Progress

This morning was the best swim since last summer. Started off like I normally do, and within a length I knew I was going to have a good swim. I had the feel of the water, that's all I can say. Then I stayed strong much longer than I thought I would, and it turned into a great swim!

500 m 9:50
1000 m 19:57 (with no sprint needed, this was a steady pace)
1500 m 30:10

I am really happy about this, since this gets me back to where I was before my arm issue. If anything, I'm a steadier swimmer now than I was, with more consistent lap times. I happened to note my 1250 time was right on 25 minutes, and it's only in the last 250 m that my stroke fell apart. Not just my arm, but my turn was getting sloppy, and my kick too. But this is major progress for me, getting back into the ballpark of where I was. Now lets see where I can go.

It's also a run night, with sidewalk nightmare icing from the warm day today. Even people that have been good about shoveling have the melt from their lawns running onto the sidewalk, and of course, freezing. I very carefully walked out to the bike path, with the last bit at a slow careful run. My theory was that the bike path, being in the sun for the warmest part of the day might have cleared off. No such luck. It was still pretty slippery.

So I ran very carefully. Inevitably that tightened up my legs, which were already tight to begin with. They were heavy and slow. Maybe they were still in the pool celebrating the great swim this morning. I did a few strides, trying for quick light steps. Don't read more into that than there is. You almost can't do anything else given the surface conditions. I'll call this 45 minutes, even though the warm up and cool down extended beyond the 35 minute run by more than 10 minutes. What was odd is that my heart rate monitor gave me numbers all over the map at first, and even when it settled down I didn't really believe them. At first, way too high, and then somewhat low given my breathing. Then again, I wasn't going that fast, maybe my breathing is what was out of whack.