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Hard things are hard

I’m savoring my last few hours before double workouts start back up again, and realizing that If I don’t get a post up now, it’s not going to happen. It’s amazing how little you get done when swimming for 4.5 hours a day and stretching for 1-2. Not to mention the eating – oh, the eating!

As expected, this week was a real challenge. Not a challenge like truly challenging things. Things that you couldn’t put a stop to anytime you felt like it. But a challenge where you don’t know if you can do it, and the only thing holding you to it is your own will. At least so far, both the will and the shoulders held out.

I’m telling the tale backward, because I was less sensical when I was deeper into the training…

The Recovery

Sometimes it’s only afterward that you realize what you’ve been missing. For me, one of those things was a chance for the mind to wander – not just this week, but for the past few months. I have had very little time that isn’t devoted to something OR at a point when I am so completely wrung out that nothing, body or brain, functions. 

It seems to me that many folks surround themselves constantly with people and activity. By choice! How do they think? Without regular opportunities for my mind to rove, I start to go a little crazy.

So it was nice to find myself on Christmas morning, staring out the window and contemplating the enormous human capacity for improvement. (This was triggered, BTW, by the demonization of swimmer Halo Hirose in the book “The Three-year Swim Club.” The story this book tells is incredible, but I took issue with the attitude that there was a swimmer, a child no less, who was a waste of space and could never be anything else.)

Today I am still creaky, but mentally and physically ready to give it a go again.

Friday After Finishing

It’s Friday afternoon and I am showered, PJ’d, stretched, and fed. And loving my couch like a boss.

The mixed bag of news at this point is exemplified by the fact that I let out a cheer when I was stretching this morning and could lift my leg. Couldn’t do that yesterday, so… score? 

The good news is that I have reached that point where swimming has become inevitable. It is what I do because I no longer know how to do anything else. I kept going this morning, not because of any externals, but just because going is what there was. I don’t know if you’ve ever reached this point with anything, but I consider it exactly the mentality I may need for the Channel. If things get tough – if I am tired or cold or stung by jellyfish – I want my arms to keep going around and my legs to keep kicking because they don’t know how to do anything else.

I watched a really inspirational TED talk yesterday… before laying an egg at the alumni meet. IMO, especially for endurance work, no amount of inspiration or motivation can beat the sheer will of not knowing how to quit.

Friday, Three in the Morning, Rambling

Wow. Have you ever been just, slowly and inexorably, crushed? I’m being crushed for play and by my own choice, which always helps. I saw a speaker a long time ago at a triathlon event at Sports Basement in San Francisco. He talked about the difference in the pain we experience from true debilitation vs. the pain we experience by our own choice, when we can quit anytime. And of course he’s right – the “sufferfest” of this week was, in the end, just my weird idea of fun.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t feel completely spent right now. I watched a great TED talk before the meet yesterday (Little Big Steps) by a guy who was told he’d never walk again. I was so inspired and changed my attitude from “I don’t know about this” to “Let’s do this!” And then the only thing I felt like I embodied from his talk was the “you WON’T always achieve your goals on time” bit. Haha.

It’s 3 in the morning and at this hour I am historically and massively unable to tell the difference between an amazing idea and one that lacks all merit. (I used to keep a pad of paper beside my bed to write down ideas, because I kept thinking I had come up to solutions to… everything, and then forgotten them. But once I had the pad, I would only find nonsensical things (“You MUST with the frogs!!!”) on it in the morning.) So maybe you’re interested in hearing how I feel in detail right now and maybe not. Well, I’m not sleeping well, obviously. Which seems insane – how can I be doing this many yards a day and not just pass out? 8000 yards a day make me sleep well, but apparently double that is throwing my body for a loop. In addition, I get so thirsty that I have to drink. Which makes me have to pee. When I then take a drink. And the chlorine has dried out my skin and I’m a bit itchy. And it’s sometimes hard to find a comfortable position. I don’t feel that sore, but I guess I am.

