Apparently I have still not become Superman. My body still has limits. I am actually getting quite good at finding them. If you've been reading along you'll know I found my bike limit a couple of weeks ago when I decided to ride hard for three days in a row and put in a ridiculously lousy performance at the tuesday night time trial. So lesson learned there... no riding hard for three days and expecting miracles. Not to mention the calf pain I went through for the next few days after that was pretty obnoxious too.
I get really excited when there are opportunities to train with other people. Its great to train with people regardless of whether they are equal, faster, or slower than me. Its all beneficial in different ways. So when there are offers to train I jump on them. And this is what got me into trouble on the bike a few weeks ago. Well apparently a lesson learned on the bike does not translate into a lesson learned in the water. On monday morning I hit the hotel pool in Columbus for a 40 minute lap swim. Which was annoying as it was such a small pool, but it still counts as a swim workout. Then on Tuesday morning I swam my first half mile at Lincoln woods with some other club members. And then on Wednesday morning I swam at Georgiaville Pond with some club members, and sure, what the hec... why don't I also swim on Thursday morning at Lincoln woods again! Oh and while were at it... lets not forget I went for an unplanned 60 mile ride yesterday too!
Now to backtrack a little I did know that my swimming volume was a bit high this week, but I really really really don't wan't to have to resort to backstroke during the tri so I really want to get to the point where I can do a half mile worth of freestyle without stopping. Right now even when rested I still have to take somewhere around 5-10 breaks of flipping on my back from anywhere from 5-45 seconds or so. So I figure the more I swim and build swim fitness the faster I'll be able to swim a half mile properly. So thats why I'm swimming a lot this week. That and I know I won't be able to get in the water again until probably Monday of next week due to my travel plans.
So this morning I woke up feeling pretty tired and sore from the long ride yesterday but I still made it to Lincoln woods at 6:20. As I was putting the wetsuit on I knew that it was going to be an uphill battle today. Not so much that I felt unsafe in the water, but enough that I knew it wasn't going to be a fast day. I tried to convince myself to focus on relaxing in the water and technique and that I would make it out to the rock when I got there and not worry about pace. After only about an 1/8th mile I had already taken a lot of backstroke breaks. It took me what seemed like forever to get to the rock at the 1/4 mile point. I was beat. My shoulders hurt. My arms hurt, and I was just generally fatigued. I rested at the rock for a minute or two and then started the long swim back. I never could get into a rhythm on the way back. I never managed to put together more than about 12-15 strokes in a row before I would have to stop and rest for a second or two. The whole way in went kind of like that. I think in total the 1/2 mile took me about 30 minutes. SLOW! It was brutal, and really a waste of a training day. Other than learning the lesson that I can't swim too many days in a row I don't think theres a lot to salvage from today. Well thats not entirely true. Today I took my watch off and then swam out 30 yards or so and then headed back for shore as fast as I could, waited for my hand to touch bottom and then ran out of the water and stripped my wetsuit off nice and fast. So at least I got one good transition rehearsal out of today.
So lets recap....
I know from my running injuries and troubles over the last couple of years that running more than three days in a row is a bad idea. I also know that riding hard for more than two days in a row is a bad idea. And today we've added swimming to the mix. So maybe I need to make some new training rules. Like howbout absolutely no repeating any discipline more than two days in a row! I should probably also add something in about taking regular rest days, but I know I'll never follow that rule so why bother!
Right... time for me to finish packing up the bike. So far its proving to be a bit easier than I thought. I'm thinking I'll post a review of the bike box and some pictures of the process along the way here later today. Time for me to get cracking!
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