6:30 *AM* run

After last week's adventures in the dark, our coach moved our group workout to 6:30 am instead. So this morning I got to see a very lovely sunrise:



We did nearly the same workout as we did last week in the dark but increased the hill climbs from 2:00 to 2:30. Apparently that was a huge difference because I was much slower this morning. It felt like I was doing this workout at 13,000 ft. The only plus was being done with the run at 7:30 am instead of 7:30 pm.

I still went to my noon master's class. On days that I swim, my swim workout is usually first and I definitely felt more tired today. And I realize that I don't talk much about swimming much here. My Tuesday class is a beginner master's class so it's more mellow and we don't usually have to swim on certain time intervals. The last 3 weeks I've made a concerted effort to swim every 3 strokes so that I breath on both sides (instead of every two and breathing on my left as I've always done). I'm fine for 50's and 100's but tend to get out of breath after longer sets. The beginner class has lots of drill sets and kick sets so I don't get as burned out trying to bilateral breath and so I've been sticking to it more. At the end of class I did a 300 cool down and was fine. And why do I want to bilateral breath? Chances are I'll still breath on the left during races, but by training both sides I'll have a more symmetrical stroke and less chance of muscle imbalances.

And speaking of swimming, this week I've been thinking of stopping the Thursday morning stroke development class I've been doing since September. For one thing, it's at 6:30 am, which is actually NOT my favorite time to work out. But mostly it's because the instructor is really non-traditional and sometimes I feel like my time could be better spent. Last week we ran one length of the pool and swam back (4 times). And in other weeks we've had to sit on a kick board and skull across. I can, in good conscience, think of approximately ZERO times these skills will be useful in a triathlon. And then when we do work on strokes, she has me change things in such a way that I feel very choppy and awkward. On the other hand, this class was a chance to catch up with the other girls doing the Ironman. I'm still not sure which classes I'll take. I was planning on dropping this one by next February anyway when I anticipate swimming 3 days a week and Mon/Wed/Fri will make more sense.

And I forgot to do last weeks totals (we had some nice weather so I got out on my bike twice in addition to the velodrome class):

Swimming: 4600 yd
Biking: 48.9 miles
Running: 19.14 miles

Time: 11:50 (this number has also included the 90 minutes of strength)