The training continues - but the goal is uncertain

I headed out for a swim last night. The evenings are getting a lot darker and it was quite eerie swimming in an almost empty outdoor pool during sunset. Finding billateral breathing tough, but still wanting the balance of breathing each side, I swam my usual rythmn, but alternated sides with lengths. I felt a bit worn out to be honest.

I aimed for 30 lengths of the 50m pool. The whole workout took about 45 minutes. Half way through the 29th length I had my first real swimming cramp experience. Not the twinges you get in your foot, full blown muscle contraction right up both calves which caused me to double over - not an easy swim position! I was approximately 1 inch out of my depth and managed to hop to safety with a lifeguard calling out 'are you okay?'. I answered 'yes' and them some expletives under my breath, pulled myself out and pummelled my calves on the side for a few minutes.

When I explained all this to Austen he asked if I had a thing for lifeguards. Only female ones it seems.

I spent a bit of time thinking about this. I don't think this is an electrolyte issue. I think I might be overtraining. My doctor mentioned this last week when I went to him with unexplained nausea (ongoing). He suggested training with a heartrate monitor to keep me within sensible limits. One of the results of overtraining appears to be a build up of lactic acid in muscles - which sounds like it might cause a bit of cramp.

My orthotics got me through a 7.5km trail run!

Woohoo! My feet held out on the trails and I had an amazing run with my good friend in the early hours of the morning.

In other news, I'm keen to get back out there with the VOWSA tomorrow in an attempt to crack my fear of open water swimming. Checked the forecast and thunderstorms are likely! Going to head down there anyway and see how it goes...

That was way harder than I thought...

I met up with some open water swimmers this evening for a dip in the ocean in my new wetsuit. I have to admit that my first time out with them was a bit of a failure. The combination of the new wetsuit crushing my chest, waves slapping me in the face, and ridiculous buoyancy all combined to induce a mild panic attack. I think leaving my first ocean swim (with wetsuit) until 2 weeks prior was very silly - not quite as silly as not practicing at all though I suppose.

I couldn't do the loop and a lovely woman who was swimming with some novices escorted me back to shore where I did short laps in and out to get used to the feeling. I started to get comfortable in the waves but quickly got too cold. I think I was in the water for 20 minutes or so in total. Getting in and out to chat to the volunteers about progress didn't help this.

With 2 weeks left, a dodgy foot and a fear of swimming distance in the ocean, things are not looking good! I will need to get down to the swim meet on Thursday and try again, this time more mentally prepared, if I'm going to make it.

2 months to go

I haven't really been taking this training lark seriously to be honest. I've been biking to and from work occasionally and running a couple of times a week. This week I realised there are now 2 months until the Vancouver Triathlon I'm targeting for my first sprint.

This week I squeezed a couple of workouts into my morning before work which really helped, much easier to motivate myself then rather than in the evenings. I had a swim in the local outdoor pool yesterday morning, it was beautiful with the sunlight reflecting under the water. I managed 20 lengths and discovered afterwards that its a 50m pool - so I must have done around 1km. Pretty happy with that as I was using my new paddles which make the swim more challenging.

Today was a rest day and I feel a cold coming on. I'm hoping to go to the pool one day this weekend to try out a swim-bike-run workout for 20 mins each in quick succession. We'll see how that goes (if this cold doesn't hit too badly).

I'm also trying to do enough yoga to try and increase my flexibility and sort out these dodgy hamstrings, ankles and shoulders. Well - everywhere really.