Tough one

Still not sick. I would declare myself in the clear, but that is almost certain to get me struck down by the plague, so for now I will declare myself cautiously optimistic.

Great swim session today. Well okay, hard swim session today, but it went okay too, I think that qualifies it as greatish. The near greatness was mainly because I survived and felt like I got a good workout from it. Happy with that.

For those who were around last Friday you may remember me pondering whether I would have been better off swimming in a slower group as I thought I might have got a better work out from it. No such problem today. Today I swan in the faster group and I have no issues with the level of workout I got. Perfectly hard enough thank you, more than happy to work no harder than I did today. Just right. Just call me baby bear.

In all honesty today's session fairly hurt. You know you are in for a hard session when it hurts from the start and then sort of builds from there. The difficulty of the session was exacerbated by the fact that I have had a few strength sessions this week, gym on Wednesday night and then a strength session on the paddle board yesterday. Debatable whether these sessions are good ideas on a half-taper week, but there you go. I didn't think either of the two sessions took much out of me until I was in the pool this morning, the oh boy. Ouchy.

The fact that the session had a fun combination of sprint 50s and 400s probably didn't help my comfort levels either.

As I have said a few times I continue to be happy with how my swimming is being sustained. Although today was pain city, generally the swimming is going well and at a reasonable pace too (for me). Such is my happiness with how the swim training is going that I entered a race for next year the other day. Every February there is a swim race around the Busselton Jetty, it is pretty similar (although not exactly the same) to the old Busselton Ironman swim leg. The swim is 3.6km and while it is longer than I am swimming at the moment, I am confident that I can swim the distance pretty comfortably (although probably not quickly). The swim around the jetty is a bit of a classic and I have tried to do it for the last 2 years. In 2016 I couldn't get an entry and in 2017 I had an entry but then couldn't do the event. This year, whilst I am not racing I thought "why not" so I secured an entry (they sell out in less than 12 hours usually) and so away I go. Looking forward to it, although I might try and do a bit of swimming before the race.

Generally I have to say I am happy with my level of triathlon training at the moment. While I have no plans around racing I do like to keep the three legs rolling over and I feel like I am achieving that at the moment. I get in a ride a week, a couple of runs and a swim, supplemented by some gym work and a bunch of paddling. I am not super fit, but about as fit as I want to be and the riding, running and swimming are going along nicely.

Not a bad place, I think I might stay.