Week 2

I've decided to try a new approach.    I have run out of time in my days lately.  I now have a full time job that    feels  squished into half time hours ( school days have shortened lately ), I'm Mom to 3 busy busy boys and I also make time to train myself.   As a result, I am having  trouble sitting to write lengthy well thought out blog posts!!!  I hope to find time for that some more as time rolls along. But for now, I am trying to turn over  a new leaf to write short & frequent posts instead.  Sometimes that's a good  approach to follow with training!! Lots of short & easy runs... that's how I plan to blog for a bit.

I'm at the end of week 2 of my new training season.  And, I'm happy to say, things are getting just a wee bit better.  Other than my painful and mysterious calf incident last week, things weren't bad per se, but they sure weren't good.  

Let's talk about that for a minute though.
Good. What is good?? Oh no.. I'm digging myself a hole for a long post here. And I can't do that. It's 7:38 and I have until 7:45 to do this.

I'll have to come back to this because it is important and it's the theme of the month with my athletes it seems.

In short... it is muy importante that you take time off at the end of a season. I feel this VERY strongly. For many many reasons.  Your mind, your body, your family.... your mind.. did I say that already?  Take a Break folks!!!  It's OK and it's OK to get out of shape.  The Goal is to decondition!! It feels strange and sloppy and sometimes quite bad to those of us who strive to be fit and ready to rock at the drop of a hat. But in reality, you can't do that. You can't stay in perfect racing shape all year. Why not? For one thing, if you do, when the big race arrives next July for example, you will be flat.  The goal isn't to be race ready now but to be race ready then. 

In other words.. Patience everyone! Patience.

3 minutes left!!!

My first few swims were slooooooooooow. But more than that, they were sloppy. My arms were moving in strange directions. I have no idea what was going on under the water but a strong effective stroke was not how it would be described.
That's ok. I've been here before.
How to handle it?
Go back to the pool another day. And then another. And then another. And.. you get the point.

Today, I swam for the 3rd time this week. No big deal. Except, I haven't done that since... Early September??

It's slowly clicking.  I cant' take a lot of time off my swim splits anymore. I've been at it too long and I'm on that end of the age curve. But I can maintain and here and there, I pull out some long lost speed.  The 200s I swam 3 weeks ago were just a bit off. :) That's a nice way to put it. last week, not as bad. Today, I did 5.  The first one, at a moderate-easy effort, was decent. The time was faster than the best times 2 weeks ago. Ahh.. Keep in mind, we're talking about 4 seconds.  That's all I get these days. But #5, that was better. Of course, I was working my tail off. I was pushing and focusing on the underwater pull, kicking off the walls ( doesn't  always happen. Hope my old swim coaches aren't reading. ) , Not breathing off the walls ( again, don't tell the old coaches!) , and pushing that 3rd 50 that always seems to be the worst. And, hey! I dropped down to my in-season 'decent' time. Not even with my best times... but my good times.  There.  And again, that's 8-10 sec between my worst 200 a few weeks ago and today's good one.
Not a lot of time. But that's all I got.

I will go back to the pool Monday. And Wed. And Friday. And then again, the next week. No matter what. I will run and bike and run and bike and lift and stretch and roll and massage.

If I keep it up, in a few more weeks I might even drop 2-3 more seconds! :)

patience.... one of the keys to success.....