good and bad

I'll start with the good - I had another great swim this morning. I swam 2500yrds in 54 min - 300 warm up, 100 - 1:46, 600 - 11:40, 200, 500 - 9:42, 300, 400, 100 cool down. I felt pretty good - my legs were kind of heavy feeling from the weekend of hills but I kind of expected that - my calves are still a bit sore but no foot pain. Anyway I focused on swimming strong throughout the longer sets and used the shorter sets to recover. I also kept my form strong - which kept my shoulder from hurting :)
On to the bad thing - last night my eyes started itch and this morning I woke up with a slight soar throat, sinus congestion.. I have never really had allergies before but it seems I might have some now. The worst part is my eyes itch every time I blink - it is driving me nuts - I tried eye drops, some benadryl and they did nothing to help. I was even hoping that the chlorine in the pool this morning might help - but of course I was not that lucky. I am just hoping that since this week is a partial taper/recovery week before Vancouver Half on Sunday I can get some extra rest and it will all go away.

hilly run

On this lovely day I ran 6 mile loop that is 2 miles downhill to warm up then 4 miles of climbing back up. From the start I was surprised how good my legs felt since I did a hilly ride yesterday. Of course the first 2 miles were faster since it is all downhill - 7:30 each. The rest of the way was slower since it was all uphill. I pushed myself to keep a good pace on all the hills. I ran mostly on the sidewalks which always seems to make my foot and lower legs ache a little more than normal - today I did feel a bit of an ache in my foot but nothing to bad (like a 2 out of 10). Since I felt good I picked up the pace a bit for the last quarter mile for a total time of 48.54 which I'm happy with - esp because it felt relatively easy - I still had energy at the end and I never died on any of the hills just kept going and felt strong the whole way.
Now I'm just icing my foot (just to be safe) and watching a saved brodcast of Ironman Florida :)

group ride

Bright and early this morning Steph, Bryan, Col, Kyle and I met up at Marymoore to do a 50ish mile ride fallowing the 2006 Flying wheels route. By 9am it was already warming up so for the first time this season I did not wear capris or leg warmers :) a sure sign that spring is in effect. Anyway we headed out - I felt generally pretty good - no head ache like last week - I did have a hard time finding a comfy position on my seat (which I have now exchanged for a different model). I was surprised that at the first steep hill (Inglewood hill) I actually felt really strong and stayed closer to the guys than usual - I think Kyle was actually shocked that I was so close. It was mostly like that the rest of the ride - I just felt strong. I think the best part was on the long stair step climb I passed two guys that had sat in front of me the beginning part of the climb and did not pace them selves very well - and I still had energy and just went right by them. Bryan got a flat at the beginning of that hill and I think after that he was ready to be done with the ride. We cruised back and around the lake and I lost my chain - Col helped me figure out how to fix it since I had no clue.
I'm not sure if we messed up somewhere and did not fallow the route right but the ride was only about 45ish miles rather than 50 - which is fine I still had a lot of fun and felt great the entire way. Also I finally proved to myself that I can climb/ride with the crew with out being dropped anymore and I have earned my bike (I can ride it how it deserves to be ridden). I'm also very happy with how well all my training is coming together - I think I will be well prepared for Hawaii 70.3 in a month and am well on my way for Ironman Canada.

not a fluke

a bit of a catch up on my training - Wednesday night I went for an hour bike ride out and down around part of lake samm and back to my house. It rained a little bit but nothing to bad - I felt pretty good and did not really have to push myself very hard even up a fairly steep long hill back to my house.
Yesterday morning I ran 4 miles with four 2 min pick ups mixed in. I felt good, no foot or leg pain to speak of and I was able to keep my pace up pretty easily. I really enjoyed doing speed work again.
In the evening I worked in the garden with my mom - which really worked my back/arms since we were pruning back these big flax plants. Afterwards I stretched and then iced my shoulder.
This morning I swam again :) and I was able to hit the same pace as on Wednesday morning - so it was not just a random good day I now can average a pace under 2min on longer sets and I can do a 100yrds in 1:45 with out dying afterwards :) Today I did 2500 yrds in 53 min - 300 w/u, 100-1:45, 600-11:47, 200-3:44, 500-9:55, 300-5:52, 400-7:46, 100 cool down. Another good thing is even though I pushed my shoulder a bit last night I did not have any real pain today when I swam :)

100yrd in 1:45

This morning I had a hard time getting out of bed to go swimming - though I am soo happy I did. I had the best swim I have had in a long time. The plan was to swim 3000yrds in 1:05 - so I did 300 warm up, 600, 500, 400, 300, 200 hard, 100 hard, 100 hard, 200 hard, 300 easy. The thing that made my swim today so wonderful is that I was able to average around 1:55 100yrd pace through out the entire work out - even the 600yrd set. I was even able to push myself to a 1:45 pace for my 100s & 200s which were rather late in the work out. It was shocking really - I have felt like I have been stuck at a 2 min 100 pace for a while now. I just felt really strong today - very smooth in the water, no pain in my shoulder which is one indicator that my form was on track, only used the pool buoy on the warm up even and I had energy to spare. It has made my day for sure.