Aloha Friday

Another super solid swim this morning. 1K "w/u"- not easy- felt strong 15:11. I took it out in a 3:01 which is stupid fast for a warm up, but I decided from the first stroke that I was going to stay with Mark today... Mark didn't tell me that he had stayed up all night drinking whiskey and playing poker... consequently he was not a player this morning. He fell off the pace after 200m and never really factored in for the rest of the session. Cheap whiskey is a killer.

Main set 5x400's pull @6:20, descend 1-5. I told Nalani- we start strong don't fuck around- then get stronger as we go. I kind of figured I'd start at 6:00 then see if I could get down to 5:45 by the last one. 5:56, 5:50, 5:47 then I changed my plans bc it was going better than I'd anticipated... ok try to get down to 5:40 by the last one... knocked out 5:42 then 5:35. Shocked myself there at the end. Was super cool though and I got home and wrote in my log that it is fun to swim fast and feel totally in control. This kind of swimming only comes about when I'm swimming regularly and a lot, so it's not magic (or luck!) and I know that. To be fair, the effort on the last one made me feel nauseous, but as long as I was willing to put up with the discomfort, I didn't need to slow down. That might have been the fastest 400 I've ever pulled off in this pool? I don't know for sure but I've always thought of 5:45 as about my limit.

I had a bunch of work to do today- finishing program writing for next week and getting started with a new athlete (who I am excited about!). Its fun to start up with new athletes, especially when they come to you as known hard workers and you can see their potential. This new gal is going to fit brilliantly in my group.

This was the weekend I was supposed to fly to Maui/Hilo and run two marathons. I was in denial I think about not going... only yesterday cancelled my flight. My friend Kendra is still going and running both and I'm trying hard to not be jealous. But I'm jealous. It's a cool goal to run all the Hawaii marathons in a calendar year. Maybe one of these years I'll do it, but won't be this year.