So that’s the sleep. I get so tired by the end of the night that I start thinking the world is a terrible place. Which, it may certainly be, but after a night’s sleep I think it’s a lot less terrible.

I’m not hungry anymore. Nothing sound good to eat and I’m tired of forcing food in my body. I ate cheerios yesterday, even though they have added sugar because 1) I was willing to and 2) It’s not as if that sugar is ever going to make it to my liver. I am looking forward to my Jimmy John’s Beach Club tonight. “Will swim for Jimmy John’s.”

I’m stretching for 1-2 hours a day. It is very, very boring. I do listen to Spanish podcasts now when I stretch, so at least I don’t feel like it’s a total waste of time. (To be clear, it is NOT a waste of time, I just feel like it is.) I’m swimming for 4.5 hours a day and stretching for 2 – that’s 6.5 hours a day to the cause. But not today, baby – only 2.5 of swimming and 1 of stretching and I’m freeeeee!

If you’re wondering why I’m putting myself through this at this point… well, I do think it’s necessary to make my best attempt at the Channel, for one. I read on Wednesday night that 1 in 5 attempts make it across the Channel. It is hard. F-ing hard. But even without that goal… it is kinda fun to put yourself up against something that is this crazy hard. Something you are not quite sure you can accomplish. Something that you do with other people who are motivated and optimistic and willing to fail. 

I’ve got one more practice to go to make it halfway through this crazy scheme… and if I can make it halfway, I can make it all the way.

Damn, those kids swam fast yesterday. Why are they not hurting? (Of course the answer is that they are, but they are young and trained and amazing athletes.) I’m just an ordinary person… trying to swim to France.

Wednesday Morning’s Realization

After Wednesday morning’s practice, I arbitrarily decided that the 42,000 we had done by that point had gotten us across the Channel. (The only Garmin data I could find that night was someone’s watch that said 67,000-some yards – that can’t be right, right?) On the way home that morning in the car, I was thinking about the fact that it had taken us 50.5 hours to do it (Monday morning through Wednesday morning’s practice). And then I realized….

Sarah Thomas had been swimming that WHOLE time on her 4-way!!! And I decided that I needed to knock off the internal grumbling about not getting enough recovery time 🙂

Reading the news that day, i also realized – I had complained about being fully boosted the day before the news about Omicron came out (and therefore not being able to enjoy being back at 90-some percent protected). Looking at how things are going, I really should just be glad that I was, since it seems to significantly increase protections against Omicron. I’m pretty done with this business at this point, though.

Bad Jokes

If you run in front of a bus you get tired

If you run behind a bus you get exhausted

(Here’s to being both!)

The Week at the Pool

It’s all gory details 🙂

Monday – 10,000+6400 = 16,400

Tuesday – 8500+7500 = 16,000

Wednesday – 10,000+5700(late) = 15,700

Thursday – 8500+3000 = 11,500

Friday – 9100

Total yardage ~ 68,700

Monday 12/20

Got a message from openrent.com that the landlord I had contacted appeared to be a fraud. Great.

Practice 1 Theme: All the yards (~10,000)

• 100 ez (plus whatever activation I got scraping ice from my windshields)
• 1600 w-up
• 10×100 on 1:15 (fins as written)
• [2×100 on 1:20, 2 on 1:25, 2 on 1:30, 4 on 1:35]
• 8×100 on 1:15
• [2×100 on 1:20, 2 on 1:25, 2 on 1:30, 4 on 1:35]
• 6×100 on 1:15
• [2×100 on 1:20, 2 on 1:25, 2 on 1:30, 4 on 1:35]
• 4×100 on 1:15
• [2×100 on 1:20, 2 on 1:25, 2 on 1:30, 4 on 1:35]
• 2×100 on 1:15
• [2×100 on 1:20, 2 on 1:25, 2 on 1:30, 4 on 1:35]
• 400 ez

That’s 80×100’s, 40 of them on either 1:15 or 1:20. I made them all. I took a recovery 100 off to use the bathroom, and missed 1×50 of another recovery 100 when my suit came untied. I led the set from the 6×100’s onward.

