Friday Swim and Run

My wetsuit is in the truck of my car. I thought of bringing it to the pool this morning, but didn’t bother. I’ve got notes to bring it a few times over the next couple of weeks, so I figured I’d just bring it on those days. As soon as I saw the workout board I knew I’d made a mistake!

We had a choice today of a regular varied workout, or a straight 3800 meter swim. There was no question for me. 3800 it is! I slapped on the pull-buoy and away I went. I counted 1, 1, 1, 1, 1 in my head, down and back for the first hundred meters. 2, 2, 2, 2, 2, for the next and kept that up until I finished 38, about an hour and 25 – 30 minutes later.

The time went by pretty quickly actually. It’s funny, the games one comes up while putting in the time. I’ve learned not to let my mind wander far, or think of much else while doing a big swim. Any time I do that, I totally lose count. There’s nothing worse than finishing and the person at your heals yells “3 more!” I managed to not lose count today.

I LOVE swimming with that pull-buoy. For some reason, I feel like I fly through the water with it on. It seems to work the opposite for Lynda. She swims faster than me most of the time, but not with the pull-buoy. For a while, I played with seeing if I could lap Lynda. About half way through the swim, I realized that Simon and Kathie were slowly catching up to me. I seemed to pull ahead on the way back, but they caught up by about a foot at the far end of the pool every time. Simon was just a couple of feet back at about the 3200 meter mark. I was bound and determined not to let him catch me. I picked up my pace a bit, and again, I could pull away in one direction, but I’d lose it o the other. I’m not sure why that happens. There sure isn’t a current in the pool!

All of a sudden, Simon was gone when I turned. For a second I wondered if he’d caught me and was at my side, but, no. I’d lost him somehow. It looked like Kathie was drafting off of Simon too because she was falling back. Either that of the panic that he’d caught me gave me another little boost of energy! It ended up Simon caught a cramp and had to sit out a lap stretching it back out.

I finished the 3800 in a little under the hour and a half class. I grabbed a quick shower, drove home and changed into shorts and headed out for a 5k run. Felt really tired when I started. I was a bit surprised by that. I’d had a bottle of E-Mend and finished a bottle of E-Load and eaten a gel on the drive home. That tiredness sort of went away after about 5 minutes or so. I stuck to my zone 2 for the run, but was shocked to see I’d made it back in just under 29 minutes. I’d figured I would have been 31 – 32 for sure.

It’s going to be interesting to see how my time works out for the Muskoka Chase in a couple of weeks.