Wednesday

I jogged down to the pool this morning with my wetsuit stuffed into my backpack. It was pissing rain and not warm so I put my wetsuit on while we were standing outside the gate waiting for the pool to open. Then the lifeguards told us that there was a mix up and (whoops!) nobody had a key to open the pool. This happens at least once a month- for a second I considered that I was just not meant to start back swimming yet, but I had my wetsuit on already so I opted to wait it out and 20 min later the pool manager showed up and opened the pool for us. So I got 2400m in by myself. Felt terrible. The wetsuit helped me to not be slow (plus, it was too cold to swim slow!) but I was reminded why I don't often take breaks away from the water. Swimming just sucks when you don't do it enough! I might go back tomorrow b/c I think the best way to feel good in the water is to swim often, even if you don't swim a lot during the session. 2K tomorrow then an ocean swim on Friday will set me back on the right path.

So sad 2400m left me feeling quite fatigued today. Ugh. That's what I get for being a full on wimp about swimming lately.

For my run this afternoon I wanted to do something quality, so I opted to repeat a neighborhood loop that goes ~1/4 mile up then ~1/4 mile back down (so it's a bit over 1/2mile total). I'd done this session before but it's been years. I like it because it feels like I get a bit of everything... strength work up the longer hill (2+ minutes to get to the top) then try to stay on the gas after being tired... some quicker/fast running on the way down. It's long enough that it's quite uncomfortable so I get some mental toughness benefit as well... This is the elevation profile from MapMyRun.

Going in I figured I'd do 5-6 loops, depending on how it was going. I timed them and found I was descending each one, but the 4th one felt hard... harder than I intended to go today. I wanted these to be solid but didn't want to feel like I completely left my legs out there (or be a session that I wouldn't recover from). The fact was, I started racing myself and going harder than I should have been. I fixed that problem by not starting my watch on the last 2x loops- that allowed me to get the right work in (by feel- it felt right- strong but not max) without racing myself. It feels good to be able to have confidence about a session without needing to see all the data that went along with it.