The Week

The week of 11/3-11/9 was a good one. Pretty good. As a planned drop down week, I intentionally missed a couple of days of running. I did, however, keep my key workouts at a good distance and pace. Monday I ran 10.03 miles with some stiff intervals thrown in. Tuesday I did not run, but for the first time since April I went to Cleveland where I hugged my daughter and granddaughter and granddog and then travelled to DSU to train under The Mad Swimming Scientist. It was nice to swim with the guys again and, believe it or not, I enjoyed the short course pool. In the past, I have done more than my fair share of complaining about the twenty-five yard setup at DSU's sixty meter pool. I wish they would leave it at long course year round. But short course makes me feel strong and fast, although I am well aware that the feeling is at least in part an illusion. Sometimes, though, it's nice to pretend. We did

800
8 X 50 kick with fins
200 negative split
50 easy
400 negative split
100 easy
600 negative split
8 X 50
100 easy
total: 3,050 SCYs.

Wednesday night my film class got truncated due to failing power. Too bad because we were in the middle of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Thankfully, earlier in the semester I got us a week ahead so we will be OK. Unfortunately I had hoped I could squeeze in Big River Man. Not to be. Although Big River Man is a documentary, a genre I never cover, it has some artistic and thematic elements that I try to teach my film students each semester. In addition, I also find it interesting because of the subject matter, swimming, and the star, Martin Strel who I have met and swum with. Maybe I can still find a way.

After work, I went out in the drizzle and ran 6.03 miles. Before I finished, however, the drizzle became a downpour. Neat. Running in the rain. Not as neat as swimming in the rain, but not bad.  The temp was still high enough that I was not uncomfortable. Thursday after class I was tired so I napped until time to travel back to DSU where we did a ladder set. I asked Cagri how he wanted the ladder swum. "Twenty seconds rest, make your own focus," was all he said. So I did the first three reps easy and then put the hammer down on the 400s. For some reason, I love to swim a hard 400. That particular discomfort is one I embrace. I swam

1,250 warmup
100 r :20 on all
200
300
400
400
300
200
100
350 small paddles
4 X 25
50 easy
total: 3,750 SCYs.

I wrote about Friday in my last post. Saturday I was still pretty pooped from Friday so I did not do much. Ideally, I would have liked to have lifted weights, run, and maybe swum some. The Twin Rivers pool is still up. I did take Jeff to the recycle bins and we did some walking. We ambled down to the boat landing, and I stuck my hand in. I was expecting the water to be 65 or colder. My hand said 68. Wow! We have has some pretty cold nights so that really surpised me. It may, however, have been a couple of degrees colder out in the flowing water. My hand was in the shallow still stuff over the conrete ramp.

For the week, I

ran 35.06 miles,
lifted weights one time,
swam 6,214 meters, and
walked 5.79 miles.
Also, I did my first twenty-miler and am getting a bit excited about my running.