Training Update- Lets Swim!

The past few months have been really great for me. School has been going good (more on that in a later post) and training has been the most consistent it has ever been. I was without a pool from Aug 1 to the middle of October. I swam in the lake almost every single night until it became too cold to tolerate sometime near the beginning of September. I decided that most of September would be a perfect time to take some time off. I had no pool or lake to swim so I decided I would just relax until the pool reopened. I left the Garmin at home for all my runs and rides. I had some fantastic mountain bike rides exploring some of the parks here in Cold Lake. It was nice having no pressure or training structure, just do whatever I wanted to, whenever I wanted to. However, once the pool reopened I was ready to go! It was evident that I hadn't swam in over a month as my endurance suffered greatly and I was far off from the times I was hitting a couple months earlier.

Since the pool reopened and I started adding some structure to my training again, my training has been almost perfect. I've been more consistent than I have ever been in my triathlon life and it's been showing. I'm finally back to where my swimming fitness was a couple months ago, but unfortunately that is still a long ways off of coming out with or even near the front swim pack. I feel like it's the perfect time for me to throw in a big swim block and hopefully see my body soak it in and develop a little bit better muscle memory. It's a very big jump in volume for me, but I'm ready to push my boundaries and hopefully come out a little bit better. Over the past few months I've averaged 15k/week with a 20k/week two weeks ago. The details of my 10 day swim block look like this:

• 11 swims in 10 days
• 2 double swim days with 1 day off
• 35-40km

I have the specific details planned out pretty well I think and I hope I'll be able to handle it all. I still have lots of optional rides and runs planned, but they are second to all the swims since it's the focus. I wish I had swam in swim club as a kid, it would make this swimming thing so much easier! I find after a couple of days out of the pool, coming back  can sometimes feel unnatural and uncomfortable. Those feelings are becoming less and less, but unfortunately they are still there once in a while. I'm taking the weekend off to spend some time with friends and get ready for the next 10 days. I'll check back in when I'm finished and let you know how it went. 

The pool in Cold Lake. It's a nice pool and gets the job done!