In the pool today

Took an easy day yesterday, training wise. We all went up this past weekend to visit Anders at HBS and spent 6 hours driving home yesterday. I probably needed an easy day--in any event, I was very stiff getting out of the car when we arrived back in DE.

I did an easy bike/run today and jumped in the pool and swam an IM distance swim TT.

Last week I did 70:10 and today I did 68:45. I'm not sure that today's swim was indicative of more fitness/readiness to swim. The swim last week was very controlled--I felt very strong at the end. Today, I humped it. I was quite tired at the end--although, I was quite tired at the beginning as well. If I actually thought that I could "take it easy" and all it cost me was 1:25 I'd be in an a heartbeat! Not sure i completely buy it. I'm going to experiment a bit in my long swims over the next three weeks to really dial in my optimal race intensity for IMAZ.

One thing for sure is I'm more than fast enough on the swim--time to back off a bit. I'll still do my long swim--hopefully each week. I won't do the long intense interval w/os I planned down the stretch (such as 15X200 or 6X500) Instead, I'll do stuff like 3X500 or 6X200 or 15X100. I want to try to swim 4-5 times a week. One of these sessions may be primarily focused on technique. My long swims may go up to 5000+ yards to build strength . I think strength (over distance and paddles) and technique (frequency and drills) are what I need now--not high-end threshold speed....