My daughter got strep throat and has been home from daycare yesterday and today. I had a run scheduled for yesterday, but I was forced to move it to today. Daughter sick+Husband working long hours=no workouts for moi. But I told Todd that I would get up early today and go to the Y to do my tuesday swim and also my monday scheduled run.
I had to go to the closest Y because Todd needed to go to work at a somewhat decent hour. That reads, the pool temperature was 87 degrees!!!! It is a "family" friendly Y and they do not have a lap pool. Just the fitness one, where they hold kid swimming lessons as well as water aerobic classes. The good thing is that a 5.30 am there are no kids in the water or water fitness classes scheduled.
So I get there and upon seeing the water temperature sign, I brace myself for a not so pleasant swim. I keep repeating in my head: This will be good training (temps wise) because on race day, chances are the water temps will be like that or even higher... I change into my swimming "uniform" and head to the pool. Every lane was occupied! And here I thought that since this Y is the furthest out from downtown people do not exercise there at the very early hours of the morning. WRONG! I see a guy that seems to be swimming at a pace that sort of looks like mine and I jump in.
My "cheat" sheet calls for 200 easy swim, then 2 series of 4x50 just as warm up. Followed by a whole bunch of 75's at different speeds... I try not to look too far ahead on my sheet as to not get discouraged... Deep breath and I start swimming... Putting it into IM-able's words "It sucked money balls". I cannot get a hold on my swimming! it seems that instead of making progress I keep going backwards. Coach says that it takes time and patience and technique... yeah, I kind of lack the last two... Let me say for the record, in case you didn't know... I DO NOT like swimming. I suck at it, i feel like I will never get better. It does not come naturally to me, I feel completely out of place. But, being as stubborn as I am; I will keep trying it until either a) my arms fall off or b) I get better at it. And to prove I am determined, I recently emailed coach asking her to schedule me to swim at least 3 times a week, because if I do not practice it a lot (read at least 3 times a week) I feel like I lose any progress I might have made. Now remember, swimming is not one of my favorite past times, yet I emailed Coach to swim more... Talk about self torture!
After the pool, it is time to tackle the run that got postponed... It is just a 50 min one, I should be able to do it no problem. Warm up 10 minutes... Wow, my legs are feeling sluggish, I feel heavy... Two sets of 15 minutes on high zone 2 with a 5 minute "easy" run in between. First set begins and I am running at a nice 10 min mile... Definitely an improvement from when I started HR training (i could not even jog without my HR skyrocketing), but still kind of slow for the pace I was used to running at... It feels hard, but I get through it. Easy 5 minutes, check. Second 15 min set begins and I am forced to slow down to a 5.5 mph pace... WTF??!!! I am pissed, my HR is all over the place and I just want to get off the darn treadmill. I am forced to slow down even more... By the time the set is done I am completely demoralized. All I want to do is get home and pig out on some chocolate... Too bad it is only 7.50 am.
It is incredible how you can be on the most high of highs one day, and then the next you are feeling like a slowpoke. Emailed Coach with how I was feeling and she said that stress could be a factor on why my HR was all messed up, also I could be dehydrated (didn't do a very good job at drinking water over the weekend). She basically said not to worry about it to much... If only I could.
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