At the beach, Atlantic City, 1902

Via Room 26 Cabinet of Curiosities...

Sea swim!

A delightful mile of swimming in the sea...

Sunday treadmill

1.5hr. treadmill run (zone 2). And in those little words is contained an infinity of mental suffering!

Saturday gym

Yesterday it was sloth v. sea swim, and I am sorry to say sloth won--we went to happy hour at Fidel Murphy's instead, it was very pleasant but not very triaspirational!

This morning: 4 treadmill miles (three quite slow, one modestly fast[er]), plus a bit of stationary bike. Hmmm, got to start running faster again!

Thursday swim

And a very good one, too. If I swam in that lane regularly, I would just have to give in and start swimming quite a bit faster--it would be mind over matter!

Skipped some bits here and there to catch my breath and keep up...

200 warmup

5 x 150 as 25 kick, 50 pull, 75 swim (on a couple I just did 25 swim)

Nice ladder: 25 fly, 50 back, 75 breast, 100 free, 200 drill (six strokes plus one breath, finger-drag by 50 and repeat), 100 free (skipped 50 for breath-catching purposes), 75 breast, 50 back, 25 fly.

4 x 100 as 25 no air, 75 strong swim

150 cooldown: 50 double-arm back, 50 back, 50 free

+/- 2000 yards total

Internet time-wasting

I've been looking for pictures of Cayman land crabs--I have not found the kind of link I was hoping for (I must consult a reference work at the bookstore, I think!), with pictures and names of different species, but this link has some excellent pictures and descriptions.

The other morning I saw an enormous bulbous land crab of the fawn-colored translucent kind--it really might have been as much as eight inches across, the size of a small dinner plate! It scuttled across the sidewalk in front of me. It was huge...

I saw a smaller one of those guys last night also, but more dramatically, during the last bit of the run I spotted first one and then a whole crew of bright orange-legged crabs under a hedge along West Bay Road... there must have been twenty or thirty of 'em, in all different sizes!

Cat's hill

This article is somewhat at odds with the one I posted the other day!

Wednesday run

It is one of the utter mysteries of the world how a run that might fairly be described as hot, hard, tortoisely slow and altogether quite effortful can also leave me feeling that I have just had the most delightful hour in the history of the world! Hmmmm, distinctly cheerfulness-inducing, especially now that I have de-sweated...

50 min. slow hot run (zone 2)

Red lights

A great article on the battle for supremacy in Central Park between runners, cyclists, dogs and the rest of the world... (Thanks to Becca for the link.)

Tuesday run

Sandy. Hot. Arduous. Nice!

(Very slow--forty minutes, and I covered not quite 3.5 miles--but it is good training in its way, that's pretty hard effort with the combination of heat and sand. My water belt has two bottles, only 10oz. each--I think I am not equipped to go much longer, I would have to really eke out the dribbles and drops!)

Today I remembered to take off my shoes right at the door so that I did not trail huge amounts of sand all over the condo!

Monday swim

Details by now all a jumble--I started in too slow a lane and moved to a faster, so I did kind of a mixup of bits of the workout, with an extra 50 here and a missed 50 there... maybe 1800 yards total, mostly freestyle with a fair amount of free drill and backstroke on the non-free bits?

Monday gym

.75hr. stationary bike (zone 1/2), plus 25 mins. miscellaneous core/upper body. Got some useful tips on form from the gym attendant, only it is possibly slightly more appealing to feel invisible than to get good advice! But he was quite right, those front and lateral raises are always a weak point for me form-wise (keep elbows bent on lateral, avoid swinging on front), and the notion of raising the base of the back extension machine by putting a low bench under it had never occurred to me but noticeably improved things...

Sunday TM

5 easy treadmill miles. Very hot and sweaty! One bottle of water is not enough if I want to go a full hour--I called it around fifty minutes, and will bring a second bottle next time...

