This weekend was my last open water race of the season, the Smith Mountain Lake 5K. The weather couldn't have been more miserable - cold, wet, and very rainy. When we left Durham, the weather was sunny and pleasant so I packed for warm weather -mostly shorts, t-shirts, and sandals. So when Virginia greeted us with very cold rain, I was unprepared. The one sweater, towel, and pair of jeans that I packed were very quickly and thoroughly soaked! With nothing to do but stand around in the freezing rain, I got in the water early for an extra long warmup.
Maybe the extra warmup paid off because I swam what might have been my best race of the season. For most of the distance, I swam in a pack of about 12 fast, buff, and very aggressive high school boys. I don't remember ever swimming with a group so willing to wack and be wacked. The boys were fast, but they were clearly pool swimmers without a lot of open water experience. Navigation is generally a weakness of mine, but not today! For once I felt like I was cutting a straighter line than my competitors.
I ended up placing 2nd out of the women. Even better, my time of 1:05 was my 5K PR. Heidi also swam a very fast time of 1:08 and checked with the officials to see how accurate the course was, and they assured her that the course had been measured by a laser.
I'm a little bummed that this was my last open water race of the season, especially since this means it's time for me to start phase 3 of my channel training - cold water swimming. Yuck! (Phase 1 was building a base, phase 2 was building speed, and phase 4, beginning in January, will be building mega amounts of endurance). All this racing this year has been fun and a good way to guage how my training is going. It's been a few years since I've raced in a pool, but I'm tempted to do some pool meets this winter to tide me over until open water starts again!
Week 38
Mon: swim 5700, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Tues: swim 2200, 1 hr boxing
Wed: swim 5100, 1 hr kickboxing, run 3 mi
Thurs: swim 5000, 1 hr boxing, run 5 mi
Fri: rest
Sat: swim 7200
Sun: swim 4200, run 5 mi
Total: swim 29, 400, run 16 mi, 4 hr boxing/kickboxing
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