Thursday evening after work I ran thirty minutes on the treadmill and went 2.683 miles. It was a good workout and I felt good at the end of it. Out of breath and really sweaty, but good.
Friday night I swam 1,350 yards in 29:59. My training plan called for half an hour in the pool, so I managed to hit that right on the head. I purposely gave myself less rest this time around than I'm accustomed to this workout. My longest rest was around 1:10.
My first set consisted of 5 x 100 on a 2:00 interval, followed by a little over a minute of rest. Then I did 5 x 50 on a 1:00, followed by another minute or so of rest, then swam 400 yards. After another minute or so of rest I finished out with 2 x 100 on a 2:00.
The workout was very satisfying. I was a bit apprehensive about it. Not nervous exactly, but defintely a bit worried about the low rest periods. I was afraid I'd have no rest between the last few 100s of my set, but that wasn't the case. I always had at least 5-6 seconds to recover and catch my breath before starting again. I know that doesn't seem like a lot of time, but in the competitive swimming workd that's almost an eternity. It was enough time for me to stand up and get some breath back before starting the next 100, and I was very happy I was able to do these on a 2:00 interval. When I first got back in the water back in July, there was no way this would have been possible.
I was very happy with the swim workout. It was hard, which is ideal, but not quite so hard I felt I couldn't do it. I'm going to keep the low rest midset going forward. Hopefully it will help make me faster again. I know that with the distances I'll be swimming at races, especially the half-Ironman in October, speed is definitely not the name of the game, but I can never help thinking "In high school I was finishing 100s easily in 1:20-1:30 without being too winded", and that's what I want to get back to. That goal is likely slightly unrealistic as I'm no longer swimming for two hours a day five days a week, but I'd like to get my average time down from 1:50ish to 1:35 to 1:40. At that point, doing 100s on a 2:00 interval wouldn't be nearly as bad as it was Friday.
It always amazes me how much swimming helps clear my head. For the last two days of this week work has been crazy and I'd been fairly stressed about it and most of my thoughts were consumed with work, but swimming always helps me clear my head.
When I'm biking or running, my brain doesn't really disengage. I'm thinking about what I'm doing and usually trying to convince myself to keep going. (I'm especially bad at this when I run, telling myself to make it just one more minute, or one more quarter mile, just to repeat the exact same mantra once that minute or quarter mile is done).
When I'm swimming, however, I don't have to think that way. I think because I swam for so many years, I subconsciously know I can do the yardage, and that frees my head up to work through all the cobwebs that have accumulated. All I know is that when I went into the pool on Friday, I was in a bad mood and my head was spinning from thinking about everything that needed doing at work, but when I was done all that stuff was neatly packed away in a box and I was no longer stessing about next week. I can't explain why swimming works this way for me, but I'll take it.
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