Swim, Swam, Swum

Two days of training. Two days of swimming...

The first day was planned. We wanted to do a medium sized swim, a 20 minute straight one, because there were post swim plans. Then we were off and swimming, all going well, 'till Kate's foot cramped up something awful and it was towards the end anyway so we stopped.

The thing is, at this point of the training, we have to go hard but we also have to be careful. A little nagging injury now could easily become a more serious one and then become something we are dealing with either close to race time or, even worse, during the actual race. So it was good to stop and tend to Kate's foot, and because of the issue we opted to swim the next day too since that's the lesser of the evils when it comes to handling a foot issue. And it felt good.

So two days of swimming, 'cept the second one was quite different. This time we tried to do a shorter, faster swim. I thought it would help us gauge our race pace better, since all along we've been swimming longer steady distances. So this time we took turns, one person swimming for 10 minutes and the other person timing, counting laps, and alerting the swimmer how much time was left by submerging a hand with the appropriate amount of fingers displaying the time. I thought it was awesome because it added a little bit of a nerve factor in there and let me see how I was doing timewise and lapwise. I learned a few things: I can go faster if I just tap in to the moment, I need to breathe more evenly and thus calmly, and I need to get new goggles. Stopping every 6 or so lengths to let water out is, well, just LAME.

So that's the latest here. Today was spent "cross training" if you dare call it that: Took a long walk with Kate and my dog Jaya and then have spent the evening doing an intensive cleaning job on the house. And since I'm stalling on that now in lieu of writing this blog, well, I guess I oughtta get back to that. More soon...

xo,
K

P.S. Just days away from the article in the newspaper...can't wait!!!

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