That's What I'm Talkin' About

If you read this blog, you know that Monday I was as low as a pygmy's toenail. A bad week of training and a couple of months of strangely cold weather and water, had left me woefully short on long swims despite the fact that I had accumulated a fair amount of swimming. But my fair amount of swimming was built on frequency. Now frequency is important, but for a long swim, one has to do some long swimming. Duh. Tuesday proved to be a good day with 4.05 miles of running and 5,700 meters of swimming. But 5,700 meters (again acquired by double dipping) is still a long way short of what I need in order to swim 16-miles.

Then came Wednesday.

I arrived at the pond around 12 noon and took a water reading: 68 degrees, cool but doable. To make a short story long, I swam and ran and swam and ran. I like this kind of training. I swim a few laps, get out, put on running shoes, and run. Then I eat and repeat until I have that Forrest gump moment and just decide to go home. It's a proven fitness builder.

I love the smell of fish slime in the morning.

I wound up running 5.21 and swimming 6.36 miles. Now that's what I'm talking about. That is the kind of work I've been needing, but until now I have not had the time, the weather, or the water temperature to pull  it off. When the water is in the low sixties, even with a wetsuit, I have proved to be too much of a cold-water sissy to be able to stay in long enough before fear of hypothermia would drive me out of the water. The indoor pool at DSU you ask? Well, let's just say they have their schedule and I don't have a key. I swim until they ask me to leave.

After Wednesday's epic training, I ran and easy 3.54 miles Thursday morning before making my way to Twin Rivers for an afternoon swim. Normally I go to Masters on Thursday nights, but the mad Swimming Scientist is out of town and practice is cancelled. The 10,233 meters from the day before were very much with me as a did a long slow warmup and followed that with some 100s on 2:00. It wasn't long before I couldn't make 2:00 anymore (normally 2:00 is a piece of cake) so I went to 2:10. A half a dozen 100s later and I changed to 2:15. I quit the pool after 4,100 slow meters. I may have been tired and sluggish, but I didn't fret being tired and sluggish because that's part of the price one must pay to build endurance.

Friday morning I went back to Twin Rivers and swam 2,000 straight followed by 100 kick with Zoomers before starting another long set. I was only few hundred into that set when I knew if I was to have anything for Saturday, I had to tap out. So I stopped after only 2,600 meters. Still, and despite not training at all on Monday, my total for the week is 22,633 meters swimming. This is a pretty decent total with one long swim in the bag and a day left to train. So gassing two days in a row was no big deal.

Tomorrow, Randy and I plan on going back to Austin where we have access to the biggest pond on the biggest fish farm in the world. I don't know how much I'll be able to get in, but I'll do all I can.