intervals, I can stay with him for maybe 1/2 a length; sometimes even a length.

We talked a bit afterward and it turns out he is training for a 10K open water swim in May (Michigan).

He swam the Big Shoulders 5K….in 1:15 (21 minutes faster than I did!) Ah, that explains why I can’t stay with him.

Evolutionary Biology Question

In my last post, I linked to a blog post from Millard Fillmore’s Bathtub. I admit that, at first, I was amused that the post was “about sex”. But something else caught my eye.

In one incident around 70 carp, worth about £3,000, were lost after male toads tried to mate with them on the Wykeham Estate. [...]

The toads clamp themselves on to the carp’s face and push its eyes into the sockets – and, if several reptiles are involved, the carp drowns due to its gills being closed.

Mr Heelis said the fish had encountered the toads after swimming into the lake’s warmer, shallow waters during the recent mild weather.

He said: “The fish are stressed, you can tell, because they are lethargic. We have several thousand fish here and maybe a third of them had the toads attached to them. This is unnatural.”

Then I thought to myself: is this a “confused toad” reaction, or is it something else? After all, fish eat frogs and toads.

I was then reminded of this:

The problem: hornets attack honeybees and kill them (to use their larva to feed their own young)

The solution

The bees have “learned” to use their superior numbers to smother and suffocate their attackers.

My question Is that what these toads are doing to the carp (a potentially lethal intruder for them)?

I warmly welcome feedback, edification or correction from those who know more.

Politcs Swing State Project is trying to get together a group project that will tally Presidential vote totals by congressional district.

Weird Obama Trivia Did you know that Barack Obama can bench press 200 pounds? (psst: I did 205 about 2 years ago, and my lifetime best was 310 (1985, at 230 pounds of bodyweight)).