Happy happy exercise session....

Friday was a disaster due to fatigue, I was in a state of near collapse and felt very discouraged about the prospects for good nutrition and regular exercise now that my semester has started! But I had some decent regrouping yesterday, despite effectively being trapped at home due to the storm, and a good exercise session this evening has somewhat restored my fitness morale.

(Lots of stuff on my mind, including the revolutionary thought that my dislike for cycling may really mean that I should mostly give up triathlon - with the counterintuitive consequence that I can afford to swim a lot more if I am not worrying at all about bike fitness!)

Anyway did .5hr on the track (it's a nice one, quarter of a mile and spacious/with huge high windows out to the river - about 100 times more appealing than the rather dreadful though still convenient Dodge Fitness Center one which is 1/10 mile and underground!) as 10:00 easy and then 10 x (1:00 hard, 1:00 walk), then went to a thoroughly enjoyable masters swim.

I could feel the sore place inside my knee, especially during kick sets, and I also remembered that other time I went to masters swim and then was virtually incapable of executing the next day's powerlifting workout, so I thought I might cap it at an hour or so, but really when I said at that point that I might get out the coach coaxed me into staying, and the second & remaining part of the workout was certainly easier than what we had just done so I felt good about staying in!

(I think I'm going to book a few private sessions with this coach - Brent was recommending some serious drill activity, and it always gets me motivated to work one-on-one. Also it is my theory that this was Oliver Sacks' swim coach!)

Workout as follows.

Warmup:

200 swim
200 kick
200 pull (I missed a 50 - my pull is woefully slow)
200 drill
200 swim choice (I think I skipped a 50 on this too)

IM set (more or less - I love these patterned ones, that was what really snagged me for the second set I think, I couldn't resist the chance to repeat the pattern with variation!):

4 x 25 flutter kick (:5 rest)

3 x 100 IM descending (:10 rest) (I missed a 50 on the first one as gal in front of me had cramps and we stopped to assess)

4 x 25 kick in IM order (:5 rest)

2 x 100 IM descending (:10 rest)

4 x 25 kick choice

100 IM quality effort!

freestyle set:

catch drill - the four lengths are as follows, first one "ET" - i.e. only index finger out, second with two fingers, third as "OK" (outside three fingers), fourth as regular swim feeling the catch

4 x 25 ET drill on :40

3 x 100 free on 2:05

4 x 25 ET drill

2 x 100 free on 2:05

4 x 25 ET drill

100 free quality effort

100 swim down

total yardage 2750 (not bad!)

Hahahaha, I love swimming, don't know why it took a swim FAIL at my event last week to get me so enthusiastically back in the pool!

(It was also a very EXPENSIVE exercise session in that I only got myself to the gym by dint of a daytime taxi and then the taxi home proved too much to resist also - it was worth it in terms of minimizing travel time, but I'd better not get too much in the habit of it!)