Swimming Lesson

Trekked way over to Essex with the girls on tow and met Jonathan for swimming lessons with Swim For Tri in their endless pool.

Annoyingly, I woke up with a sore neck which I can only turn through about 60% of my normal rotation. Makes driving tricky, but swimming wasn't actually affected too badly
as you rotate your whole body to breathe.

It was interesting and quite fun, though the water temperature was probably a bit chilly considering I wasn't swimming continuously and was standing around a lot listening to the instructors.

I've got some video on DVD of me swimming during the lesson, which I find interesting, but other people only seem to be able to watch for a few seconds before becoming bored :-) I'll try and post some of it, or a few stills, once I work out how to do it!

Row/Bike

Went to LA fitness, and showed Roy where it is today.

Rowed 2500 metres in about 11:30 (should be 120 kcals or so)

Set the exercise bike to a program of easy/hard on level 5 for 20 minutes. Maintained 90-95 rpm though the dopey machine kept telling me to slow down to 70-80. About 200 kcals expended on this.

Bike profile looked like this one:

        ** **
     ** ** **
  ** ** ** **
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Run

Did the 4.5 mile Richmond Park winter run with Jon and Carol. Still dark at 7pm, but the heavy rain stopped just before we set out. Quite a warm evening really, relatively.

time 41:36
Average HR 147
calories 472kcal

apparently I was 'in the zone' for 31 minutes. This probably means that my HR was above 152 (the current high limit on my watch) for about 10 minutes. If there are 10 minutes of hill climbing, and I guess there might be, then that makes sense. I'm quite pleased with this average really.

(http://www.gmap-pedometer.com/?r=55558)

Swim

Another afternoon session at the LA Fitness 15M pool.

This time I tried for a new record, and completed 40 lengths of non-stop crawl.

I followed this up with 10 breaststroke, 10 crawl, and another 10 breast stroke. 60 lengths in all. (900M). Ran out of time really as I had to get back to the office for a meeting.

When doing crawl I normally breathe every third stroke. This is fine for a while, but when I get a bit tired I find I can do every second stroke more easily instead. This feels more robotic somehow, less relaxed and flowing, but I just need the oxygen!

Bike

Had a flat back wheel this morning so had to change the tube before going out at around 9.10am.

Went round most of the Windsor Triathlon route, with a detour into Windsor Great Park. Felt as if the wind was against me a lot, and if it wasn't windy, then it was uphill. Ended up with another quite poor time.

Time 1:47:16
Average Speed - 25.11km/h
Distance - 45.91

This is even slower than last week :-(

I'm sort of thinking that maybe my long runs on Saturdays might be tiring me more than I realise.

Run

Went out again this lunchtime for my long run. It was nice and sunny and bright, cold of course, but shorts were ok and my cycling skullcap kept my head warm.

Didn't monitor my heartrate, just tried to keep it slow and steady. Measured the route on the very useful google maps pedometer site, same as last week, with a supplement near the end, to make a total of:

distance 7.2 miles
time 1:01:00

Wore my knee bandage, and listened to my MP3 player, and really quite enjoyed it.

Swim

Another long session in the LA Fitness 15M pool.

30 lengths crawl
10 breast stroke
10 crawl
10 breast stroke
10 crawl

70 altogether = 1050M

Row/Run

A quick 5 minute warmup on the rowing machine (55kcal) and then a 5K session on the treadmill at La Fitness.

I work the 0.5kg weights on my wrists, and set a program for easy start and finish, and medium hill for the middle section.

Ran at about 10km/h and finished in around 30 minutes.

Definitely felt the difference with my wrists, but like the idea that I'm strengthening my arms at the same time as my legs - I hate weight training.