Lovely Thursday morning swimming

It was the most divinely excellent swim this morning, really absolutely lovely and I am filled with seasonally appropriate Warmth for Mankind etc. etc. Mmmm---I had the lane to myself, it was highly depopulated, it was the most beautiful workout, I loved every minute (except it must be said that is a very good thing that fly comes first in the IM sequence, I always look forward to doing that stroke and enjoy it while I'm doing it and yet it is still true that you have to sort of willpower yourself up for it, it's tiring!).

(No bike--I forgot how we get extra swim time once the undergraduate teams aren't needing to practice in the morning, and I need some minutes to swing by the office to pick up blue books for my lovely students to write their exams in at 9am this morning...)

Warmup: 3 x (100 free, 75 breast, 50 back, 25 fly)

(Should have been 4, but we were moving on...)

Set #1: 40 x 25 pull, as 5 x 8 (5 x 25 free on :30, 3 x 25 back on :35).

Amazing! There could hardly have been a better thing for me, this backstroke is exactly what I would have been working on if I'd had a lesson Saturday after all... That's just the right interval for the free; by the end of the series, I'm taking a few extra seconds on the back, but it's close, once I'm a bit better it won't be a problem. Useful to do pull back stuff like that, I think...

Set #2: 20 x 50, as 5 x (4 x 50). Odd sets: 25 stroke + 25 free, in IM order (fly-free, back-free, breast-free, free-free); even sets: 50 of each stroke in IM order. Those 50s of fly are intense!

I am in bliss--having that extra fifteen or twenty minutes for the workout makes a huge difference, and it was nice being able to really work on the intervals because of having the lane to myself... I still felt very strong at the end, but I also felt like it was a workout that tired me out, too often we are stopping and I still annoyingly feel like I want to swim hard for another hour!

I am going to investigate the early-evening CU masters swim for the spring semester. I am not sure, but I am regretfully concluding that early-morning swimming perhaps is just not realistic with my schedule. I think I will hold on to the Thursday workout at all costs, and in the spring it all goes back to 6:30-7:45 rather than 6:00-7:00, which may be a crucial bit more tolerable. And maybe my body will finally just give in and start going to sleep earlier! But I'm not counting on it, I need to take steps...