Mind games and pool courtesy

Well, another training week is almost over, and the good thing is that next week is a rest week!!! A rest week with almost 7 hours of training scheduled, lower intensity training, but 7 hours nonetheless. Yikes! I am looking forward to an “easier” week.

I had some good days and some other not so good days this week. Most of the “not so good ones” were related to swimming. I just can’t believe how hard it is to make progress on that discipline. I know that I am better from when I first started in multisport 2 years ago, but I still don’t consider myself good enough. It is a hard mind game that I keep playing with myself. It requires a lot of energy to keep pushing and not giving up with the hopes that I WILL get better and that I just need to keep trying. But you know how it is sometimes when you need to see some kind of improvement to keep motivated?? I think I have reached that point with swimming. Don’t get me wrong, I’ll keep swimming because I NEED to, but it would be nice to see that I am getting at least slightly better… so that I can face the swim workouts with a better mindset. I do try as hard as I can, and I will keep trying as hard or even harder; I just wish I could realize some improvement. That’s all.

Speaking of swimming… I got to the pool on Tuesday after work to do my “prescribed” 2600 yds and all the lanes were taken. I approached a woman that was swimming in one and asked if we could split the lane, she said: No problem. So I jumped in and started doing my stuff, sticking to my side. Since I don’t do flip turns, when I get to the end of the pool, I put a foot down, turn around and go again. That is when I saw that someone else had jumped in our lane and was swimming towards the other girl there. I think that by pure chance they did not collide head to head. The girl that was there when I got in (lets call her girl A) had a conversation with the other girl (Girl B) and explained to her that she could not just swim in the same side of the lane as her. If you were to look at girl B you would have thought she was an experienced swimmer. She was wearing a “fast looking” suit and the head cap you get at the local tri’s. But if she was an experienced swimmer, she would have known about pool courtesies. Girl A convinced her to switch lanes, not need to cram us all up in one lane when there are lanes that only have on person. So Girl B switches lanes. Girl A and I keep doing our stuff and when she is done she leaves the pool, leaving the lane all for myself. So I start swimming in the middle of it. No need to stick to the side since I am alone on it, right? I get to one end of the pool and as I am turning to go back I see Girl B swimming in my lane, in the middle of it! She didn’t even TELL me she was coming in; she didn’t even ask me if she could join in. I would have said yes! She continues to do her thing, not minding my presence and I get pissed off. I stand on her way at the end of the pool to prevent her from doing a flip turn. I proceed to tell her that I want to split the lane, not circle swim. She argues with me. At this point I am getting really upset. I simply said: I do not want to circle swim, we are splitting the lane. After that I put my goggles back on and kept swimming. I think I kind of intimidated her because maybe 5 minutes after that she left. I know that the way I acted was not the most polite of all, but she could have caused us to hurt ourselves. All it would have taken was for her to ASK me, or even call my attention before she jumped in.
Rude people piss me off.

On Wednesday I had a nice ride outside. Only bad thing was that traffic. That caused a lot of stop and go. A lot of clipping and unclipping. I almost fell down a couple of times, but I was able to keep my balance and go. I think the kind of pedals I chose were not the best ones. After being used to the ability of clipping on either side, this new thing is hard work! When and if I get a tri bike I will think about getting different pedals and maybe even different shoes. Don’t tell my husband though since I just got these pedals and shoes :-)

Thursday was Masters Swim again. Not a pleasant experience and definitely the worst day of the week.

Today I got up early and did my scheduled brick. Rode the bike on my trainer and then ran outside. I felt good running! I had not felt this good on my feet in a while. I felt light and speedy (even though I was not really going fast... still training in zone 2) and could have kept going for hours.

We are off to MN this weekend to visit family. It will be a long and fun weekend. Lots of stuff planned for the short two days we will be there. I anticipate getting home on Sunday and being exhausted. I am looking forward to running alongside the Mississippi river tomorrow morning, but wouldn’t you know it? After being beautiful up there for the entire week, tomorrow it is forecasted to be cold and rainy… I guess I will have to pack my winter gear. See ya when I get back.