Friday, April 15, 2011

4/11 & 4/12 & 4/13 -- Keep Rolling

After Sunday's leg smashing, one would expect that I could use a few days of recovery. I could! But I wasn't getting any.

Monday I was off my legs, "just" attending a masters swim practice. It was a taper practice, preparing us for Zones on Friday (or, tonight as I am writing this post Friday!). Nothing really of note for this practice, except that I swam a :27 off the blocks, which matches my previous best during the dinky DC Tri swim meet. That was pretty cool. Maryellen even complimented my flipturn! I've never heard anything positive about my flipturns before (only that people are glad I'm doing, or trying, them!).

For Tuesday I moved my bike threshold/strength workout on the trainer from Thursday since it was raining and was forecasted to be really nice Thursday. Might as well be indoors on the yucky day. Workout was 25min warmup, then 5min @ 250w+, 5min recovery, then 6x3min @ 285w w/ 2min spin recoveries. I hit and exceeded the power requirements for each interval. I found myself not looking much at the tv but a lot more at the power computer, as I wanted to really nail my numbers. I did feel a little fatigued since Sunday's ride was only a couple days prior, so the last two 3min intervals, although my most powerful, weren't easy at all. I'm glad I got this done Tuesday though.

Wednesday had an AM swim at GISC, with some long intervals, including 2x600 at varying speeds and a 6x75 build set. Nothing really special, and I focused mostly on form. I'm a little worried however that I'll focus too much on form at the Zones meet. I want the form to emerge, but I don't want to think about it. We'll see. In the evening I ran with GRC at track practice. Did 6x800 (2:30, 2:32, 2:28, 2:26, 2:24, 2:22) but dropped out of the next two because my calves were aching up. It happens on the shorter stuff, as I and TOWPATH, in a comment, have explained. But I feel now that I should have continued with the workout. If I will have this calf ache often, I might as well keep running for a bit more. I felt like I wimped out a bit here. The next morning I had zero calf pain, and that validated my feelings. I need to toughen up a bit more. My body will respond to a hard effort, and I need to recognize better if it's a real pain or just a "I'm tired" pain.

I'm getting excited but of course am really nervous about Zones. First swim meet since, like, before I was 10 or something. I've only recently been a "swimmer," or something like that. And there will be lots of fast and experienced swimmers... here are the psyche sheet and heat sheets http://www.patriotmasters.org/colonieszone2011/results/index.htm . I just want to swim strong, not have my form fall apart 750y in, and average 1:15s-1:18s, which is around where I want to be in a 1500m open water swim. Wish me luck!

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