Gotta drop one eventually

[Day 14]

Workout notes first, then we'll talk life.

Today's Workout: AM CSP practice, sprint freestyle day
Summary:

• WU: 
• 400 swim
• 8 x 125 free DPS @ 1:55
• Main Set:
• 6 x 75 @ 1:10 as 50 mod/25 build to MAX
• 3 x 50 @ 1:10, odds MAX, evens easy recovery
• 5 x 100 kick w/ fins @ 1:30, 75 mix of choice and free kick on side/25 fly kick on back (exaggerate the undulation, fast beats)
• 12 x 50 @ :55, patterned as 4 cycles of 3
• 1 - break out
• 2 - fast turn
• 3 - break in
• 500 swim moderate, focus on streamlines (not even the dolphin kicks, just tight streamlines)
• 50 MAX (I went a :34, it was pretty pathetic)
• WD: 150 easy
• Total Distance: 3800 SCY

Hit Rate: 14/14 (100%)

Notes/thoughts:

• My left shoulder was a little bit weird today, just some pulling on the rotator cuff on the return to neutral after breaths to my right. The shoulder itself has also just been pretty sore/tight the remainder of the day. Not really sure what the deal is. Alignment is probably a little bit off on the rotation. Everything about my rotation in freestyle needs work.
• I've been trying to get back to a nice bent arm recovery in freestyle. I like the versatility of knowing I can swim with a straight arm recovery (my turnover is quicker, I have more stability in choppy water, the power phase of my pull is a bit stronger, etc. etc.) but it's less efficient, I have a bit more hand entry to pull lag than I'd like, and it's probably not great for my rotator cuff in the long run. I want to know I can swim well with either type of recovery so I gotta get back to working on the nice smooth bent arm recoveries. 
• I miss details work. The one thing that irks me about triathlon swimming is that it seems to be such a massive raw fitness based thing sometimes and just slamming out a lot of yards is not my style. I miss getting to work on the little things, body position, pull technique, clean turns and underwaters, etc. so it was nice to have some of that today. 
• I don't understand why I am so slow in the pool right now. Part of it is definitely technical. I can feel all the ways in which my body position sucks and how my kick is somehow still not properly synced up with my pull, which is all frustrating, but I think beyond that I just lost a bunch of my higher gears and I don't know how to get them back other than showing up in the pool and just doing my thing and hoping to find my groove. I'm doing 100s at a pace slower than I've swum a pool mile alone during rec swim before. It's not even sensible. But whatever, I have pool problems all the time, and the only way to solve them is really by swimming more, so I'll keep doing that and hopefully something will click back into place at some point.
• The bike out was okay today, temp was cold but no wind which was nice. I need to get a full facemask or something to help my face stay warm, maybe I'll buy one when I go skiing this weekend, that way I can maybe convince myself to go ride my road bike outside on the weekends too. (Wind is an inevitable thing at faster speeds and having nothing to cover my cheeks is super brutal.)

So today was a planned double day, but a few things are going on that made me decide to axe workout two today. The big one is that my right knee spent most of yesterday having a horrible time. There was a point when I was leaving school and going down the stairs and my knee was just collapsing underneath me because it hurt, so I think I need to give it a moment. I woke up this morning with it feeling perfectly fine except for the occasional twinge when I twist/pivot or move laterally but the joint feels loose when I'm taking steps and with skiing over the weekend, I'm just not comfortable risking anything with it. The plan had been an outdoor run today and a treadmill workout plus some dryland tomorrow morning, but I decided to opt out of the afternoon workout today and will be swimming tomorrow morning instead just to keep things low impact. It may even be a no breaststroke kick day (it's IM day tomorrow), depending on how my knee handles things.

(Another random thing to note: All of my joints have felt real loose the past week or so in general. It's a bit weird, but it's in my knees and my wrists and my elbows and I really wish I had some of that joint stuff my mom takes because I bet it would be helpful. But oh well. I guess I'll just like...drink milk and eat food instead and let it resolve on its own.)

That having been said, I get to knock myself for the first time all year for missing a workout. This situation is one where I would typically consider whether or not I wanted it to count against me, because I am taking the afternoon off for a legitimate reason and I don't want to feel compelled to ignore legitimate reasons to take time off just because I want this hit rate number to look good. At the same time, I want to be able to look back on this number at the end of the season and have it actually reflect an accurate comparison of what I did accomplish versus what I wanted to accomplish in terms of training. So, in the interest of keeping things honest, I'm counting the workout for what it is: a missed workout. I will continue to just keep making random judgment calls about what counts and what doesn't as situations arise in the future. In the meantime...

Hit Rate: 14/15 (93%) - Also, for everyone that's new to this, the goal is to keep that percentage above 90% (and I always round down, deal with it) in an ideal world, but I am willing to accept it getting down even lower (~85% is okay, below 80% becomes not so okay) because life happens.

I should go address everything else I've been putting off in my life now. This is the crazy thing about having all this extra time from forgoing a workout: I waste literally 100% of it and end up just as time crunched as I always am. Swim tomorrow, Boston-bound in the afternoon after that, can't wait to see my other half and HIT UP KILLINGTON THIS WEEKEND. Yay (:

Much love,

Jess