Saturday gym

I am laughing to myself, a little bit, because I am in the lap of luxury now: I have access to not one but two different gyms! Just a bit of cardio: 30 mins. treadmill (would have been longer, but had to make a bathroom run for stomach issues and could not quite face getting back on the thing afterwards), 20 mins. stationary bike. Zone 2. Nice!

Sea swim!

Utter bliss!

(1 mile?)

Salt water is nice, and sun...

... and we saw a huge turtle! It is not even hyperbolic if I say that it was two feet long...

Bliss...

I have been very grumpy for the past few weeks, which is irrational (since really everything is very much fine!) but true...

(It is possible that I am always fairly irritable in June, where I'm trying to make the transition from a tiring school year to productive summer writing time, am not yet restored enough to get any 'real' work done but have had enough down time post-school to fill up with self-reproach! Academic types will be reading this and wincing at the familiar and pointless truth of this description! And this year was particularly stressful, so it's not surprising that it should take me a while to get going again afterwards. Not surprising, but still very annoying to me...)

I haven't been that happy with the way I've been training, either; partly it's just the demands of life, I do try and stay flexible and it is an indulgence to have a huge amount of exercise when work and family need serious attention, but I feel I've been neglecting my running (and let us not even think about the wretchedness of the bicycle situation!).

(I guess a more positive way to describe it is to say that the structured nature of the summer swimming program has suited my needs and temperament very well, and that becoming a better swimmer is as much or perhaps more important to me as becoming a solid triathlete; the two goals are frequently at odds with one another, just because the swim takes up by far the smallest proportion of the race.)

I didn't have time for a run on Wednesday evening, and yesterday was a travel day--because I am now in tropical island paradise! I'll be here for almost two weeks, and though it's properly speaking a working trip--I had the most unbelievably heavy carry-on luggage full of books and papers!--rather than a vacation, it should be that I can read and write (I fear I'm still at least a week away from proper writing as opposed to reading note-taking and pondering) for a good long stretch every day and still have plenty of time and leisure to get myself back into a less savage and irritable frame of mind!

I don't have my bike, so I'm off the hook!

(I gather that one of Brent's triathlon club teammates made the extraordinarily kind offer of the loan of a bike while I'm here, but fortunately he knows me well enough that he declined on the grounds that his descriptions of the dangers of Caymanian traffic have filled me with terror and a most determined intention not to die on a bicycle?!? Reprieved! But it was a very nice offer...)

We'll do a couple of sea swims, and a couple of masters swim sessions, and all that should remain in reasonably good train. (I can practice my sighting, that is crucial!)

I have gym access at the resort next door to the condo complex, so I can do some indoor cycling and strength training there...

And I had a notion about running that I have just tested, and it is going to be utter bliss. It's hot here at this time of year, and it's not that easy to find a nice safe non-trafficky stretch of sidewalk to run on, but I was thinking about what would be good and decided that I should really and truly just go for a short run on the beach every morning first thing before it gets too insanely hot!

(But I was not sure it would really be practical--thus the need for the test to see if it would suit!)

It is not the training that is going to make me really strong and fast for the run segment of my triathlon in July. For parts of the time, you can run along the hard packed sand by the sea, but for other bits you need to head onto the soft stuff, so it's really more like a shuffling jog than a run proper. (Cross-training!) In any case it will all be pretty slow and easy, just because that's kind of what I am mentally up for right now anyway. But it's a very good way of increasing run frequency in a non-injury-producing way, and of building some more base before I switch gears into marathon training mode in late July.

I didn't bring water or put on sunscreen this morning because I knew I was just going out to assess the situation, but if I do both of those things and start a bit earlier there's no reason I shouldn't go longer than I did today...

So: 30 minutes sandy jogging, that is a lovely start to the day! And now I will shower, breakfast and caffeinate and then have blissful, blissful work, which (ridiculously) is one of the very few things in life more likely than arduous triathlon training or delightful animal pictures to make me feel extremely cheerful...

