my first 800m swim (after a 2.25 mile run)

It's been a rather unsavory weather weekend here in the Bay Area, but I was still able to get in some good workouts pre- and post-storm.

Yesterday, before the rain got too heavy, I was able to get a god 40 minute ride on the bike. I did an out-and-back heading north on Alameda de las Pulgas up to San Carlos and then up to Hillsdale on El Camino Real. Traffic wasn't too heavy at 8:20am and aside from a few spits of rain here and there, the first twenty minutes of the ride weren't too bad.

Then I turned to head home and discovered the tail wind I'd been unconsciously enjoying was now a rather brisk headwind. Ugh. So the return home lasted a little longer than the twenty minutes I thought it would, but I got the bike inside and had eaten and showered well before the strong gusts whipped up and the hard rain fell.

So that meant today was a day of waiting out the weather. I was prepared to swap out the scheduled run to instead spend my workout in the pool, but then I noticed it was just a 20-minute run with an optional 15-minute swim on the schedule. I decided to do both.

And somewhere in the middle of my swim (around the 300-meter mark), I decided to go longer than the scheduled 15 minutes and see if I could do the full 800 meters. Even after my run on the treadmil, I was feeling energetic, and so I pushed on.

By the time I touched the wall on my 16th lap, it had taken me a half hour (including several 20-second rests sprinkled throughout). But I did it! I've now been able to at least cover all the distances of the ICE Breaker tri (half-mile swim, 13-mile ride, 4-mile run), so now it's a matter of stringing it all together.

The fact that I put in a 2.25 mile run just prior to jumping in the pool and finishing my half-mile swim builds my confidence that I'll finish the race. Now it's just a matter of "how fast?"

With seven weeks to the race, I'm already feeling good!