Addendum
I’m still feeling great in the pool.
FEELING great, but not BEING great (and by “great” I mean mobile).
At around 7.30 last night, I retrieved Bill White’s Sewickley Seadragons Lane B workout from the trash folder of my email and headed to the pool, full of confidence.
The workout included two 800yd straight swims on a 14 minute interval. I haven’t done a straight 800 in a long time. In fact I don’t even remember the last time I swam that far without breaking it up with some elementary backstroke or breaststroke at some point. The 14 minute interval seemed nice enough that I thought I could just cruise. Merely completing the 800’s all free would be the goal of the night.
I did some drills during the warm up and felt pretty smooth. I really enjoyed the first 800 and remembered at about 300-400 yds into it that the longer the swim, the better I feel. When I landed, though, the clock said I’d taken 12 minutes and 35 seconds!!! I was horrified!! Even swimming slowly should have taken less time.
Bottom lip quivering, I launched into the second 800. This time I did as the workout suggested and swam every third 50 “fast” (hehe). Twelve minutes and 30 seconds later I landed, feeling like I was having a coronary. My heart rate was 105… I even did flip turns the whole time!
I’m really devastated by this slowness.
I’m still quite fat from my fruitless Catalina Channel swim weight gain and my bum circumference probably exceeds my wingspan by now.
I wonder how much speed you lose by being fat (and having most of that fat on your backside)?
When I returned home I looked on facebook to see if anyone had reported more tragic results than mine from the evening’s workout and noticed that Jim Thornton had consumed a healthy lunch of raw squishy things and some sort of macrobiotic excrement. Assuming he didn’t soil himself during the workout, I’d be willing to bet his 800’s were a lot faster than mine!!!
I made a list of things that I’d eaten during the day to see if I could blame my poor performance on fatness and diet, but all I’d eaten prior to swimming was:
1 cupcake;
2 plates of leftover breakfast sausage and mashed potatoes;
1 toasted ham and cheese sandwich;
2 bowls of full fat Greek yoghurt with honey;
1 large cinnamon roll;
1 bowl hamburger helper; and
2 bowls of apple sauce with caramel sauce on top.
At a complete loss and feeling quite depressed I ate three Trader Joe’s chocolate chip ice cream sandwiches, a bagel with cream cheese and smoked salmon, a packet of flaming hot cheetos and a diet coke.
I’m changing things around today and drinking extra coffee. I’m on my fourth cup of espresso now. I think I’ll do the same workout and see what happens.