Swim time trial

I'm glad I went to bed early last night. Slept like a rock. Feeling much better today.

Last time I tried a 1000m swim time trial I think I choked or something. That was Friday April 4, 2008, when I swam 19 minutes almost exactly and it damn near killed me. A couple days later, almost without intending to, I swam 18:38. Since then I've broken one arm and pulled or strained some muscles in the other arm. You can imagine that I've been fairly cautious about pulling hard.

I had no idea what to expect today, given the week I've had so far. It didn't help that with one thing and another I had to do it at Canyon Meadows. The initial signs were not good. I walked into the locker room to see that all the big lockers we could put our own locks on have had the locking mechanism removed. I got lucky to find one of the few remaining coin operated ones. I found out later that a couple days ago someone snuck in with a bolt cutter and got 3 wallets.

This pool has had the next door high school kids in pretty often, and the lifeguard confirmed they'd be starting at 7am. It was 6:30 so I hustled my butt over to an empty lane and got started. I didn't have time to do the full warm up, swim, and cool down, but I did warm up 300 m. Then, should I be like Jenna and tease you all by saying I had a good swim? No, I'll share the number. 18:44, which I'm pretty darn pleased with. Pacing was fairly even, though I started a bit strong, and ended strong. In control of my breathing and my stroke, and nowhere near puking at the end. I didn't look at my watch at 500 m so I don't know if the second half was faster or not. I was at the top end of my steady pace, and could have gone on, though I'm not sure for how much further.

I did some cool down before the kids showed up, and stretched my legs a bit. I also snuck into the dive tank for some water running, maybe 5 minutes, and a bit of stretching, before the kids took it over. Went upstairs for that number. 228 again. I sure seem to be consistent. Walked 35 minutes home, changed, and headed out for my run.

Walked briskly, then broke into a reallyreallyeasy jog 10 minutes to get to the Anderson crosswalk. From there I ran 25 and some seconds north, almost to the reservoir, and back. There's some small hills along the way. Oddly enough, coming back into a strong wind was a bit faster, maybe 30 seconds or so, than going out. This was about 7K in 50:30, running easy on tired legs. This is about the same pace as the Wed run, but it felt harder. I didn't really care about pace or heart rate. I let my lungs and legs negotiate a pace that felt comfortable. Walked easy a little over 10 minutes back.

I'm glad Susi wasn't with me, though. It was a doggie convention out there today. I ignore dogs when I'm running, unless they bark at me, or I think they're going to bite me. It was a nice morning for a run, cool and clear. I spent part of it thinking about running stuff, posture, how my feet were landing, keeping my shoulders relaxed, trying to find my core, and that sort of stuff. The other part was almost mindless happiness. I was happy to be out running, enjoying the scenery, enjoying the feel of my body moving and the wind on my face. I didn't have a big foolish grin or anything, so maybe it was more contentment than happiness. Snack, stretched and rollered when I got home. Showered, ate a real lunch, and had a quiet early afternoon. Now for some errands and stuff.