Blue and Red

Swim Day

time- 21 minutes

Played hokey from school today. Which meant that instead of my normal 5am swim workout I got to sleep in (Bonus!) and experiment a little. So I decided that instead of heading to the pool for laps I would hit Haleiwa Beach Park and get some open water swimming in. My verdict: Meh.
Open water swimming during training can be a great workout. But only, I think, if you are swimming with others or if you have a little better sense of the distances where you are swimming. I can estimate how far I swam based on time and how it feels, and I'm pretty sure I got about 1500 yards in today. But I don't know how quality they were compared to if I had gone to the pool. It was nice to swim in a straight line for five, ten minutes, with no walls to worry about.
But I think open water workouts might be most valuable for triathletes who aren't comfortable with their swimming and aren't happy in the water. Because following that black line in the pool is one thing. But watching the bottom fall away into blue is something completely different. I like the ocean. I'm a strong swimming. But it still messes with my head when I can't see the bottom anymore. Thoughts like, "You know, the news would love it if the guy covered in shark tattoos got eaten," slip in unbidden and unwanted. However, in a race I don't have time to think about that. I'm not looking at the bottom, I'm looking at the guys around me, looking for stray feet and open water. So open water holds no fear during a race. Too busy doing other things. So it was nice to get out into the water, but I don't need to do it again before Honolulu.

Run Day

time- 45 minutes

Farlek run today for the fail. Just felt tight and slow the whole run, I couldn't get it going. It was a hot, frustrating run. Not awful, but not good. And by the end my new VFF KSOs had rubbed holes in both my feet. The old ones would cause blisters eventually when I would go sockless and it looks like these are no different. I've heard the Bikilas don't do this, but I'd rather have KSOs right now. Biks are next on the list. I'm not sure if the blisters were worse than normal because they shoes are new or because I went with slightly too big of a size. They were bought from REI so if I need to I can return them, REI is awesome with stuff like that. I'll give them a few more runs to see.