Saturday at 6am?

Once again I hauled my butt out of my nice warm bed at 5:35 am. (The first alarm goes off at 5:14 but I hit the snooze every 7 minutes until its really time to get up.) Why do I do this? Especially on a Saturday? Shouldn't I be trying to sleep in while Jemma tries to wake me up? No. Instead I'm up at dark o'clock in the morning and going to a pool for some torture. I guess I like it. I like the people I swim with and I like the way it makes me feel.

Workout:
30, 30, 20's (I was not feeling these. My arms were like dead weights.)
10 x 50 on :50, oh whoops, :55 (I was leading and tried doing 2 of these on :50 and quickly changed to :55)
8 x 125 - 100 fast, 25 sprint (boy that sounds fun) The goal was to do the 100 in 1:30 and the 25 in :20, and then rest. We ended up doing them on 2:10 with a master's discount at halfway.
8 x 100 kick IM on 1:00 (I need to work on my kicking, I'm so slow.)
6 x 100 pull on 1:45 (?)
Then we did a few drills.

During the 50s I started thinking, I miss open water swims. *shakes head* What who thought that. Yep, that's right, Miss I Will Never Do An Open Water Swim misses the open water. I'm looking forward to those swims next year. :-)

But 6am workout was not enough. At 10am I picked up Kris for a hike. My stamina is so much better! We headed up a switch-back trail, not too steep but still, and I trucked right up that trail. In the past I would have needed a break. Later, my energy dwindled and we had to take a few breaks when we had to make our way of a really, truly steep part of the trail.

I wouldn't necessarily recommend 2 workouts before 1pm, but I survived.

Finally, an explanation

Ah ha!!! Today I asked my swim coach, "what is up with the hard workouts?" Apparently, we have improved and it's time to work harder. sigh.

Tuesday Workout
30, 30, 20s
8 x 100 drill, choice
16 x 50s pull on the :50, descending
8 x 200 150 free, 50 IM order

3500 yards. Woot!

Tomorrow mornings is Couch to 5K, week 1, day 3. Jemma and I will be working on not getting tangled.

Weekend Update

Saturday Swim:
First of all, getting up at 6am on a Saturday is insane. Why do I do it? I wish I knew. I think its the whole getting the most bang for your buck thing. Anyway, I think our swim coach is reading a new book, "How to Torture Your Masters Group." Also, he's messing with our heads, no 30, 30, 20s.
10 x 50 on :55
8 x 75 on some interval; IM rotation
10 x 50 streamline kick on :60
8 x 200 drill on some interval (WTF?!)

1. side to side
2. one arm: 100 left, 100 right
3. shark kick
4. rowdy
5. catch-up
6. choice: breathing - 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 7, 5, 3
7. zipper
8. choice: breathing - 3, 5, 7, 9, 9, 7, 5, 3

I have never, ever done a drill set like that. I don't even remember doing drills for more than 100 yards. What I don't understand is why drills are so tiring? It's not think we were swimming fast. But we were doing a lot of rotating.

Sunday Couch to 5K:
It was Week 1, Day 2 of my attempt at running. So far, so good. I didn't feel like dying and my knee didn't start to hurt until the last 1 minute of running. 20 minutes of icing afterwards and my knee feels pretty good.

Getting ready to run is pretty hilarious. Clothes: dark blue pants, yellow shirt, teal & black jacket, white & red shoes. All I needed was some pink and purple. Stuff: heart rate monitor & ipod. Dog stuff: belt to attach leash to me, clean-up bags, & dog. Oh, and keys. Could I carry more stuff?

Running with a spaz-dog: Jemma has issues with squirrels. I try to run just a little before sunrise because the squirrels generally don't scurry around until the sun is up. Today a few were up a little early. I did my 5 minute warm-up and then stopped to stretch. Unfortunately, I stopped under the squirrel telephone line freeway. Jemma started jumping and whining and barking. I'm sure the neighbors loved that at 7:15am on a Sunday. I skipped the calf stretches and got moving. Jemma doesn't quite appreciate running, it doesn't allow her to do much smelling, marking, and squirrel hunting. This is something we need to work on because she frequently ends up tangled in her leash. And, to make things even more fun, this morning she managed to go #2 twice. Running while hold a stinky bag is not all that fun. Luckily, I found two house who keep their trash cans in the driveway. :-)

Aren't you glad you read this today? Tomorrow? REST DAY!

Arms, what arms?

Thursdays workout
12 x 25 on :30, :30, :20
6 x 75 kick IM order
10 x 50 on :55
12 x 100 pull on 1:45
Then it kinda of fell apart
We were supposed to do 6 X 50s in IM blocks. We did 3 of each stroke and then moved on.
3 x 50 off the blocks (totally hard to pull myself out of the deep end of the pool after all that pulling.)

I don't know what my coach is thinking lately, but these workouts have been hard. Those 100 pulls were hard! I wanted to take a "masters discount" at #6, my arms were hurting. But I decided, no, you get faster and stronger by pushing. So, I pushed through all 12 and made them all on the 1:45 interval!

I've lost my focus a little in the healthy eating area. I'm up .8 lbs in the last 3 weeks. Not a really big deal, but time to to get back in the game. Goals for this week:

1. Track my points. All of them.
2. Plan, prepare and eat meals.
3. Bring healthy snacks (veggies, fruit, popcorn, etc.) to work for impending stress eating.

I know I can do this. I'll report good news next week!

What is with all of the IMs?

Tuesday Morning Workout:
12 x 25 on the :30, :30, :20
10 x 100 pull on the 1:45
12 x 25 kick on the :30, :30, :20 (ha, ha)
10 x 100 IM (I have not idea what the interval was.)
12 x 25 block IM on the :30, :30, :20 (really, ha, ha)
10 x 50 free on :50
10 x 50 non-free

(yes, I'm using this blog to keep track of my workouts. I can never remember my intervals and can't tell if I'm improving.)

I was pissed about the IMs but I did them. And, I did very little one arm butterfly. I did notice on the 30-30-20s that I really flatten out when I sprint. So, I will be concentrating on my rotation.

Tonight is the last workout for Team Mermaid. *sniff* We are going to get a refresher course on the core workout and a discussion about how to approach the "off-season". After that I will try to come up with a workout plan. Right now my schedule is pretty loose. Walk? Run? Abs? Yes? No? Maybe?

A blog? I started a blog?

Well, now what do I write? I'll start with the title. Swimming. I've always loved the water. Anytime I saw a pool, river, lake, or beach, I wanted to go swimming. (However, I quickly discovered that most beaches in northern California and rivers and lakes in the Sierras are freezing!) Luckily Mom and Dad signed me up for swimming lessons in the summer. After my swim teacher convinced me that, no, I couldn't swim with my head out of the water, I turned out to be a pretty good swimmer. I don't remember when I started with the swim team but I think I started going to meets when I was 9. Since then I have loved swimming. I feel the best, graceful, weightless, fast, strong, when I'm swimming. So, if you were to ask me if I would rather do almost anything or swimming, I would probably pick swimming.

So. Swimming will probably come up frequently in this blog. Other topics will be eating healthy, losing weight, training for open water swims & triathlons, random history geekyness, and my dog Jemma.