1 mile in the water!

This week the pool is closed due to maintenance. They drain it and clean it and I hope paint the air tubes above because they look pretty nasty. The competition pool is open however. I didn't swim Monday because I was in the water Sunday practicing my open water swim. I figured I'd swim Wed and Fri in this cold cold competition pool.

I was nervous about negotiating that side - it's where the swim team is and I didn't want to interfere. I went Wednesday after lunch (right after lunch to be specific...after a "your last day as a contractor" Mexican lunch). There was only one other person there, so turned out to be a good time.

The water was certainly chilly. But after a lap down and back, it felt fine. The competition pool has a movable floor. I thought it was the entire floor, but it's just half. The rest is the deep end. So it was the coolest thing to start swimming, looking down at the bottom, and then see the floor slowly moving away from me as I progressed into the deep water. I am not sure why this was so awesome, but it was.

I warmed up some. Some freestyle, some pull buoys. Then I was going to swim my half mile, like last week. About 3/4 of the way through it, I was having such a good time I thought "why don't I just keep swimming?" I thought about how hard the open water was and had already made my decision to increase my pool distances. And last time I had taken a short break then went another 1/4 mile. Maybe I could swim a full mile straight?

And that I did. It was pretty easy, and by the end, my breathing was even fine. I was going slow of course. I did it in 44:35. And I think I was swimming meters in this pool rather than yards. I'm slow and steady. I don't push off the wall either.

That evening, I rode my bike from the house around the neighborhood. I went 14 miles and kept it easy. Later I was exhausted!

Thursday my legs were sore and my arms...oh my goodness was I sore. I decided I'd run, but keep it easy. It was ridiculously slow. A 10:50 pace overall. But at least it felt easy, aside from my legs feeling like bricks.

Today I'm toying with swimming easy. But I don't want to thrash my legs more for the group ride Saturday morning. Casey probably isn't going to make it, and last time he had to pull me along in the beginning. I'm nervous I'll be dropped. So maybe I won't go if he can't go, and I'll do a brick instead. Still haven't done those yet...