Tilt A Whirl

We were at a new pool this morning, Havergal College. This is a private school here in the city. The facilities, well, the facilities are nicer than anything I would have ever had access to in high school. Six lane, 25m swimming pool. (I do find it a bit weird that a high school has a co-ed shower area, but maybe I'm a bit out of touch.) Just like last week, those of us doing the 70.3 had a special workout, once again compromising basically one line: 2k free or pull. Since I like to compare workouts, I once again did it all as a pull set, to see if I missed a lap last week. The time should be close to last week, although in a SCM pool, the pace might be quicker.

I was chosen to lead our lane of 4 people, so I set off at a hard but manageable pace. Counting in this pool was tough. 2000m translates to 40 laps, or 80 lengths. I like to count each length, so I ended up doing 4x20 in my head. There was one point where I wasn't sure of my count, so I went with the low number, just to make sure. I got a little water in my goggles within 50m, but I decided to just tough it out and keep swimming.

I was lapping the other members of the lane pretty regularly. I think I caught the guy forced to do free (there's no wetsuits in Kona) about 8 times, and a recent IM finisher about 5 times. I lapped the other swimmer (who was sent off ten seconds after me) just before the halfway mark, and then he just swam in my wake for the rest of the day. If I was in his situation, I would have dropped back and gotten the best workout I could, but I can understand wanting to get through as fast as possible as well. I know my pace dropped over the last 500m or so, but I kept the focus on "finish your stroke", and kept a good effort going. It was a bit quicker than I'd probably choose to swim the HIM, but it's nice to know I could do that, and I wasn't dead at the end.

I hit the wall at 35:20. I know I lost at least 30 seconds when I was on the slower swimmers' feet a few times, so I guess I actually could pull out the 35:10 from last week. Even the coach was pretty impressed."You were flying. That's a long way from the start of the year." I should be well-recovered for tomorrow's race, and maybe I'll line up closer to the middle and really try to get in the mix. This "getting faster" thing is a whole lot of fun.

I'll add a brief bike ride after work to shake out the legs before finishing packing my bag for the morning.

Swim: w/u - 200m each free, non-free, pull
4x25 quick/25 ez, 15"
1x2000 pull (35:20)
c/d - 200 non-free, 200 ez free
Total: 3200m

Bike: 30 minutes, zone 1-2