Huh?!

Sometimes you have it, that fire, that desire to work hard, to bust your butt in the pool, on the road, at the gym. Then there are days like Tuesday.

Maybe I'm growing soft. Maybe I'm getting old (no maybe about that). Maybe I'm lazy. But Tuesday after work, I went to the big pool at Twin Rivers and couldn't deal with the TWO robots running. Yeah, two of those "man-eaters" as John calls them. 

I dealt with them Monday and even did intervals. I always groan when I see one of them in the pool when I am about to swim. I rarely do intervals if a robot is running because crossing that line slows me down and destroys my rhythm. But somehow Monday I had the inner wherewithal to swim, swim intervals, and not feel like being violent with those little monsters.

Tuesday, however, was a different story. They were set on opposite sides of the pool so I was bound to cross at least one on every lap. On my first trip down the pool, I crossed the one set on the far side of the pool not once but twice. Then the other one was set in the far corner insuring that I had to cross it twice every single trip up and down. I found that extremely irritating. I glanced at the Garmin after two laps and saw that my time was horrendously slow. I swam one more and got out. There is always the little pool, I thought.

At the little pool, I had no robot to deal with; I only had myself. After a couple of 50s I looked at the watch and to my horror I was swimming slower than 2:00 minutes per 100. Of course I felt like crap, and I don't know why. I only swam 4,200 the day before. But I didn't have it in the body or the mind Tuesday to work hard or even to work easy. I swam 800 yards only through sheer determination and got out.

Maybe I should have refused to tap out. But when you are in the pit, I always thought it's best not to keep digging. I swam

300 long course in 6:55 (2:18, Monday I was doing intervals @ 2:15)
800 short course in 16:13 (2:01, I have never swum that slow)
total: 1,031 meters

What was wrong? I don't know. I am thinking it's just accumulated fatigue from my job (the end of a semester is always a time of high stress for me) and the workouts I've done over the past few months.

Last week, I fell off to 16,640 meters from 28,332 the week before that. This week I am slipping from what I did last week. What to do? The month of May is prime time for Chicot training. Now is the time to build endurance, to swim every meter possible. I have to get it turned around soon, like today.

Thank you, Lord, for the hope that I can do that.