So, last week was a bit of a lost week in many ways, culminating in Friday the 12th being pretty much actually lost to the Moderna booster – shivering and sweating under the covers. (Soooo worth it!). Actually, having to take a whole day pretty much off did not completely suck. Can I get boosted again when I need a break sometime?
But even before that, I was exhausted, less productive, and unable to ramp up from Recovery Week as quickly as I thought I would be able to. The visit to the chiropractor on the 5th was very helpful, but didn’t get me back to 100%. I felt better in the rotator cuff muscles (and he said those are the primary injury danger), but my upper back never really loosened up.
The shot on Thursday left me unable to lift my arm comfortably for several days, and in fact it is still a bit tender as I write – 5 days later. I don’t think I’ve ever had soreness from a shot that lasted that long before.
So it was a real question mark whether it was a good idea to head to the beach with Sam on Saturday. I went to bed with a fever, but woke up feeling OK. And the soreness in my arm seemed to magically avoid the swimming muscles. (Although, as I found out in the water, did affect my ability to fully straighten my arm 🙂
So I went ahead and did it, and was glad I did. But I was tired and brain foggy and slow.
Actually, that pretty much encapsulates last week.
Bad Jokes
Classical swimmers learn the Bach stroke
If you don’t like these swim puns, you probably have a dry sense of humor.
Open Water Swim
Great swim at WB with Sam. As I said, my arm was a bit dodgy, but I just swam moderate pace and felt fine. I was pretty tired (sleepy tired) by the end, but I’m definitely glad we went – it was a beautiful day with great company, and I am sure that I feel better now than I would have if we hadn’t gone.
And on the bright side, 64-66 degrees felt great. Like, I really wouldn’t want it much warmer than that at this point. Of course, as anyone with OW experience knows, the difference between 64 and 60 can be vast, so I won’t get cocky. (Heck, the difference between 64 this week in the ocean and hot sun and 64 last week in the lake and windy, 42-degree cloudiness was vast!)
If you subtract the walking bit, we swam about 4.4 miles. It was 64 degrees at the start, and I felt like it warmed up a degree or two. The whole thing was about 3 hours, including breaks and entry and exit.
England Business (Nov 8-12)
Monday, I laid like a dead thing. It helped. Then I got my act together, flew through my email and SUBMITTED MY DEPOSIT AND PILOT’S CONTRACT! He wants me to send the contract and passport-sized photos by snail mail. Snail mail! I mean, can we have a civilization here? What are we, barbarians? (I’m trying very hard to eliminate emojis from my writing. But how will you know when I’m kidding? 🙂 ) See?
Tuesday – I am so burnt out on little things taking up my time and feeling like I’m getting nowhere. I spent probably more than 20 minutes this morning just trying to get them to upload my cat’s food prescription at chewy.com. And the England stuff just piles on top – a lot of annoyances in the last two weeks and few victories.
Now I’ve got to spend part of my too-short afternoon break picking up photos of myself at Walgreens to physically mail to England. Which I had to spend time looking up how to do. I’m getting everything done (so far), but I’m starting to see why I’ve been feeling annoyed and burnt out. Like the swimming isn’t hard enough!
Wednesday – ?
Thursday – I have not kept up with blogging about all the stuff I’m doing:
- There are only 2 schools left at this point – one for each kid. Hopefully they will let them in.
- Paul has acknowledge my payment… and I spent a lot of time on sending him the contract and photo by snail mail.
- Today I got my medication list ready for the MD to look over at my visit tomorrow (Claritin plus Pepsid plus Benadryl?!?). That took awhile. Everything takes a while.
- My inbox looks much less like a disaster area today. A got his first Covid shot last night – that let me delete/file about 12 different emails.
- Probably more stuff that I forgot I even did, but off to coach and swim!
Friday – Lost a day to the Moderna booster. It didn’t really suck to have to lay in bed, other than finally understanding what other people feel like when they are cold and can’t get warm.
I did get a chance to discuss all of the potential drugs I may take with my doctor – Monday’s task is to see if the prescription sea sickness patch is allowed. Do I even want to take it? I’ve had no problems…
I continue to tire of the non-swimming decisions.
