Feelin' Like A Swimmer

I think I've mentioned on here that I just haven't been feeling like my old self athletically... miscarriages are hard on a body.... harder than I'd anticipated for sure. My head was in the game but my body just wasn't following suit. Little by little it has been getting better, but s l o w l y.

In the pool is where I've noticed it the most. Probably because I am a swimmer at heart, and I know pace in the pool. It may be the only thing I know, but I know swimming pace. So it's been incredibly frustrating for me to be working my butt off in the pool yet being so far from hitting the splits I'm working toward. And watching Nalani just swim away from me even when I'm killing myself. Each week I sit down and write workouts for us that I used to be able to do (and of course Nalani can do), but then I get in the pool and completely miss the interval because I just can't swim that fast anymore.

Or couldn't. Until today.

I felt it as soon as I got in and took my first warm up stroke. Better. Hey, I feel like a swimmer! Often our warm-up is a 1000m straight, negative split at the 500 (longcourse) and I always time it just to get a feel for what kind of day it's going to be in the pool. Lately that 1000 has been a good solid 45 seconds slower than normal, and I could hardly negative split. But today I felt good and negative split the thing by 18 seconds- the second 500 being faster than any 500 I've swam since ironman. That was a good sign for the rest of this workout.

We did another 1200M of strength stuff with paddles and fly and fins and all that. To be honest, I kind of felt like jello after that but the main set hadn't even started yet. (Embrace The Jello... right, Regina?) Main set looked like this: 200 very fast followed by 100 very easy, x4. The intervals were such that there wasn't much rest time at the wall- the rest was all in that 100 easy and then we had maybe 10 seconds and it was off to blast another 200. It's a wicked set. I told Nalani what my goal split was but honestly was not sure at all that I could do it. She had more confidence in me than I did this morning and assured me that I could... so off we went to start the set and wouldn't you know it? I stayed right beside Nalani and crushed that goal split I'd set for myself! I was just panting at the wall and all I could mutter was, "Oh I'm so happy..." and then we were off for the easy 100.

It went on like that for the rest of the set... me staying (almost) right beside Nalani... so nice to give that girl a run for her money again. I was beginning to think that she was going to need to find a new training partner who would actually be able to push her. But now it looks like I'll be able to do that once again. Phew.

Then it was a beautiful blue sky day and Erica was watching Moana so I got to go for a bike ride outside... just glorious. The best part was coming home and having Erica show me a video she took of Nico (21 months) feeding Moana her breakfast gruel... ha! It was soooo cute. When she sends it to me I'll post it here. Nico was just as gentle as he could be spoon feeding Moana and she was like a little bird opening her mouth for the food. Sooo cute.

And since I'm full of good news here tonight (can you feel my energy???) I put my running shoes on and jogged around the parking lot tonight just to see if it was worth getting up early tomorrow to try to run... and it appears that my patience with not running on my injured calf has paid off because it's only been a week and I have NO PAIN. I'm setting my alarm. Yay!!!