See Fox Happy to be back!

This morning was the first practice I have had in several week with my teammates.  The girls who traced in the St.A's Tri are back and rested and decided to keep swimming with me!  Some of them are doing more Tri's throughout the year, 1 girl is getting ready for her wedding and is happy to have good workouts and motivation...but ultimately I think that they agree that Tuesday morning swim practice is tough (especially waking up at 4:30, but we have a lot of fun doing it.

This morning there were only 12 people at practice...which means we each split a lane.  It was really nice.  I split mine with Kait who is fast and was never on the same set as me, but always is fun to swim with...lots of quick laughs and motivation to kick harder to the wall.  Gimmy was next to me on the other side of the lane ropes and our coach said it looked like we were doing synchronized swimming.  She is great to swim with because we have pretty similar paces.  

Here are some things I was considering during set 3: 600m of Free at an RPE of 6 or 7:

1.  I'm pretty OC about swimming with little rituals.

2.  I breath every 3 strokes

3.  As I rock to the side and breathe my feet overlap and I tap my ankles together.

4. Pushing off the wall sets the tone for the entire 25.  If I don't get a good push I'm grumpy until I get to the other end and can push off again.

5.  If I surface for my first breath and stroke before the first set of flags I'm disappointed and annoyed.  This should only prove to work against me in the race...no walls in the middle of lake Austin to push off.

6.  I am horrible at tracking my distance.  I have to focus on the count of every 50...but I typically am confused about how much I finish and have to ask the girls I'm with to confirm how far along I am.  Gimmy makes fun of me regularly for this!

7.  My friend Kait and I usually get music stuck in our head and "under the sea" from the Little Mermaid is one of her favorites that I now find myself singing.

8.  Getting music in my head is never good.  I can tell I swim faster when I actually pay attention to my stroke and not singing to myself.

9.  I always take my cap off to swim my last 50 of cool down.  It just reminds me of being a kid and playing in the pool...

10.  I love swimming!  I'm so scared of the open water swim because it is going to be so much harder than just swimming a 1500 meter swim indoors....but I love swimming so I'm excited!

So thankful Kate wanted to go to practice this morning and drove the rest of us.  It made me happy to see them all again!  Thanks Kate!

Keep the encouragement, powersongs, and pennies coming!

cfox