Sprints and a good swim

Slept in, so no OWS this morning, but that led to a nice discovery in the pool at lunch. It turns out that OWS is helping my pool swim quite a bit. I did 2x750 in the same splits avg 11:10 that I did 2x700 in the last workout of that nature in the pool. That's interesting, and I'm quite sure I did all the laps. My first 100yd on each of the 750's was 1:21. My stroke is down to 10-11 on each 25yds, and it was 12-13. I focused on a good catch with hands pointed down and a high elbow on the pull. My effort level didn't feel high, but I was averaging 140 heart rate, which is high for me; but the key is that I didn't feel like it was high. This was a nice discovery, and it will be more motivation to get up in the morning to hit the OWS at Jensen's Grove.

Did sprints after work. This time I actually did two sets of 800, 400, 200, 100. I did 2x800, then 2x400, then 2x200, then 2x100. I'm not sure if that's the best way or if I should just do the 800, 400, 200, 100 ladder twice. In any case, my times on the first sets were faster than the last time I did the sprints, and the second sets were equal to last time I did sprints. I'll take that to mean that I've improved. On top of that, I had a relatively full stomach from a late and big lunch with some M&Ms, a Twix, and lots of water still in me; all adding up to the fact that I wasn't comfortable at all from the start. I'm glad to have gotten the first two-setter out of the way finally, which has been something I've wanted to do for a while but haven't. In fact, I haven't done sprints in a while. We'll see how I feel tomorrow.

After the sprints, I did two sets of planks, each for 1:15. I've upped the time 15 seconds, and it makes a huge difference. My abs are still a bit sore from the planks on Monday.

Just over a week left til my tri in Bismarck. I'm starting to get nervous. I'll see if my efforts have paid off. I'll be comparing my time to that of the Bear Lake Brawl in Sept 08, which was at about 5,800 ft. The Biz Tri is at about 1500 feet, so I'm counting on that giving me a bit of advantage over the comparable times and relative to the other racers because I'm training at 4700ft and they're probably training at home at about 1,500 ft. It may not be a huge difference, but I remember feeling tired for the first three weeks we lived in Pocatello, so I'm counting on there being a difference of some sort. But also, I know how that North Dakota wind can blow, and that is going to hurt because I know the wind here, almost as bad but not quite, really slows me down.