Triaspirational bliss

Lungs still not at 100%, but much improved. Only major fit of coughing during swimming was instigated by a mouthful of water down the windpipe as I finished a fourth 25 of hard butterfly, so that is good, that is an honorable reason for coughing...

55 minutes bike. First, the short sprint/power workout on the time-saver Spinervals DVD (it's very simple, but I have forgotten it by now as swimming intervened--what, 2 x 6 10-seconds-at-100%-effort-50-seconds-light-spin?). And then I just stayed on the bike spinning for another 25 minutes or so while I watched the Bike Maintenance segment on the DVD.

Hmmm, good demonstration of tube-changing--only curiously it did not seem to occur to them to show how you get the wheels off the bike in the first place, which would seem more relevant than making these adjustments to the tension on various things which really most of us will leave to our local bike shops! I am going to have to have a horrible tube-changing session one of these days with Zinn and the Art of Road Bike Maintenance and a double dose of fortitude--I am sure I will be tempted to burst into tears when (a) I can't get the wheels off and (b) I can't get the wheels back on again and the bicycle lies in sundered pieces all over my living-room floor! But this is crucial for confidence for the race in May, I must know how to change a tube, it is actually quite likely that I will have to do so one of these days...

Then a very good swim. I felt really strong in the water, partly because of Wendy's good advice this week to think of swimming hard as pulling hard rather than having a faster stroke than usual--this is a good way of avoiding flailing...

(I continue to work on flip turns. I made a ridiculous deal with myself, I will do 'em at the far end on all warmup freestyle and wherever else I can stand to! So that for instance I flipped on the first turn on the 75s but not on the second, because it would have prevented me getting the really nice big ample lungsful of air I needed to do the last 25 with only two breaths...)

Warmup: 200 free, 100 back, 200 free, 2 x 50 kick (I did 50 dolphin, 50 whip)

Set #1 (x 4):

2 x 75 free, last 25 only 2 breaths (on 1:40)
4 x 25 build, 75%, build, 95% (on :45)

(I did one set of each stroke for the 25s: free, fly, breast, back. I do not really have gears, so much, on the other strokes, they just feel all pretty hard!)

Set #2 (abbreviated):

25 ez - 25 fast - 50 ez - 50 fast - 75 ez - 75 fast - 50 ez - 50 fast - 25 ez - 25 fast

Gosh, that felt great, I love doing that kind of a set--only sorry I did not have time for the full 800 with two pairs of hundreds in the middle...

And I had some useful experimentation with triathlon garb...

So, to sum up:

55 min. trainer bike (25 min. at avg HR 133, plus 30 min. at 120)
2050 yards swim (avg HR 128, max 152, 145 at end of last set)