Monday swim

And after all that I did not have the willpower this evening for a bike ride! It was still very hot, but that is just an excuse, the fact is I did not feel like it...

... which is a pity, because I am internally locked in on doing Roman Mica's wretched but alluring B-Fit B-Day Challenge!

Readers loosely affiliated with the triblogosphere will at this point be already groaning in sympathy - triathletes (aspirational and otherwise) love a challenge, but this one is really inconvenient! I am only doing the silver version, not the gold - I do not have the kind of pool access that would make a three-mile straight swim tolerable ... - but even so it is going to be tight!

The nature of the challenge, for those not in the know, is as follows:

Take your age and in any order:

1) Swim the number of miles in the first number,
2) Run the number of miles in the second number,
3) Bike the number of miles in the combined number.

So a 45-year-old athlete would:

1) Swim 4 miles
2) Run 5 miles
3) Bike 45 miles

If you choose to accept the B-Fit B-Day Challenge you must....

Bronze: Do all three (swim/bike/run) during the week of your Birthday.
Silver: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in the three days before, after, or on your B-Day.
Gold: Do all three (swim/bike/run) in 24-hours to celebrate your B-Day!

So today was my birthday, and I am attempting the silver challenge: over three days, swim 3 miles, run 7 miles and bike 37 miles. I am counting the distances from yesterday's race as part of those totals:

1500m swim (aka 1 "swimmer's mile"? I am counting at 1500 meters/1650 yards per 'mile' and hoping this is not cheating! If anyone feels strongly that I should swim 'actual' miles please say so in the comments and also it might be for the good for the sake of my morals if you mention exactly how many additional yards I need to swim for full scrupulosity!)

40K bike = c. 25 miles

10K run = 6.2 miles

So I went and swam this evening during regular lane swim hours, which are unfortunately a trial to my misanthropic soul. Having recently been thoroughly persuaded by Wendy that all swim workouts should begin with at least 800 yards/meters warmup, I started with a Jim Bolster-type warmup that I enjoy and approve of:

200 free, 100 IM kick, 200 free, 100 IM drill, 200 free, 100 IM swim = 900 yards

I had a nice plan that I was then going to do 8 x 50, 2 of each stroke in IM order, but it was THWARTED by humanity (other people's) and my own misanthropy - we were getting along OK with 4 of us in the lane, but if I switched to doing 50s it was going to make for a lot more hassle, so I did another 200 of free and bided my time. Then there was one more person in the lane, and she was just kind of hanging around treading water first at one end and then at the other, and my misanthropy levels were about to tip over into the unacceptable, so I got out while the going was good...

It was a suitable recovery swim for a post-race day, it is sensible to get out when you are still very hungry for more swimming but before you have become intolerably irritable!

However this means I only did 1100 yards, which means (in my book!) that I need to do 2200 when I swim tomorrow. That is doable, actually, as long as I get to the workout on time. Then I will do a bike ride in the early evening to Chambers Street and back, which is c. 15 miles and therefore suitable in length. Technically I only need to run .8 miles, which is nothing, but in fact tomorrow is the first and fairly low-key day of marathon training so I will run three easy miles afterwards.

And then after a great deal of inconvenience and fretting about details I will have accomplished the B-Fit B-Day Silver Challenge, and I will feel glad!