Let's get pruny!

It has been a hectic week.  Got a few things in the wind outside of training which have me stressed and excited at the same time.  Fingers crossed!

The past week was an awesome one.  I did a pretty good job at executing key workouts and the leg seems to be holding up fine.  I really don't get it but have been taking extra care to stretch, ice and take my vitamins (for Hulk).

I am slightly messed up lately with the way my program is laid out as I am used to Monday - Sunday but my new stuff has all been Sunday-Saturday.  Yet, I am getting used to it.

So I have commenced Operation Ramp Up.  I am trying to get in 3 swims, 3 bikes and 5 runs per week.  Also trying to get in some core and strength too.  I am ramping up my running in the hopes that perhaps I can run Nashville Marathon on April 30th (my anniversary) but if I have any concern with the leg I will just do the half like last year (not worth long term injury).

The nice thing about the running program I am following based on Arthur Lydiard philosophies is that while I am running more, it seems pretty easy.  The pacing is so much easier than the fast speedwork I was putting myself through and typically my HR sits in Zone 2 for the most part.  I think right now this is good for a couple reasons.

1.  It does not seem to bother my leg.
2.  It does not wreck my legs so I can still hit my quality bikes (which are grueling toughies).

Last week went as such-

Sunday - 9mile ran at 8:33 pace, 1100m swam, 45 min core circuit at LFT
Monday-19 mile bike, 2000 m swam
Tuesday- 14 miles ran at 8:35
Wednesday- Gorris Bike W/O #1 (21 M Biked), 2000 m swam
Thursday- 7 miles ran (short)
Friday - 22 miles bikes (gorris #2)
Saturday - 31 miles biked, 2000 yards swam
and Sunday 10,000 yards swam at CTC Swim Challenge!!!

(Short 2 runs, but wanted to make sure I eased in a bit)

So the swim challenge:  I had not really said much about it.  Mostly I think because I think so little of my swimming.  I always feel slow and it is my limiter.  Last year with a broken elbow, I did not get to work on my swimming like I should have.  This winter I have seen some improvements, yet no where near where I would like to be.

So back to the challenge, we had 3.5 hours to get it done.  2:15 intervals would put me over 3.5 hours so I decided I would shoot for 2 min repeats.  This was good for a couple reasons.  This really helped me to pace myself.  My lane mates were both faster than me but I decided to stick with the plan.  I am sure I could have tried to stick with them for a little bit and would have totally crashed and burned.  Also, staying on 2 min made counting so easy.  Every 20 minutes was 1000 down.  I started into the day just set on following my plan and everything was going well.  I also decided I would follow the set plan put out by our challenge coordinator which broke everything up into sets of 10.


100x100 - 1 minutes rest between sets (optional)
1-10 warm up of your choice - free
11-20 50 pull/50 swim
21-30 50 kick with fins / 50 swim with fins   
31-40 50 swim / 50 pull
41-50 swim
51-60 choice (fins and pull optional)
61-70 pull
71-80 swim (fins optional)
81-90 swim or pull of your choice
91-100 survival swim- do whatever you need to finish!!!!


I enjoyed doing the sets like this.  The zoomers and pull buoy on some sets definitely made it WAAAY easier.  (Definitely felt like cheating compared to people who did the whole 10,000 free).  So I was chugging along, not taking any additional rests beyond a couple quick sips of my First Endurance EFS drink to stay right on my 2 min interval.  It had become a mission to be right around there every 100.  Sometimes a little ahead or behind depending on where my lane mates were.  As I really had no breaks more than 20 seconds or so, I made a deal with myself that I would take a short break at 7000 and hopped out, hit the rr, grabbed a fig newton and some more EFS and was back at it in 4 minutes.  The break felt good for and the last 3000 went by pretty painlessly.  I picked it up the last 400 or so and finished in 3:18:33 or 3:22:33 with my 4 min break. YEAH!!!  I did it!  That is really far by the way- 10,000 yards is also 400 lengths, 200 laps, 5.68 miles!

Overall, my upper body muscles are less fatigued than after a upper body workout (maybe I am not working those muscles hard enough in the swim).  The only real source of discomfort is my neck from turning it left a million times.  Seriously I wonder how many times I breathed!  The other glaring takeaway is I NEED TO LEARN FLIP TURNS.  I lose soooo much there comparatively!

Overall the swim challenge was a huge success for CTC and it was really fun to participate!  Next year I will try to do it faster!

Did I mention how pruny I felt when I was done?  Thank goodness I had my TriSwim lotion to help my poor dry skin when I was done!

This morning it was back to it and I hopped on the treadmill for 15 miles which was the long run I would usually do over the weekend!  That felt good but I was crazy bored and happy to get off that dumb thing after 2:05.  Not only was I happy to get off the thing out of boredom, but my stupid arm and legs both are really chaffed!

Happy Monday!