Swim Challenge Complete!! VENI, VIDI, VICI!!

33,000 YARDS DONE and DONE!!

Last week I took on “The Bat Cap Challenge”! A Swim Challenge Week of some mega yardage; more distance than I’ve ever swam before in a week. Why you ask? Oh, I don’t know…who doesn’t like a challenge? We’re triathletes after all, we LOVE challenges! 33,000 yards is double that of any other week I've ever swam! By the end of the week I was certainly tired, but very happy and felt really good!

I don’t know very many other people who would agree to do something like this with me. It seems like one of those things that people would say, “Heck yeah, I’ll do it with you!” but then find excuses and no show. Margaret enthusiastically agreed, and was there for all six days of the challenge, even if it took me picking her up on the way to the pool! I was thankful she hung in there! Margaret is a sophomore at the University of Alabama, and a member of the triathlon team, but she swam age group swimming growing up, coaches little kids in summer league, and understands swimming! More than once I was so appreciative that she understood swim workout lingo. To someone who doesn’t do a lot of typical sets it can look like hieroglyphics!

Posing, but not POSERS! We did the yards!

I posted our daily workouts on the last post I made so if you want to see them you can find them here. 

Just a brief recap of the yardage:

Day 1: 5000 (we did 5100)
I felt great this day, and the main set of fast 200’s and 500’s was Margaret’s favorite of the week. I came home and ran 4.4 miles and had a good pace! Pretty happy!

Day 2:  5100 (we did 5100)
6 x 100 at Max effort in the main set took its toll. I rode 23 miles after, even though I wanted to go home and take a nap. That afternoon I felt like dirt! How was I going to do 4 more big swims? Took some Recover-Ease, and the next morning was back to new!!

Day 3:  4500 (we did 5000)
I don’t remember much about this day, we hit all the intervals and even shortened the interval on the pulling. This was supposed to be a shorter day, because tomorrow was the big day. No running or cycling after this day.

Day 4: 6400 (we did 6800)
Why you ask on the biggest day of the week would we add 400 yards? Margaret pointed out that if we did 6800 we would be at 21,000 for the week. Of course being over-achievers, we did it. Our main set today was 10x400 on a 6:30 interval. The goal was to hold pace. In other words, try and hit the same time for all 10. I thought about it the night before and decided I needed to hit 5:40-5:45 on all of them. I put on my Tempo Trainer, and concentrated on keeping my stroke long. I went 5:44 on #1 and #10. 5:40 on #2,3,4,7. And 5:41-5:43 on the rest. I was incredibly happy! Great day! Came home and did a ton of housework and felt fine!

Day 5:  4000 (we did 6000)
Again here we go into the Over Achievers Club! Good main set today (this was one of the workouts that I took from Krista’s challenge week). This day included something that we did a COSST called a Locomotor. 25/25, 50/50, 75/75, 100/100, 75/75, 50/50, 25/25 – it’s a continuous swim going fast/easy, we wore fins. Makes an 800 go by very quickly and keeps you thinking! Ran 3 miles when I got home, and again was trashed that afternoon. Only one more day!

Day 6: 5000 (we did 5000)
The pool doesn’t open until 7:30 on Saturday, so we got a later start than usual. We were planning on riding at 9:30 with the Alabama Triathlon Team so we needed to get done. Rode another 23 miles after, and I felt like I was bonking at the end of the ride. I don’t eat breakfast before we swim at 6:00, and if I run or ride after that an energy bar usually does the trick. I think the reason I felt bad this day was because of the later than usual swim start time. I should have had more to eat on the way to the ride. Lesson learned.

Still smiling after 6800 yards! TRISWIM to the rescue!

We asked someone to take some pictures of us when we finished to commemorate our Challenge, unfortunately she seemed afraid to get too close to the water and the pictures are a little blurry. Margaret is officially a TRISWIM fan now! We would be smelling like a bottle of Clorox had it not been for the shampoo, conditioner, bodywash, and lotion!! Use the discount code: "AMBFRND17" for a 10% discount code at SBR Sports, Inc.

UA Triathletes are powered by Honey Stinger, too! #stingorbestung #HShive

The girl in the front, in the red helmet is Jessica, the president of the UA Tri Club! She qualified for KONA at IM Florida last year!! Warren, the owner of VELO City Pro Cycle and I have offered to give her a bike fit to help her positioning on the bike! Also known as a Cobb Cycling BIKE FIT!!