Swimming in the news

Interesting NYT story on a disabled swimmer's goal to swim in the Paralympics. Slightly overstated as far as drama/obstacle narrative goes, but some good stuff in there nonetheless...

Wednesday swim

Today I didn't finish the workout again, but it wasn't because I was late, just because I was slow...

(Last bit would have been 4 x 150 IM alternating extra lengths of long- and short-axis strokes, then 250 cooldown.)

Warmup: 4 x (100 free, 75 back, 50 free, 25 breast)

Kick on back 10 x 50 (in theory on 1:30, but I was barely holding that interval, especially by the end)

Pull 5 x 100 free breathing 7, 7, 5, 5, 3 by 100, descending (2:40-2:25)

2000 yards total

Tuesday gym workout

A good solid one, only I was ridiculously thirsty--I could not stop thinking about how I would drink a huge glass of water when I got home!

I couldn't run last night, because of a righteous combination of family and work obligations that slightly ate yesterday up, and though the weather today is perfect for a run, the logistics of timing and nutrition and double workouts defeated me.

(That is a fancy way of saying that I ate my lunch in the middle of the afternoon--it was insufficiently digested to run at 5 before meeting up with M. at the gym, but after I've done a full hour's workout with him I am really in no state to run 5-6 miles on top of it!)

I will skip body sculpt class tomorrow evening (hmmm, I detect a pattern!) and run instead--that will suit me better as far as a couple of early-evening office obligations go, in any case...

Tuesday swim

A very solid one. Though it was punctuated with self-criticism of one kind or another, it does make me think that my skills are probably improving in incremental ways that are hard to track week by week. I was late getting started, so I did not have time to finish the workout, which should have ended with 3 x 100 (IM, back, breast) and 200 choice cooldown.

Warmup: 500 free with every 5th length stroke (I did fly drill, breast, 2 x double-arm back), 500 alternating 100 back and 100 kick no board

(I inquired, finally, as to how one might best do whip and dolphin kicks without a board--I usually just do 'em with a breaststroke pull every four kicks or so--and learned that I might try 'em on my back--dolphin I have tried that way before, it is fine only it seems like the slowest form of locomotion in the world, I think I am still not using my core muscles properly--whip is very satisfying, only makes me notice slight aches and pains in various lower-body muscles! Including where I twisted my ankle the other day while running with L.--lots of wet sticks and leaves, I was lucky to catch myself in time and not actually go smashing into the ground--but I had to walk for a minute to recover, and I could feel it this morning, though it is nothing...)

2 x 300 free on :10 rest, second 300 faster than first (I think the second came in around 5:58, that's not terrible)

3 x 100 free on 2:15 (held 1:50, that also seems to me acceptable, though I think I should really be faster than that...)

2 x 150 IM with extra lengths of back and free

2200 yards total

Monday swim

Today's workout was written for me...

(But it really is the case that my HR in the pool does not go up higher than the mid- to high 140s! Even when I am working very very hard and am quite breathless, like after a 50 fly or a hard 100 free. That is just the way it is... it may be that when my technique and conditioning both get better, I will be able to get it up higher? But my guess is that the highest possible would still be more like 160.)

Warmup: 500 free, 4 x 50 choice, 4 x 75 kick-drill-swim choice (I did IM order for both of these)

Main set was all freestyle, though I am not sure I am getting the details exactly right--but something like this:

50 at 90% effort and check heartrate (goal HR: 180-190--that is just not where mine falls!)

2 x 100 build

2 x 150 uneven pacing (basically, every 50 as 12.5 slow, 12.5 build, turn, 12.5 further build and 12.5 sprint, with no rest between 50s--this is a good exercise)

2 x 200 cruise free

2 x 150 build by 50

100 at 90% effort and check HR

Cooldown: 200 choice (I did 100 IM with fly drill, 100 back)

2550 yards total

Coach says that HR should be same for running and swimming at same effort level, i.e. she swims 4 x 100 IM clocking in at HR180 after each hundred (steady rather than hard effort), ditto for running 10K at 7:30 pace. I think all this says is that she is a faster runner and far better swimmer than I am!

