Wednesday, January 13

I was semi-dreading today's workout. The prospect of double speedwork (swim, then run) was unnerving enough. A work commitment kept me out until 11:00 the night before, so I was also worried about sleep--as in lack thereof. But I woke up ahead of the alarm and got up at 4:45 as is now usual.

The swim workout was challenging but I definitely drew strength from the camaraderie in our lane--although it was alarming to lose Don, our usual lane #3 leader, to lane #4 in a last-minute shuffle by Scott.

In recent days, I've discovered that my kick is weak relative to the rest of my swimming. Definitely something to work on. But as a result, my kicking laps leading into the intervals was sort of endless; I finished too late to get much rest.

My old running coach used to refer to the most important part of a particular session as the "meat" of the workout. Not the aptest metaphor for a vegetarian like me, but it's always stuck . So today's "meat" was 10 x 100 steady followed by 50 hard with 30 seconds rest after both the 100s and the 50s. Somehow after the fourth set, I knew that I would make it through. The feeling came as a real sense of relief. I'm not one of the stronger swimmers in the group so I was especially pleased to take out the 4th and 9th sets. Another thing my other team (Central Park Track Club) does is share the load of intervals this way by having everybody take turns leading. So it was nice to see this same tradition observed in the pool.

I came to triathloning from a running background, so I'm always most comfortable in that leg. But last June I got a partial tear of my Achilles in the Philadelphia Insurance Triathlon and I hadn't done speedwork since then. So I was both nervous and excited to be back. The 6 x 400 workout with a 200 "Kumbaya" recovery was a perfect re-introduction for me. I ran with Tommy, Bobby, and Joe. As in the water, the best way to be pushed to faster speed is to be able to attack the challenge with teammates.

This evening I took an hour-long spin class at the 92nd Street Equinox with Chris Griffin, my favorite instructor there.