07/18/07: Start of another training week....

Thanks again for all of the great comments!!

Yesterday was the beginning of another training week - the peak of base 2; actually, Monday was the beginning, and one of my favorite days....a rest day.

This week I planned 13.75 hours, consisting of 4.5 hours in the pool, 5.5 hours cycling and 3.75 hours running. As usual, about half of that will be on the weekend, with a long continuous swim (2500 + wu & cd), 3.5 hour bike ride and a 2 hour run. I'm once again fully stocked with Perpetuem, Lava Salts and gels......

I started things off yesterday with a swim with the masters group. I'm very happy to report that I graduated from the beginners lane. YEAH ME. Now I get to actually swim, instead of having to deal with drama queens who hold everyone up and then want to argue about it (and talk about how things were three years ago - see my earlier post if you missed out on the drama 07/08/07 Week In Review

Last night, after a quick warmup, there was a team meeting, mentioning that last Saturday was our coaches last day and that another local coach was interested in coaching us. As fate would have it, the other coach was the speaker at the tri club meeting last week, and seems extraordinarily knowledgeable about form, efficiency and coaching. Hopefully people will be able to stay out of their own way long enough for us to take him up on his offer to coach us....

Even with the meeting, we managed to get in 2200:

WU: 300 swim; 100 kick

900: 4x50; 2x100; 200; 100; 4x50 (I got lapped and had to skip one of the 100s. I'd MUCH rather be the slowest person in a faster lane than the fastest person in a slower lane.....)

100 easy swim

300: 25 kick, 25 swim

8x50

CD: 200 easy swim

I definitely seem to be making constant progress in the pool. With a bit of effort, I'm now maintaining 2:20 / 100m pace, and 2:30/100 with zero effort. HUGE HUGE progress from where I started, which was 3:00 / 100 with some effort.

If I can maintain a 2:30/100m pace in the ironman (which I should be able to do, especially with a wetsuit), I'm looking at a 1:35-1:45 swim. PERFECT! We'll see how that theory holds up (minus the wetsuit) in the 2.5 mile ocean swim on Aug 4th.

After the swim, I went for a 45 minute easy zone 2 run. Although I usually like to do my runs in the morning, I had an early dentist appt, so an evening run it was. It was a nice change of pace, running a bit tired after swimming.

My teeth are nice and clean, and my run went well :) Good start to the week......

Live with purpose...Enjoy the adventure......