Rumble in the jungle

Cat Jose Reyes goes head-to-head with the other Mickey.

(Thanks to Amy and Oscar for the picture!)

Sunday run

5 miles in Central Park with training partner L., who was suffering from the aftereffects of some sort of stomach ailment--we meant to go longer, but it was more sensible to call it at five. Of course, I could have kept on running on my own, but though it is only in the low 70s this morning the humidity out there is extreme--I was too moist, I could not face it! However, moisture aside, it was a fairly pleasant run--certainly nothing like the direly awful and cautionary one I had a couple weeks ago.

(I see my blog post that day was extremely restrained--I did not want to indulge in a bitter and depressing full-blown rant re: sports-bra chafing, lack of water due to poor planning, and painful toe blisters!)

I'll do a trainer ride later, perhaps, and then have a longer run tomorrow evening if the weather makes that seem a tolerable idea. If I did a decent run tomorrow evening and then a short one on Wednesday evening following the body sculpt class, that would be suitable...

Brief Saturday-evening indoor bike ride

A One-Buffy trainer ride, just to try and ease back into it...

(In an alternate universe, it might be that I have been ferociously & fiendishly bike-riding in every spare moment, and saving the announcement of my triumph over the fear of bike-riding for some spectacular and amazing denouement--in practice, there has been as little bike-riding in life as there has been on the blog, i.e. exactly NONE!)

In other news, Brent calculates the dimensions of a good deal involving the notional consumption of large amounts of chocolate!

Shakespearean addendum

Hamlet was dreadful, and the most painful thing was that as the theatre was in Central Park, I was about a stone's throw away from the running loop--the weather had most gloriously cooled down, and I was itching to be running instead of watching an awful production of Shakespeare! It is very hot and humid again today, fairly unsavory weather...

Friday run

3.5 easy miles in Riverside Park. Easy but hot.

Skipped boot camp conditioning earlier--lethargy levels led me to believe that it was an either-or situation re: boot camp/running, and that the run was more necessary. No time or energy to go longer--I am headed out shortly to see Hamlet in Central Park, in fact I must tear myself away from the computer and get into the shower...

Thursday swim

Hmmm, good in certain respects and frustrating in others. I found myself in a disagreement with the (very well-intentioned and helpful) coach about HR, it was a minor wrangle which we had to leave rather unresolved--it started when I asked her what "80% effort" really meant for the warm-up...

(I agree with her general point that I would benefit from doing more high-effort high-HR work, that is what I am thinking myself. But I dispute the notion that this is a natural conclusion based on me observing that my HR while swimming rarely tops 150! You cannot draw any conclusions about absolute HR in any case, it differs dramatically in individuals and does not have to do with conditioning; and it is entirely in line with what I know about sport-specific max HR and HR training ranges, as well as about why HR is lower in swimming than on dry land, that the same perceived effort in swimming and running might give me a HR of 150 in the pool and 170 on the track. I did some hard-effort 100s and 50s of kick, I was definitely working harder than 80%. But the comment "I can see just looking at you that this was really hard effort, your shoulders and arms are flushed, I'm guessing your HR is at least 170" is not founded in any necessary basis in reality! It is my own fault, for being a clumsy and non-confident pulse-counter; I must practice this and get better at it, but also I think I will just wear my HR strap a couple times next week--I always wear the wrist monitor when I'm swimming--so as to calibrate counting against an objective measure, I should have more confidence in my own judgment....)

(ARGHHHHHHH!)

(Yards were sacrificed to HR-related conversation, that's why I ran quite short numbers-wise...)