The Week at the Pool
Summary – Kinda Still Recovery Week
Pool Yardage ~ 30,800 (missed Friday’s practice)
OW Yardage ~ 8,000
Temp – 64/65
Total Yardage ~ 38,800
Monday’s giving up on getting things done was pretty rehabilitating. Perhaps I should give up more often. Of course, not if I want to find schools for my kids, an apartment to live in and carry on writing this blog 🙂
Friday’s enforced day off from swimming was probably a good thing as well. But so was Saturday’s OW swim. So hard to know when to push and when to lay off. But at least so far, I’m threading the needle.
The Gory Details
Monday 11/8 – Theme: Broken down has a chance to build back up (~just shy of 6000, unless I forgot something)
- 1500w-up
- 100 ez
- 10×100 on 2:00, 1:55…1:15. Hold under 1:15. After a couple to get going, I was pleasantly surprised to hold a bunch of 1:12’s and a bunch of 1:11’s
- 100 ez
- 10×100 on 2:00, 1:55…1:15. With fins, hold under 1:05. After a couple of 1:04’s, I was pleasantly surprised to hold 1:03’s
- 200 ez
- 20×25 climb out, walk around on 1:00
- 200 ez
- 10×50 drill/swim on 1:00
- 300 cd
I feel better
Tuesday 11/9 – Theme: Annihilation Tuesday #3(?) (13,100 depending on how you count it)
Practice #1 (1700)
- 500 w-up
- 5×100 kick on 1:45 (fins)
- 5×100 pull on 1:35 (swim)
- 2×100 swim on 1:25 (fins)
Practice #2 (7500)
- 1600 w-up
- 3×200 pull 2:45
- 3×200 swim 2:35
- 3×200 paddles 2:35
- 6×200 fins 2:25
- 3×200 pull 2:45
- 3×200 paddles 2:35
- 3×200 swim 2:30
- 3×200 fins and paddles 2:20
- Or something like that 9x3x200. This did not go well.
- 500 CD
Practice #3 (2500 or 2900)
My argument that climb out walk around should count as another 25 – When measuring yardage, part of it is to gauge my effort output. Climbing out and walking around is more effort output.
- 100 loosen
- 300 swim
- 250 kick
- 350 pull
- (These were each for 5:00)
- 100 ez
- 4x(4×25 climb out, walk around; 2×50 fast from a dive; 100 ez)
- Counted our strokes on the 25’s and then tried to no more than double it on the fast 50’s. Free – 33/34; bk – 39/37; br – 41
- 300 loosen
Practice #4 (1000)
- 300 w-up
- 5×50 descend
- 3×50 descend more
- 3×50 beat those 50s with free/stroke
- 150 CD
[I felt good after this… till the next day]
Wednesday 11/10 – Theme: Annihilated Wednesday (~4700)
- 1700w-up
- 100 filmed
- 20×25 on 1:00 (climb out, walk around)
- 12x100on 1:30 (last 6 w/fins) – while the team did 200 flys off the blocks
- 20×50 IM order on :50, then 1:00
- 200 CD
I am ugh.
Thursday 11/11 – Theme: I hate combined practices. They take the sucking of being odd man out to a new height (~???)
The frustration started after a 500 w-up and a 400 IM kick/swim. We were supposed to do 3×100 easy/mod/fast, but I could only do 50’s because with my lane leaving 5 seconds apart, I couldn’t go last before the first person came back around again. Then we did stations, and I’m just too tired to have fun with things right now. And this is the third practice in a week of climb out and dive in, and my shoulder muscles aren’t ready for such an increase. And I almost got kicked in the face in the diving well. And I have no depth perception, so my turns in the diving well are useless. And at the end of 2 and a half hours, trying to do the weight stack was an exercise in trying to save my shoulders.
So, pity poor me. But I’m glad I went and stayed. I do like doing different things – I for sure think it makes me stronger for the Channel. I think it’s a real mistake to train for anything by JUST doing the thing you are going to do. Branching out trains supporting muscle groups and lets you go longer aerobically without overtaxing your muscles because you switch to different fibers. And if you are out in the ocean, getting battered around by the waves, having trouble keeping anything down or even holding your feed bottle, having been frustrated, battered around by other swimmers, and having tried to do things that you just felt like you couldn’t – well, it can’t hurt.
I do wish I knew if I am getting over trained and when I will feel better in the water again.
Gotta call some amount of yardage for this one – it was a 2.5 hour practice, but with a lot of racing skills – let’s say 7000
Friday 11/12 – No practice – fever from Covid booster
