Splish Splash

My sorta-taper has been going well this week.  I've had just enough exercise to keep me in a good mood, while theoretically dialing the volume back enough to start resting my body a bit.

Despite work conspiring to keep me from the pool Friday morning, I got my long swim in Friday night, which is nothing short of a miracle.  This girl does not go swim at night, when the couch is much more inviting.  But it turns out Friday nights are nice and quiet at the pool and so I was able to hog all that 80-degree sunshine in a lane by myself!

I've gotten some fun things in the mail this week, like my first round of Team Aquaphor kit and samples. If you see me at a race (or the pool or wherever) ask me for a sample!

And my first Picky Club shipment! I've been enjoying Picky Bars for pre- and post-workout snacks for a few months now and I decided to join the Picky Club.  Not only are these really yummy but the people behind them are a total hoot (and crazy fast athletes).

I had a nice short ride yesterday - only 1:45 (gotta love IM training for making that look like a breeze) - with a little run off the bike.  It happened to be our hottest day of the year so far, ended up at about 100, so I was quite pleased to run comfortably off the bike at 80+ degrees.  Heat acclimation is slowly starting to happen!

With an open water swim on my schedule for this morning, I decided to sign up for a local swim race so I was guaranteed to get in OW safely and without hassle.  Kristi was there as well, fresh off of hellish Honu 70.3 and doing the 2-miler, so we took our requisite ELF-athletes-at-the-same race photo!

The entire 1-mile swim loop is shown in this photo, you may have to squint to see the far turn buoys

While Kristi went off at 9am for the 2-mile swim, followed by folks doing the various distances of splash & dash in the subsequent 20 minutes, those of us doing the 1-mile swim had to wait until 10am for our start!  Apparently there were enough people who wanted to race both swim distances that they had to give them time to finish.

The quote of the day came as Kristi and I sat there waiting for her start and the race director was explaining to a woman that if she finished her 2 miles after the 1 mile race started, she could just swim 3 miles straight and the woman said "Oh that's no problem, I'm swimming 11 miles next weekend."  We both looked at each other and said "did she just?" "WTF?!" and giggled.

And this is why people shouldn't say *I* am crazy.

Kristi starting the 2 mile swim, which she smoked!

I was representing for Team Aquaphor today!  It was fun to hand out samples and chat with a lot of people while I waited.

And waited and waited and waited...an hour after everyone else has started is a long time to wait.  Especially when it seems like everyone else is gone!  There were only a handful of us who started the 1-mile swim together.  In the meantime this is what transition looked like!

Finally eventually...it was time to start our little swim "race" (I use quotes because I had a specific open water workout to do and I was not redlining it today, just swimming).  About a minute before we started, Kristi got out of the water, so I cheered and waved and she was on her way to get her bike workout done.  The announcer counted down and we were off!  There's really not much to narrate in a swim race - I mostly stayed on course, I avoided being kicked by the lady who breaststroked the whole thing and the guy who kept stopping to breaststroke, I pretty much stayed around the same people the entire time, I settled down after the start and breathed bilaterally (though I saw I will have to work on sighting better when doing this), I warmed up easy, I did my little sprints, I cooled down, and eventually I hit the boat ramp and trotted up to the timing mat.

While prying off my wetsuit and packing up, I chatted with my friend Diane who raced the swim-run - after all the Alcatraz swims she's done, this was probably a piece of cake!

I guess I should have attempted to decipher the posted results better (as far as I knew they were only giving awards for top 3 overall) but I had a 1/2hr drive home and wanted to get on with relaxing and enjoying my day.  Turns out I was 3rd in AG (30-39 women)!  And only a minute out of 2nd so if I'd swum a little harder... Well, this leaves me in a good state of mind for next week, when I'll be back at Uvas Reservoir for a little 1/2IM distance race!

Have a great week!