Warmup: 250 free, 4 x 100 free at 80% effort

6 x 50 kick on :05 RI (I did it with board since we were trying to get my HR very high with coach walking along side of pool and egging me on! Enjoyable...kicking with a board is NOT a very efficient way to move through the water, it is hard to keep up with someone walking even at a quite regular speed!)

4 x 100 descending on 2:30-2:15

400 pull

And then time was up. 1750 yards total.

I was trying to be fairly mindful in my freestyle swimming, concentrating in particular today on what point in the stroke I breathe at (always a bit late, especially on the left-hand side). There is no doubt that a set like yesterday's, with a lot of stroke mixed in, makes it much easier for me to concentrate on what I'm doing. I can see that when I am more experienced it should be equally possible to concentrate and be mindful on long freestyle sets, and I do try, but at my current stage of development it is far easier to concentrate on details of technique in an IM-based set--switching back and forth between the different strokes makes me very conscious of the feeling of freestyle, each one of the other strokes helps me to feel something more clearly in free, a workout like yesterday's is something like a corset of mindfulness!

Wednesday gym

Body sculpt class. Not bad--at least this time I had more appropriate weights--good exercise, and certainly I am lazy about going to the gym for a serious workout on my own, so I think it is worthwhile--but I cringe inside at the parts that are the spiritual twin of 1980s-style aerobics, that is anathema to me....

Afterwards I went and did two easy miles on the indoor track at the gym, with a couple short fast laps in the second mile to break the tedium. (3 x 1/10 mile, to be precise.) It is amazing how that can transform my mood--I have been a sinkhole of negativity this past week, but just those couple short bursts of fast running have made me feel much more myself again. Good thing to remember....

(Time to dig out the running books and come up with some sort of notion of what kind of speed workouts might be appropriate? I don't want to go crazy with it, but it's very enjoyable--maybe just some casual stuff like that is good, but probably slightly longer stretches of faster running? 1/10 mile is not very long: next week I could try 1 mile warmup, 2 miles doing two laps fast and three slow for a total of four times through the cycle, 1 mile cooldown?)

Wednesday swim

Warmup: 4 x (100 free, 100 IM with fly drill, 50 double-arm back)

5 x 100 free on 2:45

4 x 50 choice (I did IM order) on 1:45

50 easy back

3 x 100 choice on 2:45 (I did IM)

4 x 50 free fast on :15 rest

Cooldown: 50 double-arm back, 100 choice (I did IM with fly drill), 100 free

2500 yards total

Tuesday weather-induced gloom

Rice-husk shoes for Olympic marathoners.

Today I had a thorough failure of triaspirationality--I did not exercise at all. The weather here needs to cool down, my one window-unit A/C is not up to it!

Monday gym

Solid workout with M. We did a lot of machines and on the whole took it easy because of the heat, but there were a few nicely evil exercises in there too....

JMD: Did you get that kangaroo picture I sent you?

M: NICE!

(Makes amazed face and flexes arm and shoulder muscles...)

JMD: Pretty amazing muscles, eh?!?

M: HUGE!!!

More kangaroo-type musculature courtesy of Wendy:

Monday swim

Hmmm, I must thank everyone for their bracing and/or consoling comments on yesterday's post...

Warmup: 200 free, 150 drill as catch-up, finger-drag, salute by 25, 4 x 50 kick in IM order, 50 stroke build (I did back)

2 x 300 free (:05 RI)

3 x 100 free

2 x 300 kick-drill-swim in IM order

2 x 100 free

1 x 100 IM

2400 yards total

Undistinguished...

I ran a dramatic personal worst 10K on Saturday--in fact it was slower than any other NYRR race I have ever run, including the half-marathon I did in May as a training run. It was utterly awful! Looking at the race statistics, I see that the temperature was only in the 70s, but with super-high humidity, and it felt insanely hot--I was already covered with a sheen of sweat as I stood in the sun at the start, and I realized about one minute in (while running smack in the midst of a thick and non-weaveable-through pack of very pleasant but not especially speedy women who were moving solidly forward at 9:30-9:40 pace for what was by far the flattest and easiest mile of the entire course) that I was going to be running rather than racing with a time goal.