Practice 2 Theme: Kick till you puke (or want to) (~6400)

• 250 ez
• 1600 w-up
• 3x:
• 2×25 on :30
• 2×50 on 1:00
• 2×75 on 1:30
• 2×100 on 2:00
• 2×125 on 2:30
• 2×100 
• 2×75
• 2×50
• 2×25

All kick. Rnd 1- fly; Rnd 2- bk; Rnd 3- br. 75’s were fly/bk/br. 125’s were fast free. (Or “fast” free in my case). 100’s were blast to the 15 m mark.

• 2×100 on 1:25
• 2×100 on 1:30
• 2×100 on 1:35
• 4×100 on 1:40

Gotta be honest, hated this one (sorry, coach 🙂 ) It was all kinds of boring for me. And when everything is on the same interval for ever and ever I find it very de-motivating. On the other hand, I could still lift my arms when I left the pool, so maybe I shouldn’t look a gift kick set in the mouth. And, being bored is excellent training 🙂

Tuesday 12/21

Shortest day of the year – only getting lighter from here on out!

Practice 1 Theme: 6300 no-free IM (~8500)

• 100 ez
• 1600 w-up
• 3×200 fly
• 1×100 fly
• 3×200 bk
• 1×100 bk
• 3×200 br
• 1×100 br
• 2×200 fly
• 3×100 fly
• 2×200 bk
• 3×100 bk
• 2×200 br
• 3×100 br
• 1×200 fly
• 5×100 fly
• 1×200 bk
• 5×100 bk
• 1×200 br
• 5×100 br
• 600 CD

I don’t know why I bothered to write all of that out, since intervals were tight enough that it was basically 700 fly / 700 bk / 700 br, 3 times through.

I don’t remember the intervals for sure – I think it was 3:15 for fly and back 200’s; 1:35 for fly and back 100’s, 3:25 and 1:40 for breaststroke. But again, I just touched and went.

Partially, this has to do with how I operate in the lanes. It’s the kids’ practice, so I go last until it’s clear I should be further up. And I generally try to stay out of their way. Sometimes this means I swim a bit slower than I could. And our lane has a mix of stroke specialists, so there’s a lot of moving around in the lane order. 

I also am not doing fly this year, because it’s not worth risking my shoulder. Although I do some drill when it feels OK and I can make the interval. So, if by myself, I would have made the “fly” easily. I made the back no problem. Breaststroke was the one that would have been tight. 

It was super, super, super boring.

Practice 2 Theme: Breath Control Gives Me Headaches (~7500)

• 100 ez
• 1600 w-up
• 4x:
• 1×500 (u/w to the first yellow) 7:30
• 2×200 (DPS – 12 or fewer) 3:00
• 3×100 (breathe 2-3-3-2) 1:30
• 4×50 (fast working u/w and DPS) :45
• 300 CD

It is not unusual for me to get a headache when we do breath control work, and I did today. I felt a little bonkish, so I drank some chocolate milk. Then I felt like I needed to pee, so I went to the bathroom where I threw up a bit in my mouth and spit it into the toilet. I felt better after that.

I got back in and took the breath control down a notch, getting to within a stroke of the yellow, doing 13-14 strokes, and breathing 2-3-3-3 on the 100s. It went OK after that.

I’m pretty tired now.

Wednesday 12/22

Practice 1 Theme: Miles and miles and miles (get it?) (at least 10,000)

• 250 ez
• 1650 swim
• 2×800 w/fins
• 50 ez
• 3×500 w/paddles (20 sec)
• 150 ez
• 8×200 swim (7 sec)
• 50 ez
• 16×100 w/fins (5 sec)
• 50 ez
• 33×50 swim (5 sec)
• 300 cd

So, this was a pretty interesting practice… unfortunately my exhausted brain took some time to grasp the concept. First off, I didn’t realize we weren’t warming up first (fairness to me, our warmup plus an easy 50 would be a mile). Then I didn’t realize there were 50’s ez to bring each set up to a mile. I got my act together around the 500’s and from then on out did pretty well, keeping up with Mt and R. (I got a 50 behind on the 200’s – they had paddles and I didn’t). 

