recovering from happy fish

Ah, the arrival of Monday, again a much needed rest day from training.

I'm feeling a bit of guilt for resting, because I think the past week of training has been a bit wimpy for my norm. Heavy on the running, mediocre on the swimming, and the Bianchi banshee is gathering DUST!!!

Last Monday, 10/9, was a rest day.

Tuesday, 10/10, was track night--I had a fantastic workout that night!
1/2 mile warmup
Hill repeats
Pyramid Intervals:
4x400
2x800
1x1600
2x800
4x400
a lap to cool down
...and about a zillion crunches.
The way I figure, with all the recovery thrown in between sets, I probably maintained an 8 minute mile pace for the whole interval set. Kickass!

Wednesday, 10/11, I did a light/moderate swim workout. We were meant to do 1700, but after 200 warmup and 200 of drills, I decided to do my own mini time trial of 1500m. I didn't go all out, but pretty much kept it to L2. I was pretty happy with the results--I finished in 31-32 minutes. For perspective, I finished my Wildflower swim (adrenaline and all) in about 29-30 minutes. So I'm pretty well on track.

Thursday, 10/12, I woke up and lamented the trials of being female. Not good foreshadowing for a great training day. Meant to do a straight brick: spinning for 55' with 11x2' hills, followed by a 20' run. Instead: Spun 25' with 5x2' hills, then ran 10' at 8' pace. An hour later, hopped back on for another 30' spin focusing on high cadance, no intervals. Sometimes you just have to listen to your body, especially when you're cramping like mad and super fatigued. At least I got the proper volume in.

Friday, 10/13. Still felt pretty wiped out, so I resolved to take a light swim. We were supposed to do 1600, but I didn't keep track--I just swam until Menlo Masters came and took over the pool. I think I did maybe 1300-1400?

Saturday, 10/14. Open water swim at Treasure Island! I was a bit apprehensive, as I'm not a fan of cold water swims where I can't see more than 2 inches in front of my face under water. Ick. That being said, the swim in the cove at TI wasn't half bad. The water was actually quite tolerable after a 5-10' warmup. As for visibility...well, hopefully Tri-California will have their big giant orange buoys out, because I SUCK at sighting. I suck at sighting so much, I can't even DRAFT properly--it's even hard for me to keep someone's feet in front of me. :-P Following the swim, we trekked back over to the parking lot for a quick transition to run. We did the whole run loop (5k) which is flat and fast. A note about Treasure Island--it's WEIRD there. Gray, abandoned military structures mixed with Section 8 housing. I kept expecting zombies to walk out of the run-down, boarded up buildings. Juxtapose this scene with the fact that a LOT of athletes use Treasure Island--runners, cyclists, and a few others no doubt tuning up for November 4th, but there were also a number of lovely, green manicured softball fields and soccer pitches among the remnants of urban blight. Surreal.

Sunday, 10/15. Happy Fish Swim School run for education. I signed up for the 10k. The morning dawned cloudy and icky and drizzly. I kicked myself for signing up on Active.com; that meant they already had my money, so I HAD to go. All in all, it was fun--another flat, fast course, which enabled me to reach my goal of finishing in less than 1 hour. I was pretty happy, actually; I finished in 56:07. Certainly not lightning fast, but not too shabby. Ruined me for the rest of the day, I'm afraid--all I wanted to do was laze around and watch my Netflix, so that's pretty much what I did.

Recent gear changes:
New running shoes. Switched from Asics Gel GT-2110 to Mizuno Wave 2 Nirvana. Pretty nice ride; not quite as cushy as the Asics, but better motion control for my little overpronation issue.

New goggles. Ditched the Aqua Sphere mask a couple months back because it wouldn;t seal properly anymore. The TYR's are great for low light conditions, but they give me a headache when I wear them for more than 30 minutes or so. Decided to give Aqua Sphere one more chance, and picked up a pair of Kaiman goggles. They are awesome! Super comfy, super watertight, nice wide field of vision, and they are black and sleek and make me look like a total badass. The one drawback--they sit very lightly on my face and pushing off kick-turns in the pool causes them to push really hard onto my face, in fact, right up against my eyeball every 400m or so. Truly a product intended for multisport use, not for the pool--perfect for racing!

Coming up this week...hopefully a little more cycling to tune up my spin, more swimming, and less running. I need to let my tissues recuperate from the increased volume over the past week. Also, I'm adding L-glutamine to the post workout regimen--we'll see how that changes my energy levels.