Final results: 1:00:01, 9:40 pace, and every minute of it quite horrible and full of the most intense self-flagellation and self-reproach of really quite baroque range and elaboration....

I do not think I can really have lost so much running fitness, heat and humidity just make a huge and depressing difference (plus two intense full-body workouts earlier in a week of the most intense stress and sleeplessness). I am probably a little slower than I was in the fall and early winter, but more like :10/mile slower rather than a minute and a half. I had to remind myself very earnestly that being able to run is a privilege, not a punishment--I've got several friends right now who can't run due to illness or injury...--but this weather is definitely a minor trial!

(The NYT coverage says the winner's time was the slowest in 10 years and that humidity was 84%--all I can say was that I felt pretty awful the entire time, though the last mile offered the consolation of it soon being over and the final 400 yards prompted a certain grim satisfaction at the notion that a really gruelling and mentally unpleasant race is probably good practice for the bad moments in future serious long-distance triathlon training and racing!)

On a brighter note, a friend of mine working in Africa has a happy outcome after a bicycle-related mishap....

Sweat equity

That boot camp conditioning class really is good....

I cannot resist

linking to this article chronicling one Caymanian competitor's experience racing Florida 70.3. Thanks to Wendy for the delightful link!

(NB: it is worth taking the time to put on one's socks for the run!)

On the grid

An interesting visual representation of height-weight information, via Andrew Gelman's blog.

Thursday run

Just three miles, with a short stretch at what I will optimistically dub race pace... I am now dripping with sweat, it has been unseasonably humid this past week in New York, it is not beneficial for my state of mind or my running speeds!

Thursday swim

It was a good one, I think; it seems to me possible that skipping Wednesday's practice will make me likely to concentrate better at Thursday's?

I did the full workout, only with slightly curtailed warmup and cooldown so as to have time to go through the last bit four times rather than just two. Irks me to be given special/shorter stuff, but until I start swimming faster, that's just the way it's going to be...

Warmup: 1 x (100 free + 75 IM (no free) + 50 catch-up + 25 free easy)

Set #1 (on 10 seconds rest):

400 as 75 free / 25 fly drill

300 as 75 free / 25 back

200 as 75 free / 25 breast

100 IM

Set #2:

4 x

100 free on 2:20 with negative splits

2 x 50 free (strong) (5 seconds rest for the remainder of the set)

4 x 25 stroke (fast) in IM order

Cooldown: 50 back, 50 free easy

2550 yards total (OK, that's good, very respectable...)

One-Buffy trainer ride

A meager forty-five minutes, but before that could happen, the following preconditions had to be filled...

- my new CycleOps trainer had to arrive (check)

- and be assembled (several minor nervous breakdowns and episodes of dramatic second-guessing and internet consultation later, check)

- and the pedals had to be put back on my bike, since I have not touched it since I retrieved it from the bike store post-Florida (this step was surprisingly easy--you just screw 'em back in, who knew?!?)

- and the bike had to be put in the trainer (and really this step took half an hour, perplexingly... it's all the little things, tire pumping and trying things with slightly different adjustment plus extensive further second-guessing)

- and then everything else had to be readjusted--fan, TV screen, water position...

- but now I think I am good to go...

(Due to placement too far away from bookshelf/water rest I dropped a full liter bottle of water on the floor five minutes into the ride, but most of it came out over the mat...)

It is naturally perverse to ride a trainer indoors when I am in a perfectly civilized climate and could ride wherever, but I have realized I do not have the fortitude, and I will have to build up some fitness in order for that West Point ride to be OK...

Now I am going to shower & go to the theatre to see a play...

ARGHHHHHHHHH!

