Thursday swim and bike #5

There is something absurdly unrelenting about the 30 in 30 approach. It it true that I was partly waiting to deal with the bike issue till I finished with that last half-marathon, but on a more introspective level of explanation I have found myself several times this week pondering why it is that I always take on these somewhat massive and inadvisable and sleep-eroding-just-when-I-can-least-afford-it projects at exactly the times when I already feel myself to be near the snapping point in terms of stress.

I may need to skip tomorrow--not sure yet--but I have to save the early morning hours for work, and then I'm out at this conference from 10 till the end of the dinner. It's a mercifully early dinner at least, but I don't think I'll be home before 8:30 or nine; I'll do the bike after that if I can, if I eat a fairly light dinner I should be, you know, all digested or whatever by 9:30ish or 10 and just do half an hour before I go to bed, but I am having a strong suspicion that I have not gotten enough sleep this week for these workouts to really (as it were) sink in...

Anyway, a very nice swim this morning, though I felt mildly queasy at a couple points: I don't think it's exactly food-related, just lack of sleep and the strenuousness of doing butterfly!

Warmup: 300 swim, 150 kick (no time for the other 50 kick or the 300 pull, I was late because of paper-grading imperative)

Main set: 15 x 100, on 10 seconds rest. There is some way to explain this beautifully and economically--it is a beautiful and economical exercise--but I do not know it! Three sets of five. 1-3: free with stroke on the third 25, moving through fly, back, breast; 4: 100 IM; 5: 100 free.

(Hmmm, pity I didn't just swim 50 to cool down, there is something appealing about a round number, 1950 does not have the same ring to it!)

That is a lovely set! A good one for me to go and do on my own. It's funny, you really reap the rewards of the first two fives in the third one, I felt my form on all of the strokes was amazingly better in that last round, very enjoyable...

We were just finishing in our lane as the guys got ready to start their practice, but there was probably one more little set for the other lanes, I am guessing. I want to swim fast enough that I can do the whole workout, I hate not doing it all! However this morning it was not heel-dragging but work that made me a bit late starting the warm-up, so I cannot really have self-reproach.

Then I did 30 mins. on the exercise bike, a mild and pleasant enough interval workout. The basement fitness center room is extraordinarily depressing--I haven't been there for a while, but with a fresh eye I can see that it is not surprising I could never get in a really steady exercise routine in the days where that was the main venue...

Bike #5 of 30, 30 mins., 150 mins. total.

NB: for some reason my breast is much slower than my other strokes. The free is strong, I am disproportionately faster on that one for obvious reasons (I have only just learned the others, but have been working really steadily on free since January, more usefully since March). The butterfly and back have infinite room for improvement technique-wise, they are very clumsy, but actually I move through the water at more or less the same speed as the others I'm currently swimming with--higher effort level, but comparable speed. Breast is ridiculously slow! Form's getting better, so that's more important for now, but perhaps I will address this with I. on Saturday. Wouldn't mind doing a bit of work on back technique also, I think those should be the two things we concentrate on...