Nine

Another week gone by…another gulp in my throat as the race inches closer.  Not so much as nervousness for the race itself but more uneasiness over the things I cannot control.  I need to get over this; I can’t waste energy thinking about things I have little control over.  The things that make me most anxious are the heat I’ll have to contend with after getting comfortable with Chicago fall temperatures and not being able to swim with a wetsuit (which is a great benefit to a swimmer like me).  I can’t do anything about the weather or the rules but I can prepare for heat to some degree by doing some longer indoor workouts as it gets closer to race day and dress in heavier clothes outside than what is appropriate.  As far as the lack of wetsuit goes, this has been a great summer season in Lake Michigan to not swim in a wetsuit as the temps thus far have usually been in the mid to upper 70’s.  My anxiety from the no wetsuit is that quite simply I have not made the gains in my swim time as I had hoped I would by now.

In addition to my fairly regular long workouts, on my race plan is two extra long days. One of those days was yesterday.  It started with a 100 mile bike ride, and then the plan was to run 16 miles with a 2 mile swim at the end.  Because I didn’t get to the beach until noon after my bike and run, the life guards at Ohio Street Beach wouldn’t let me swim with the rip currents.  I got in about 3 minutes of swimming and the life guard yelled at me that I had to get out.  It was no good to argue with her that if I got swept out, I could simply put my feet down as I was literally standing in no more than 3 feet of water, or that I came to the beach to specifically swim in current.  Fortunately rip currents don’t occur before 11am as there has been no one in the past to kick me out of the water when swimming in the turbulent water before then (I hope you can sense the sarcasm).  Sarcasm didn’t help my case with her either.  I did tell her that I understood she was just doing her job.  So at any rate, I wanted to get all three disciplines in on the day because I wanted to take today off completely and didn’t want to prolong the swim so I added on 4 miles to my run and went by my local pool which happened to be open for lap swim & turned into a miserable (but very worthwhile) cool down swim.

Today was a wonderful day to sleep in and recharge with Melissa.  This coming week the emphasis is on a couple days of recovery followed by a few shorter, higher quality workouts.  I haven’t organized my weekend workout yet.  I wanted to see how yesterday went first before looking forward too far.