Swimming...

For some reason, the sandman and I are no longer friends. I woke up this morning at 3:30am, hungry and wide awake. So I got up, surfed the internet, and finally decided to just go and swim. Not much else to do that early anyway, and the pool is close to one of my happy places, Peet's Coffee (if you're curious, watching the San Jose Sharks play hockey at HP Pavilion is my other happy place, but I digress).

I know I talk a lot about swimming. It is what defined me for many of my formative years. I do hope that soon the entire sport of triathlon will take it's place, but for now, I like to write about swimming.

Keep in mind that today was my 3rd workout in the pool. Today was a combination of long swimming and IM. That's right, all four strokes got their due today, not just the dreaded backstroke. Coincidentally, I was pretty happy for backstroke after doing four consecutive laps of butterfly, without breaking stroke. I am not saying it was pretty, Misty Hyman I am not, but I got my arms out of the water and did it (perhaps with more than 2 kicks per stroke, but that, my friends, is legal according to US Swimming. I was an official, I know these things!).

One of the added benefits of doing butterfly while lap swimming, is that your lane mate tends to end his work out early. This left the entire lane to me. Since I had to do more IM, no one else seemed eager to share the lane with the crazy girl doing full butterfly either. So, bonus!

That 400IM hurt though. As I pushed off the wall for the 3rd 25 of fly, I felt the familiar nausea in the pit of my stomach. I had almost forgot what IM will do to you. Almost. If you do IM right, you always feel like barfing. That is just the way it is. I used to tell my swimmers that. Swimmer "Coach Jenn, I feel like barfing after that 200IM", me "Good, that means you did it right! Great job!", swimmer "Oh really? You mean it is always going to feel like that?", me "Yep, pretty much."

I was also thinking about my husband, David, also a former swimmer. This boy used to do a set that went something like this: 10 x 400IMs followed by 5 x 1000s. Yeah, he was a distance swimmer. All the way. After doing my one measly 400Im, I remembered just how hard he used to work in the pool.

But now I say goodbye to the pool until Friday. In between there will be much running and biking to fill the time and further trash my legs (which they deserve).

Next week is a big week, apparenlty. Which will then be followed by test week. I am so glad I have gotten a few weeks to get into some semblance of shape before testing. I really appreciate that. Then my first 10K on Superbowl Sunday. After the Patriots dismal performance yesterday, I don't know I will be watching it anyway! Which is good, because it means I won't have to pace myself with all the Superbowl party food.