Week 2 ... started with a swim!

and here I go again!

MARATHON TRAINING COMMENCES!

Last night I went to the Tri Club Swim training session and I'm going bore you with geeky stats! 

This week the focus was on speed and getting an up-to-date individual Critical Swim Speed (CSS)! 

Whenever I am asked to swim fast I panic! My breathing goes all to pot and I feel like I am flaring my arms around uncontrollably - not a good omen for tri racing! However, the more I put myself under pressure to swim fast surely my body will succumb and react sensibly eventually! Although I felt out of control and uncomfortable I managed the different speed distances without stopping!

In the 6 months since I started at the tri club I have improved my swimming substantially.  I thought I was a lost cause -  not quite dolphin girl yet but getting there slowly!!

I have gone from swimming 200 metres in 12 minutes and 2 seconds a year ago, to doing the same distance in 4 minutes 31 seconds last night! There's hope for me completing a triathlon yet!!

My CSS has gone from 2:23 a month a go to 2:19 last night. Apparently these timings give me a target 100m time to achieve whilst swimming 1500m (Olympic Tri Swim Distance). I'm reliably informed that it will allow me to establish a constant pace without pushing too hard and improve my pacing. Excellent if it works ... watch this space!

Tonight I went to the Tri Club Run Training Session in the vain hope that they can do what they've done to my swim times to my run times!

Anyhow, there was only 6 of us mad enough to consider doing
this session after last nights swim!

We met at 7pm and tonight's run focus was on speed! These tri peeps seem a bit obsessed with speed to me!

We started off with a steady 1 mile warm-up before stopping to do some drills and then we got serious!

The Fartlek training began ... and so did my worries!

They were off like rats out of a trap, I tried to keep up but they soon got away from me! We were doing 2 lamp posts fast then 2 as recovery! The speed of the recovery was my usual sprint!!! They did twice the distance I did as they circled back to meet me before going on again! At one point I didn't think I would make it back alive, or at least without throwing up!! But I battled on and survived!

We did (or should I say I did!) about 3 miles before finishing the session with some stretches!

Hey Ho, I won't be put off!

This week I was at the back of the pack but one day (maybe not soon!) I will keep up with them!

I hated it at the time but now I am showered and recovered I think I actually quite enjoyed it in a strange sort of way!

It's exactly what I need to improve! I need to stop plodding, and to do that I need to be pushed!