A three-fer

Today was a busy day. I had my 4th swim lesson this morning. It went really well. We did the pick up rocks thing again to start, but this time he tossed it well in front of me and I had to jump up and dive down to get it. It took several tries (dozens!) but I finally did it. He broke it down into steps. I was jumping up and going down a couple of times until I could get enough power to dive down. I am not a fan of being upside down, but somehow I was able to finally get the rock!

Then we worked on the elementary backstroke, which then progressed into the actual backstroke. He tells me that I can use this if I get freaked out in the water that I don't have to stop and tread water to regain my composure; I can flip over and still make forward progress. I had to use that towards the end of our session today when I inhaled a bunch of water and started coughing. I wasn't allowed to stop. I had to roll over, get through it, and then flip over and continue across the pool. We then did some drills to work on the freestyle swim and I ended with two laps freestyle. My totals today were 50m backstroke and 50m freestyle for a total of 100m swimming. While doing the freestyle swim, John didn't let me pause at the wall after the first lap, I had to do a quick turnaround.

I feel really great! All this and it was only the 4th lesson!!

This afternoon I decided to do my run. The weather was fantastic. At 4pm it was 73 degrees with 45% humidity and a good breeze. Perfect! I took the dogs out first and they completed Week 3. We did 1.83 miles in 28:16. The did really well. So well that I am tempted to move them up a few weeks. But I won't because it is best to ease in to running. Especially as the weather heats up.

After I dropped them off I headed out on my 40 minute run. I ended it a little short because I had already run with the dogs and because the mystery pain in my leg was starting to bother me. I did 3.1 miles in 34:34 for an average pace of 11:09. Nice and slow like I am supposed to do.

I talked with Coach John about the pain. He recommends massaging with the TP Therapy kit and seeing how that does. I will ice it tonight and massage it. I may even call Leah, my massage therapist, or go see the one Mark and John use. I hope I'll see improvement in a week or so.