Wednesday, December 23, 2009

A Big Warm Welcome to Winter and Hell Week!

Monday marked the first day of winter! Yes, I realize this probably doesn't sound like a great thing to most, but hear me out... As my friend, Holly, pointed out, this also symbolizes the shortest day of the year (wait, it really does get better), which only means that the days start getting longer again!

So, let's welcome the winter! We can get through and move on to long warm days on the bike outside instead of long laborious sweaty static rides inside on the trainer...and sweating while we pound the pavement instead of dodging snowflakes and attempting to stay upright while running down ice covered sidewalks...and wearing flip flops and shorts to swim practice rather than feeling our nose hairs freeze as we make the trip back home in the dark at 7am.

Speaking of swim practice... Yesterday, Coach Aaron explained to us that the week of Christmas is also known as "Hell Week". Apparently, most people are out of work (not me) and kids are out of school...and everyone is eating to much and not exercising enough, so what more perfect time to bust out lots of long sets with very minimal rest...try to get through and maybe fail. Ahahahahah! Notice the maybe. This is also the time when he stripped his sweatshirt. We were already sweating in the pool from our 600 mix and then 12x75 warm-up. The workout laid before us? 15x200. They were broken into 3 sets of 5 with descending pace. And After the first 1k, my lats were screaming. I begged someone else to lead the second set and that was much, much bettter. I am better able to relax if I'm not the one in the front. I have a major fear of slowing others down and my HR skyrockets at the very thought of it.

6:45 (the end of practice) hit before we could finish them all, so we only ended up doing 12x200 and then a cool-down for a total of 4k for the morning.

And a bike/run brick followed that evening.

Needless to say, I slept well last night.

And I'm going home now to get in a good bike. and another run. and then back to the second installment of hell week.

5 comments:

Anonymous said...

DAMN SMOKEY!!!! THAT sounds like one helluva swim workout!!

Mike Russell said...

That is a horrible, horrible joke Coach Aaron is playing on you. You are going to be a fish by the time New Year's rolls around.

Big Daddy Diesel said...

Ummmm, wow, I am sore from just reading that. I think I will have another of mom's cookies, on the patio, in my shorts, and its 74 today.

Anonymous said...

Nice job in the pool! Crazy workout. Enjoy the holidays.

Missy said...

Thanks for working out for me too. My workouts consist of MAYBE some running and TONS of eating. 1/4/2010, here I come;)