Wetsuits Rock!!!

Oh yeah baby, I got to try out my new wetsuit at the pool today! Wahoo, it was awesome! First off, I barely felt the water when I got in (OK, I know it's a warm pool but still...) Second, I felt like I was floating as soon as I got into the water. I just put my head back and found I could just lie there and float without any effort. I think that alone will really take away some of the mental anxiety I have about the OWS. If I start to get too tired and/or panic for some reason, I just have to relax and float for a minute and catch my breath. I won't have to worry about DNFing during the swim just because I freaked out.

But the best thing was that it was SO easy to swim in. I had no trouble with arm movement, no feeling of constricted breathing or anything. And I felt fast - really fast (for me :). I timed myself and it took 10-15 seconds off my 50m time. That could easily mean 3-5 minutes faster on a 750m swim. All right!

So I only did 100m and then took it off and gave it a very thorough rinse because chlorine is not good for neoprene.

Overall, 10/10. It was a very good buy for $200.

Swimming

After my wetsuit test, I did another 300m warmup with a few rest breaks then my swim plan called for 1000m with 3 lengths easy, 1 length hard, no rest breaks. I did that and found I could do one length hard but really needed the next 25m to catch my breath. These sprints will be good for me to build up my speed I think. I'm glad I have 3+ more months to work on my swim and get my time down. I found it fairly easy to do 1000m so decided to keep on swimming and do 1200m instead since that's my next distance goal. I didn't bother with the sprints for the last 200m.

My 750m time was 18:57 (whoopti-do, 3 seconds faster than last time)
My 1000m time was 25:30 and my 1200m time was 31:00

Running

This morning I had an AWESOME run. I was worried that my shins might hurt because they were quite tender yesterday after Thursday's run but today they felt fine and NOTHING hurt the entire run. I took my ipod and did most of the run to Podrunner 176 bpm. This is faster than I usually run and it raises my HR a bit but I felt fine throughout. I LOVE running with the Podrunner music - it just keeps me going so steady and I feel like I could run a marathon.

Today I ran 20 minutes and only took a one minute walk break one time. I could probably dispense with the walk breaks but I figure it's not going to hurt to keep them up for two more weeks. This week, I'll walk after 20 minutes, the following week, after 30 minutes and then after that, no more walking.

Today's Stats

6 km ~ 38:08 minutes
Run total: 37 minutes
5 km time: 32:30 (including the walk break)

Somehow I gotta get those run times down. This time last year, I was running 5 km in 29-30 minutes on a regular basis. I'll start working on that in two weeks I guess. Next Saturday, I'm going to run 6.5 km.

This week's plan?

Sunday - long bike, hilly
Monday - probably rest break - it's baseball picture day and other errands to do
Tuesday - run and swim
Wednesday - bike hill repeats or Lakeshore
Thursday - run and swim
Friday - company coming for dinner, bike after school if I'm organized. :)
Saturday - run and swim