Race alone or run with a friend

I found out about a small local and cheap half marathon right here in Ridgefield CT a few weeks back and was considering doing it. I was already on a training plan to do the Hartford Half marathon on October 9th when our plans changed (our being my training partner and I) so we wouldn't be running that race. I continued to run on the plan just to have a plan. We've now settled on Philly on 11/20 - so long as my training partners long run goes okay this Saturday.

As I've posted lately I've been feeling a bit off lately. Tired and crabby and not hitting workouts like I wanted to. So I've been debating on whether or not to do this race. Well I need to decide today. I get a text form my TP and she asks to run long this Saturday so I'm thinking I'd rather run long (not 13.1) with a friend than I would race a longer distance. So I'm going to go ahead and listen to the ol' body and run w/ a friend. Take it easy, slow down and enjoy the changing leaves and friendship.

I've also decided not to lift this weekend. LOOK at me!! Listening to my body for a change. How cool I have my own barometer! ha Swim was AWESOME last night. I was able to settle in and work on stroke and not blow myself up, but as anyone who swims knows when you make shifts in your stroke it can be hard on the new muscles you are using lap after lap. My shoulders started barking at me. I'm supposed to do Shoulders and Arms today and Chest and back on Friday, but I think my arms could use a break too.. particularly with all the swimming I've been doing.

Despite the shoulder pain I had a GREAT swim workout. I was actually able to focus on my stroke and not worry at all about speed! I got some awesome pointers from some of my fellow swimmers... real swimmers not triathletes. There's a difference. A HUGE difference. We did the catch up drill holding a bar. It keeps you HONEST and you can really feel what you are supposed to feel. The extension and glide.

We did it a little bit differently than this guy. We held the bar parallel to the bottom of the pool, but you get the idea.



After we did this and I could really feel the difference my fellow swimmer reminded me about the whole "get your hip out of the way" thing... accentuating the proper rotation from your hip not just your shoulders and I could, again, feel a difference. Now whenever you switch things up with your stroke you feel a bit slower (though my buddy assured me I wasn't slower) I did feel like it was a bit 'easier' as in I wasn't struggling so much to try to glide as I usually do.

This is an Advertisement for something, but you get the idea.



I'm pretty excited about last nights developments and hope this is the beginning of some good progress in my swimming!