It's hard to believe, but we're already at the training week with the highest number of hours in our plan, at 10.5. It seems like just yesterday that I was struggling to swim a 400.
This morning was a 3000m swim, broken into 6x500. Once I got through it, I thought it would be a shame to end up 200m short of 2 miles, so I tacked on a 200 meter cooldown, and broke 2 miles for the first time!
I was a little bit of a slacker last week, and took a couple days off in a row. My knee had been a little tight after the race last week, and I wanted to rest it, but the rest ended up being a little excessive. For me, it's tough mentally to get back in the groove once I allow myself an unplanned day off.
Yesterday it was back in the saddle, but before the saddle was the first open water swim. I rented a wetsuit for the weekend, and we drove up to Alum Creek State Park for the day.
Open water swimming is tough!
I had a really hard time keeping a straight line, and the water was choppy from wind and boats. Meredith assured me that the water is usually calmer for races, since they're usually in the early morning. We think we did maybe 1200m or so, but there were quite a few breaks. It's got me a little nervous for the race this weekend - I know I can finish the distance, but I hope I won't have to tread water too much to figure out what direction I'm going!
Following the swim, we hopped on our bikes for a 2-hour tour of the lakes of northeast Columbus. It was a pretty scenic ride, and offered quite a bit of hill work on some of the roads. One hill in particular, though short, hit us pretty well. I think I was down in single digit MPH by the top. After the climb, we got to come down the other side, and I hit my top speed for the day at 30.5 MPH. One more climb back up to the dam where we started, and we put our bikes away in favor of running shoes.
This is the part where we both kicked ourselves afterwards, because we were so hot and tired that we decided to cut down our run from 30 minutes. We aimed for maybe a mile, at least, to get the experience of running right after the bike, but then we opted for the air conditioned car.
After this week, it's all downhill to Muncie!
3 comments:
Swimming in a lake is a little different than swimming in a pool, that's for sure. They don't often paint lane-lines on the lake bottom! Like you, I can't swim straight without a line to follow, so when swimming in a lake, I try to pick a stationary object on the opposite shore, such as a tree or tall building and every few strokes pop my head up long enough to make sure I'm still swimming straight towards my landmark. I'm not a good swimmer, so I don't want to swim any farther than necessary. Next time you're doing an open water swim try it out. Popping out to take a look every now and then will cost you a few seconds, but it's better than swimming an extra 1/4 mile.
Good luck
Well, there could have been lane lines on the bottom of this lake. I couldn't even see my hand, let alone the bottom. :)
Thanks for the comment!
Your accomplishments are amazing!!
Mom
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