swim fishy fishy

Week 1 swim week CHECK. Unfortunately (or not), I missed the first day which was a 3k, but no fear - coach has added another swim packed week starting TODAY.

I'm very happy with how my body responded to the increase in swim volume and intensity. I'm a good swimmer, and while I do love to swim for some reason I do have a hard time getting my butt to the pool for all 3 days per week on my schedule. Not always, but sometimes. Swims are ~ an hour long, but 20mins to the gym, 20 mins home. 10mins to stare at the pool and get in when I'm cold (seems to be a lot lately), then 20mins to shower and put on 10layers of lotion to offset the chlorine damage. Yup, it's a good 2+hour workout, smack in the middle of the day.

I'm lucky to have a work from home job, and typically have a nice break in the middle of the day so it does work out, but sometimes while I'm busy going back and forth across the pool, I do miss out on some one off work that needs to be done = I make no money.

Anyway, back to swim week. Since I was sick most of the weekend and into Monday I took Monday as rest day. It was a smart choice as I woke up feeling MUCH better, albeit still pretty snotty. Tuesday was just a tempoish ride, which I felt pretty good. Wed started right back with swim week and a BANG. It was a friend's 40x100 birthday swim. The interval sets were longer rest that I typically have, so I actually fared really well on this workout. I wasn't too trashed, and actually probably swam faster 100s than I normally would have because of the extra rest. I was however, pretty sore on Wed from this - I haven't gone 4k in months!

No rest for the weary tho! Thursday was 2800m swim, nothing too intense. It hurt for the first 1000, but by the end my shoulders, lats and triceps actually felt better than when I started. Friday was another 3100 set, this time with some fast intervals mixed in. I stayed on my rest intervals and finished the workout strong!

Saturday was bike/run day and Sunday was another bike followed by a 3500 swim. I was a little low on calories starting the day on the ride so I ate a LOT on the bike, following the bike and even added an extra (Cliff) Zbar topped with Pb on the way to the pool. I met a friend at a SCY pool to do this swim. BOY what a difference! The pool I swim in is SIGNIFICANTLY longer than a SCY pool. Not only is it meters, but it's actually 26.2 meters. So, basically every 1000 "meters" is really 1050. Bonus meters!

It was actually kinda cool to go to this pool to check some of my times. I haven't been in a normal distance pool in a while, so sometime I forget what kind of speed I actually have. This workout was no flop swim either, it was 1000 neg split warmup, 800 buoy, bands & paddles - negative split. Followed by 4x200. The time interval was supposed to be 3:50 for my normal pool, but I needed to shorten that up for this pool. My guess was about :12 per 100 faster, so I decided to go on 3:25. It worked out perfectly and to my surprise I was VERY happy with my times. I was even able to descend them. 3:04, 3:02, 3:00 and my last (I worked for this though) was 2:56! I decided to do add an ez 200 after to loosen up my arms for the last set of 800 bbp. The last set went great as well and I was about :12 faster than the first 800! I added a little to the cd to make it an even 4k, which is just about = to the 3500 Gainey meters.

Swim week = Success. ~13,500 in 4 swims & 5 days.

Next up. Swim week #2. Yup, apparently I get to do it all over again, starting today!

IN OTHER EXCITING NON swimming news. I'm finally, after 6 months beginning to LOVE My BIKE! WHOOT :)