Since I thought we were warming up on the 1650, I was just happily tooling along. I think I got lapped about a 200 – luckily I did a 250 ez before we started. I thought that the boys undercounted two of the 500’s by a 50 and the 33×50’s by two 50’s. But I totally could have been wrong. But I made sure to make up that yardage in cooldown, plus an extra 100 to get me to 10,000, just to be sure.

You were allowed to use each of the following for one of the miles: fins, paddles, buoy, buoy+paddles. Since I don’t do buoy and doing more paddles after the 500’s felt unwise, I subbed in another fins.

This was the easiest practice mentally since Monday morning.

Practice 2 Theme: Macon gives us rest (~5700)

I got there a bit late after the hygienist took a long time at my dentist appointment.

• 100 ez
• 2×200 breath control (I didn’t)
• 4×100 even more breath control (I really didn’t)
• 2x:
• 100 IM drill
• 4×50 IM build
• 4×25 IM fast
• 100 ez?
• 200 ez
• 4×150 fly/bk/br on 2:30
• 400 – 200 DPS, 200 strong
• 4×150 fly/bk/br on 2:40 stronger (ummm…)
• 400 – 200 strong, 200 GO! (I did not get lapped by M and R. Score)
• 3x: (all w/fins as written)
• 4×25 u/w blast kick to 15 m, then ez on :30
• 50 all out kick on 1:00 (:32, :31, :29)
• 100 ez on 2:00
• 10×100: 4 on 1:30, 3 on 1:35, 2 on 1:40, 1 on 1:45

I am so tired.

Thursday 12/23

Practice 1 Theme: Recovery? Not on 1:20 (~8500)

• 50 ez
• 1600 w-up
• 10×50 drill on 1:00 (survival. fr/bk)
• 10×50 kick on 1:00 (legs! fly/bk)
• 5×500 on 6:40 (held 6:30s)
• 4×400 IM on 6:40 (held 6:00, no fly)
• 3×300 on 4:00 (held 3:55)
• 2×200 IM on 3:20 (held 3:13)
• 100 all out (went 1:12 ish)
• 400 cool down

I had to bob around for 200 yards before I was able to lift my arms again during the cooldown. I’m spent.

Practice 2 Theme: Alumni Meet (~3000)

This was fun – they have a meet each year where former swimmers (most of them in college now) swim against current swimmers. When I say it was fun, it was fun to watch. My performance was pretty pitiful. On the other hand, I know I’ve been working as hard as I can.

200 fr – 2:18

500 fr – stopped when I got lapped at the 400 (on purpose – that was the plan)

100 bk – 1:16. Wow. I mean, wow. I was doing 1:13’s off the wall on 2:00. And make no mistake, I phoned in the “500,” but I was going balls out on this one.

That plus 2300 of w-up and cooldown between races brought me up to 3000.

Friday 12/24

Only Practice Theme: The 12 Days of Christmas (~9100)

• Day 1: 25 doggy paddle
• Day 2: 50 breast/free
• Day 3: 75 back/free/back
• Day 4: 100 IM
• Day 5: 125 free Fast
• Day 6: 150 breast/free
• Day 7: 175 back/free
• Day 8: 200 IM
• Day 9: 225 free
• Day 10: 250 breast/free
• Day 11: 275 back/free
• Day 12: 300 IM

You do it just like the song: Day 1. Day 2, Day 1. Day 3, Day 2, Day 1. And so on.

My shoulder was tight and (whisper it) painful to move when I woke up this morning. So I stretched. It helped some. It was hard to lift my arms when I got out.