Dread

I am not looking forward to running this 10K on Saturday--that distance is tough work at the best of times, and the odds are very high that I will run slower than I would like, and pretty definitely slower than the one I did at 8:18 pace in December. But it's a useful benchmark for the run component of the NYC tri in July (it's for the most part the same course), and it's definitely a cool race: here are this year's competitor bios (including all three members of the US women's marathon team). It will count towards the nine races that will guarantee me a spot in next year's NYC marathon...

Recreation

Date: Wed, 4 Jun 2008 12:39:51
From: ed park
To: Jenny Davidson
Subject: for the light reader and the triaspirer!

Athletes and those engaged in caring for their bodies are not concerned only with muscle tone and exercise. They also pay attention to relaxation taken at the right time, and in fact consider this to be the most important aspect of training. The analogy operates also, in my view, for literary experts. When they have finished a long spell of reading more serious material, they ought to allow their intellect some recreation and put it into more alert condition for the labour which is to follow.

—Lucian, True Histories

Tuesday gym

I was already feeling rather overheated and almost queasy walking over to the gym, and I did two fairly hellish treadmill miles before meeting with M. for an extra-bonus-minutes 75-minute workout. The air conditioning over there is not up to much! But about fifteen minutes into the workout, I was feeling very good--it was definitely an enjoyable one, it put me in good spirits.

Tuesday swim

Warmup: 300 free with breast every fourth length, 200 kick easy with every fourth length strong

3 x 100 free on 2:10 (swimming around 1:58 I suppose--really I should do 'em on 2:05, as goal was +5 second rest? but this was explained as a sort of continuation of the warmup, so not hard effort)

2 x 300 free on an interval mistakenly written on the board for my lane as 7:30 but undoubtedly meant to be 6:30, which I realized only afterwards as I (a) miserably reproached myself for swimming so much slower than the people in the other lanes and (b) perplexedly wondered why I was being given such a long rest interval for a low-to-medium-effort swim

1 x 500 free

2 x 150 IM with extra lengths of back and free

(Then there were 3 x 100 IM variants, but we were out of time, so I moved straight to cooldown.)

200 choice easy (I did 50 double-arm back, 50 back, 50 breast, 50 free)

Reflection #1: I have become a better swimmer but not a faster swimmer, though I suppose this means that if I were to swim hard and assess my top speeds would probably be either a little faster or else sustainable for longer. Partly the Monday-night swim workouts in the fall were geared to fast freestyle, so really I just don't know about what current times would look like. I would say that a comfortable 100 free comes in just around 2:00; that I can swim a number of 100s on 2:00, but five would be more realistic than eight, I would think I would start to fall off the interval by that point, but it might be worth seeing if I could hold 2:00 for 10 as a realistic challenge; and that based on today's swim, an easy/comfortable 300 is paced around 2:10/100 but that I could probably be swimming those a little faster, as the 500 came in more like 2:05/100 and still felt non-breathlessness-inducing.

Reflection #2: I suppose these long bits of free are good race-specific training, but they are mentally understimulating, they are long and boring enough that they unfortunately allow the most baroque and elaborate ribbons of self-criticism to unspool in my mind!

2400 yards total

Monday swim

I was late again, I did not swim the whole set. This is what I did:

Warmup: 200 free, 4 x 100 free at 80% effort on 20 seconds rest

6 x 50 odds kick on side, evens 6-3-6 on 5 seconds rest
4 x 100 descending (starting on 2:30 and decreasing by 5 seconds)
400 pull
6 x 50 choice fast (I did 4 x back, 1 x fly, 1 x breast)

2000 yards total

I told the coach that I will come only Monday-Tuesday-Thursday because of the need for bike training time. She says that I can come to the Friday 11am time slot (in the other lap swim class) for a recovery swim if I want--I think she did actually use the phrase "the massage benefits of the water"! And it is true, I might want to pop in for that swim now and again...

Rest day

Hmmm, it is very fishy that the day I decide I really have to take a rest day is the day I was supposed to ride my bike....