Whew!

Today was an official TNT workout at Burgess Pool in Menlo Park. The calendar said 8AM, so of course I rolled in at 7:40 and sat in my warm car for 20 minutes waiting for people to show up. I need to remember that the workouts actually start 30 minutes after the time posted on the calendar...

The workout was to be a swim and a bike, but I brought run stuff just in case. Also, it is wet outside - not raining, but the roads are still wet from some previous rain, so I packed many layers. My bag was overstuffed and not organized well. In fact, I desperately need a new tri bag. Mine is one big compartment with some pockets that have all ripped so nothing stays where it's supposed to, and I can never find anything. My wet stuff gets the rest of my gear soaked, my dirty shoes are jammed in with my clean clothes, and my keys go floating into the main compartment - especially annoying when you are soaking wet and covered in mud and trying to get into your car to go home and get warm!

We began this morning with an injury-prevention seminar from a physical therapist, which was great. My hamstring has been bothering me, but just a twinge here and there - nothing major, but I'm going to keep a close eye on it to make sure it doesn't blow up into a bigger deal. I would be extremely disappointed to ruin the season at this point!

Aside: I hit a tipping point today and am absolutely excited about this event. My workouts have been great, the people are awesome, I feel fantastic. Now, just have to raise some money...

Anyway, post-injury prevention seminar we hopped into the pool. Christina wasn't there today, so I didn't have her speedy feet to follow (seriously, she is so fast), and as people hopped in no one joined my lane. The lane adjacent to mine had three people, and I invited someone to hop over but had no takers, because they "didn't want to get lapped right away."

It's funny, because I'm really not that much faster than any of them, and Christina is 100 times faster than I am. I think I might have better stamina, so can hold faster speeds for longer, and that's how I end up lapping them? I don't know.

Michelle hopped in a few minutes late, after we'd all finished our warm-ups, and the lanes were all so crowded that she glanced down at me in my very own lane and her face fell. I joked that I was going to start taking this personally! Do I have cooties? Anyway, I talked her into joining my lane and we split the lane, meaning instead of swimming circle pattern we each took half the lane and swam it straight. That way we could each go at our own pace without running into each other. Less frustrating for both of us.

The workout was fun - ~200 warm up follows by a pyramid set:
50, 100, 150, 200, 200, 150, 100, 50 for a total of 1000 yards of main set.
I finished a little early, so the coach for the day had me jump right into the next set, which was 5 x 100 yards on an interval that gave me between 5 and 10 seconds rest. I figured a 1:50 would probably be a good pace for me, thinking I would be swimming about a 1:40 100, but when I hit the wall after the first one I realized that was way too conservative - I'd come in at about 1:27, so I made 1:35 my interval and was able to hold it for all 5 swims.

Next we played "swim golf," where you count your strokes and add that to your time in seconds. You want the lowest number possible. I predicted 17 strokes per lap and was right on for my first 50, then I was at 18 or 19 for the rest of them. My "golf scores" were 75 (35 strokes + 40 seconds), 74, 74, 73, and 74. At least I'm consistent.

I had a 100 warm down after that, but one of the women watching asked me to do a lap of fly, which I always love (for a lap, at least), so really it was a 25 fly sprint and a 75 warm down.

After the workout was over, the entire pool gathered in the shallow end for a "gauntlet swim." Essentially people lined one lane on both sides, and then people swam the "gauntlet" while we all splashed the hell out of them. It was crazy and fun and great for people who aren't that familiar with the craziness that is an open water swim start. Seriously, it can get violent.

We then crammed ourselves into bike gear for a ride, and I was so concerned with getting a good spot in the way-too-small locker room that I ran in with my bag, stripped off my suit, and only then realized I'd left my towel outside.

Oops.

I "dried" off with an extra shirt I brought, then crammed myself into my cycling gear: sports bra, cycling jersey (both of which got stuck and took some serious maneuvering to get into), cycling shorts, leg warmers, jacket, socks, and cycling shoes. I have never felt more like a sausage in my life.

The ride was a simple out-and-back, but of course it started to rain as we were rolling out and the roads were soaked. All of us had that attractive stripe of water and dirt and mud up our backs - mine going all the way into my hair! I felt very strong on this ride, and my pace was a little over 14 mph, which for me is really quite good. I ran into a couple of people on the ride and as we were introducing ourselves the guy (Dave?) asked if I was the Megan that people were talking about in the pool.

This is getting ridiculous. I was a bit embarrassed and tried to play it off by laughing about how slow I am at everything else, but it kind of makes me not want to get in with the group. I just want to put my head down and do my workouts and leave it at that!

Anyway, the ride was lovely, and I didn't even realize my toes were numb until I took my bike shoes off afterwards. I rode for just over an hour and hit a little over 15 miles (last year, for Thanksgiving, I got lost in the Paso Robles hills and rode under 15 miles but in like 2 hours. Granted, there were LOTS of hills, but I think I'm in better shape now than I was last year at this time! YAY!), and I feel very good about that.

My overall time last year was 3:04:34, and this year I'd love to get under 3 hours. Coach Keith has kindly agreed to help me with my speed (or lack thereof) - he's known within the group as someone who'll spend extra time helping, looking at your form, and giving extra workouts and tips to help you get faster, and he's super nice about it and seems excited to do it. There's one woman he's helping who's a great runner but needs help swimming, so she and I are going to hook up to help each other out, although I fear I'm a lost cause in the running department...

I'm finally excited about this thing. It took me a month of reluctant workouts to get back in the groove, but today I finally got over the wall and think it's going to be a great season!