Long Run, more Swimming, and Week 8 Summary

Saturday 14.25 miles/1:22:58/9:16 average pace

Zach and I went to Coyote Hills Regional Park and ran a big loop along the bay and around the hills. He did 10 miles with me!! A distance record for him. :) I was impressed. I did another four and a quarter miles alone and felt great. My average pace for the first 7 miles was 9:30, and my average pace for the last 7.25 was 9:01, so a good negative split. It was such a nice day although out on the spits it was really windy. But it was really fun and it was so nice to have Zach with me!

Yesterday afternoon I went to Borders and bought a book on swimming: Total Immersion: The Revolutionary Way to Swim Better, Faster, and Easier. By Terry Laughlin with John Delves. I've heard a little about this so I thought I'd check it out. I read some yesterday and it's really helpful. It's a lot about "relearning" to swim and forgetting all your bad technique that you've been doing. So since I have no technique, it's pretty easy to forget that. I'm glad I'm reading it now. Luckily I seem to have pretty good natural balance, which he talks about a lot, and so the drills were not too tough. I worked on some of that today, then swam 20 laps thinking about his tips and trying to use what I'd read. I still have a lot of reading and learning to do, but it seemed to help a lot already!

I started off today counting how many strokes it took me to get down the pool and it took 20 strokes, then I practiced my drills and got it down to a consistent 15! It is still really hard for me, but this way feels a little more relaxed and natural. So my laps took forever today, but that's because I was more focused on my stroke technique. I was resting a lot so that I could focus each time. I think the whole workout took about an hour. I'm excited to keep reading and then go swimming again Wednesday.

SO...

TOTAL miles for week 8: 33.5 yay!

Plus: one upper body lifting day (ouch! missed 3 weights days)
two days swimming (40 laps total)