One set

I woke up this morning still kind of stiff from last night's run. I might need to find some better recovery methods, although I guess I should expect that I'll still be off only 12 hours after a tough session. But I was able to drag my sorry butt out of bed and get to the pool. After the usual warm-up, I looked at the board and saw 15x200, with each 200 being a different pace/stroke/toys. "Wow," I thought, "That's going to be tough to keep track of." But the coach had me and a couple others move down to lanes 5 and 6, all of us being part of the Muskoka 70.3 group. Then I looked at the other board, and saw one line: 1x2000m HIM, free or pull. "Wow," I thought, "That's going to be even tougher to keep track of."

It's a simple workout. Requires one line on the chalkboard, but that one line can end up saying a lot. Since my legs were still fried, I opted to pull the entire way (like a wetsuit), and we did do a 2000m pull test a few months ago. We were sent off, I tried to keep an accurate count as best I could, kept a steady rhythm, got yelled at once on a turn to "finish (my) stroke", and touched the wall 35:10 later.

Now here's where things get a little off. Ignoring the time, I'm 99% sure that I did the full load. I don't remember at any point having my usual, "Was that 5 or 7?" discussion that usually happens with these really long sets. (I counted off 4 sets of 10 lengths of the pool.) And that would mean I lapped one of the other guys, who's a mainstay in lane 2. (He did free for the first 1000, then pulled, and I think I passed him around the 700-800m mark.) I did lap twice the other folks in the lane, but it may be the case that I missed a lap, and only did 1900m, since I did finish about 90 seconds before him, and he didn't think anyone passed him.

When we did this in May, I was ~38:45, so if the time is accurate, that's a 3:35 improvement. Huge. My 35:10 translates to a 1:45/100 pace. Even I find it hard to believe that I was able to knock that out for 40 lengths of the pool. If I only did 1900m, then that's 1:51/100, which is much more reasonable, and would have been an improvement of 1:45 over last time. Still huge. (I'd be more upset that I didn't do the workout as prescribed than the increase in time. I'm kind of a stickler that way.)

Either way, I've made some real gains in the last couple of months. I'm excited to see what I can do in Guelph Lake next weekend. I should be able to go sub-2:00/100 for the first time, unless the weather makes that impossible. What does this mean for the 70.3? Absolutely nothing. That will be an entirely different ballgame. I have no real desire to try to recalibrate any swim predictions based on today, because it will mean very little in open water in a cold lake with 240 other athletes and other waves chasing from behind. But I'm faster now than I was before, and that's been the main point of this whole journey.

Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull
1x2000 HIM effort pull (35:10)
c/d - 200 non-free, 200 ez free
Total: 3000m

Run: 5 miles @ 7.5 mph + 4 strides