A new training season starts

Today was swim intervals. It's been a while, and my arms feel it. Not so long ago I could do as many 50's in a row starting on the minute as you wanted. I started with that and lasted 4, before going to starting on the 1:10. Most of the 50's were 54 or 55 seconds, though two of them were 50 s, and a few were 57 or 58 s. I did it as two sets of ten, with a minute in between. I needed the rest. I wasn't breathing particularly hard, but my arms are feeling it. At first it was like swimming through warm treacle. As I went on I could feel my swim coming back. What with 250 m warmup, 200 m cool down, and 2x10 x 50m, I was an hour swimming. What's weird is that I think I could swim that distance faster just by swimming it, rather than doing the intervals. But this is teaching me to swim faster.

Then 30 min core work in the dive tank, including water running without the sissy floatation belt. Much as the swim was a bit of an ordeal, it was good to get back into the pool for a serious workout. However, I'm thinking I might have done in my watch. It had a fog on the inside of the lens that gradually went away. Perhaps this is the beginning of the end.

Then the real workout for the day started - nuking the one big flower box, while saving some lilies out of it. That was 5 hours worth, digging, pulling, dirt bashing, raking, scrabbling around after roots, and I'd like to count it as core as well. I managed to rescue more lilies than I thought I would, and they are happily sitting in some potting soil while we decide where to put them for winter. There's also some rescued bulbs and we'll see what happens. The flower box is now mulched with newspaper covered with red cedar chips.