Surpassing goals and the inability to rest.

Let's start with yesterday. I decided that I needed to focus on swimming yesterday, and not attempt to do a back to back workout like I've been doing. So I get to the pool (once again, with not much time to spare. I have about 40 minutes left of adult swim.) and get into the pool as fast as I can. The second I get in, I get a major shot to the self-esteem. The woman whose lane I'm taking over is VERY chatty and she decides to tell me about her workout. She did two miles in 34 minutes, she tells me, and "a few days ago I did it in 30" so she's not sure "what went wrong." I look at her with my best fake Good For You smile, and tell her that she must just be having an off day. I try to push down the desire to wring her neck and tell her that some of us just want to hit 1000 yards in 30 minutes, and can't even dream of two miles yet. Not to mention one mile.

Oh, and just so everyone knows, one mile = 1760 yards. Just for a little perspective.

Well as soon as Ms. Better Swimmer Than Me is out of the lane, I push her out of my head and get to work. It was an active effort to not let it seep in. It's hard to not compare yourself to someone else when it's SO in your face. However, I overcame it and started my laps.

The problem is, I started a little hard. I was kicking too hard (most likely the reaction to Ms. BSTM) and I felt it in my bad knee after about 10 laps (half way to my goal). I decided that if I kept going with the side stroke, I'd surely be incapable of walking later, so I mixed it up. I decided to do backstroke for the next set of five, and despite choking on my own waves a few times, I didn't stop. Not even when water went up my nose. Yeah. That's major for me.

In my final set, I tried to side stroke down and backstroke back, but I was running out of time. I was going to get kicked out soon, so I went back to backstroke because it's faster. Well after this, I still had a couple minutes, so I banged out a couple more laps.

You get that? I met my goal and did a couple more laps. That means instead of doing 1000 yards, I did 1100. While it may not be two miles, it's a FAR way from where I was last Wednesday when I started the swim training. After this, I'm a little more than impressed with myself - and in more than a little pain. My knee was bothering me all day today, and my shoulders are sore.

Because of the pain and because I haven't stopped working out in a week, I had already planned on today being a rest day. However, I got home from a long day of classes followed by a tattoo removal appointment (in other words, extreme pain) and I was jonesing. It's seriously a monkey on my back - the bike was SCREAMING my name. I tried to ignore it for a while, determined to give my body a rest. But after a few hours I knew that I just had to get on the bike.

I took it easy, and for that, I give myself props. It's one of those days where I really just wanted to kill it on the bike. I'm overworked and tired and at the end of my semester, and I just wanted to work out my frustration - but I also knew that I didn't want to blow out my knee. So I held back, going at a leisurely pace and hitting 17 miles in 55 minutes. Not the greatest ever, but I feel better just because I did SOMETHING today. Also, happily, my knee feels like it's loosened up a bit. Have I mentioned that I love the bike?

Tomorrow - Pool then run. The goal is 1200 yards followed by two miles. Maybe I'll squish in some biking, too? We'll see. Also, I hope to get a haircut tomorrow. The need has become a desperate one. Yes I know it's not triathlon related, but seriously. It's gotten bad.