Lavish Friday-evening posting

Well, it was a good solid triaspirational day, I feel less out of sorts than yesterday for sure. (Still sleep-deprived, though!)

I had a lovely run in Prospect Park with former swimming teacher I. and the twins. That jogging stroller is a behemoth! Wind advisory today, too... Each twin is 17+ pounds, plus the weight of the stroller--we only did the park loop, but I. was working very hard! Call it 3.5 plus .5 jog over to the park.

And then a very good swim this evening. It is not really admirable, in fact it is downright childish, but I swam the workout as hard as I could. The coach was watching very closely, and I was determined to show her that I am a fully competent swimmer who does not need the zipper drill explained to me as though I have never heard of such a thing before! My freestyle has clearly benefited from the work I did earlier in the week.

(I prefer a more, well, joyful style of self-motivation--but hey, whatever works!)

Warmup: 500 free, kicking on side (6-3-6) every 3rd and 5th length.

Main set:

8 x 25 free on :10 rest, dropping one stroke with each successive length (I got from 20 down to 16 but no further; not bad, though. I did two extras by accident, I did not have my glasses on and only had the first couple bits of the workout, so had not yet comprehended the ladder pattern)

50 fly-breast on :05 rest

100 IM on 2:10

150 back-free by 50 on :05 rest

200 free on 4:00

150 free-back by 50 on :05 rest

100 IM on 2:05

50 back-free on :05 rest

(Then in theory a second time through that, but I had to truncate and just pick up with the first 100 IM--so 100, 150, 200, 150, 100, 50, plus 200 cooldown, mix of free and double-arm back.)

I was damned if I wasn't going to make all those intervals, and indeed I did. I was working very hard! (But also concentrating on getting good streamline off the wall and really rotating esp. on non-breathing side. No flip turns--it is that OR technique, and this was a good technique week.)

2500 total. Very respectable, and a high-quality swim also. No dallying by the walls!

I also had coffee first thing this morning with cycling friend R., who gave me a stern talking-to about how I needed to get over my fear of riding outside! He had some very sensible ideas. I've got to make this happen. One aspect of my procrastination on this is embodied in the fact that I never got any cold-weather cycling gear, and I have found myself slightly stymied this week by how cold and windy it still is here. It was right not to do a long bike this afternoon--I was knackered, and it was freezing. But I will skip swimming tomorrow afternoon and bike instead, for as long as I can, with a view to really just making this bike thing start happening. I am contemplating a "21 in 21" self-challenge, but I think it might lock me on an unsuitably inflexible plan. Better just take it day by day.

At any rate it must be my absolute priority to get out there on the bike, even if it's just for forty minutes of tooling around in Riverside Park...