10/14 - 10/20

Mon: 6-miles
Tues: 50-100-200-300-400-300-200-100-50 ladder w/ 100yd pull in between; 100yd cooldown
Wed: 6 sets of 200yd swim / 200yd pull; 100yd cooldown
Thurs: 50-100-200-300-400-300-200-100-50 ladder w/ 100yd pull in between; 100yd cooldown
Fri: 5 sets of 200yd swim / 200yd pull; 100yd cooldown
Sat: 9-miles
Sun: 8-miles (1E + 3T + 2E + 1T +1E)
Total: 23 miles

My intention was to make this week a "higher mileage" week (>50miles) after a "rest" week last week. My back/hamstrings/hips have been rather tight. Four days worth of standing between career fairs and the BME seminar (two weeks ago), two days of standing at the wake and funeral last week, and two plane rides have not been great for that. None of last week's runs were great, and my everything kind of hurt. Monday's run wasn't great either, and then my back immediately locked up after. Awesome. I had already made an appointment with Dr. Staker since the "easy" week did not fix anything. Oh well. Swim, swim, swim.

Swimming is boring, especially when you don't have anyone to swim with. Plus, I'm not even a marginally good swimmer, and I don't do it often enough, so everything is basically at the same pace. The only variation is the distance that I swim before I stop or using a pull-buoy. I actually picture running laps around a track because that is less boring than swimming laps (50yds swimming = 200m running). Come to think of it, I must picture running around an indoor track because I consider 50yds/200m to be one lap. That's bad. At least I've figured out a whopping one other workout besides sets of 200yd swim / 200yd pull... for a long time, that was my only workout. For "variation", I'd try and swim the swim faster, but that only happened after a solid week or so of swimming. And, on those occasions, my back wasn't the problem (when I try to swim faster, I'm not as careful, and my back starts to twinge more).

There is just nothing to look at when you swim. I try and talk to myself, but then I lose track of what lap I'm on, and I really don't want to prolong the workout. That and I get cold as soon as I stop, and sometimes towards the end of the workout when I can no longer swim fast enough. And I finally broke down and wore my new goggles (mostly because I can't find my old ones), and it took me until Friday to get them adjusted so that either my right eye doesn't feel like it's going to pop out of its socket or the goggles don't fill with water. And...

Ok, enough complaining. I really only mind swimming when I know I can't run. If I choose to swim, it's a whole different story. I saw Dr. Staker again on Friday and he said I could start running, just not to push it. I promised not to run a marathon this weekend, but didn't say more than that. I don't know what his definition of push is, and I didn't want to find out. I did 9-miles easy on Saturday morning. My back/hips/hamstrings were still rather tight. I started to feel better mid-run, but coming out of Umstead hurt. I wasn't quite back to Schenck by 9-miles, and tried to convince myself that I needed to run all the way back. But, that only lasted a wee bit more before I gave up and decided not to push it because I wanted to run on Sunday.

Sunday's run was actually better than any run for the previous 2 weeks. I stretched and foam rolled a crap-ton on Saturday, and felt reasonable by Sunday. I was able to throw in some low-mid 7ish pace miles. I was tight after the run, but it's a step in the right direction.