93 Days – Fet Like I Was Swimming In Quicksand or Maybe 5000 Calories

This morning I headed out for my second swim workout of the week. My plan has me only swimming two times this week. I will get a short workout in this weekend with the Swim Clinic @ Augustana College so that will help me mentally because I feel like I should be swimming more. I know the two workouts this week were larger in volume, but I felt out of sorts today in the water.

Before I get into the workout I think part of my reason for feeling sluggish was the crap food I ate at night last night. I used an app I have been meaning to use for quite some time. It is the MyFitnessPal app which is so easy to use. It allows you to scan bar codes of food or manually type in the items to track what you are eating. It gives you the choice to set a goal and then configures what you should be eating each day to reach your goal. When you exercise it will readjust accordingly. Yesterday I decided to track my food intake because I know that my snacking is a huge weakness of mine. I eat great in the morning and at school, but before dinner and after I fall apart. I don’t want to get into counting calories, but this app really woke me up to realize how terrible my snacking is. For the most part this is a pretty typical day of eating for me except the DQ Blizzard and cinnamon roll. However, had I not eaten those I would have eaten a PB&J and milk before bed and probably something else so the calorie count is probably close.

Here is what I ate yesterday. It is an amazing amount of food and no wonder I can’t break the weight that I am at. I am not in dire need of shedding weight, but I would like to drop about 7 lbs for my race on May 20th. Looking at this food breakdown it would be so easy to cut out some of the candy and junk and easily hit my goal. The problem I have is that I am constantly hungry. I am never not hungry. I chew about 1-2 packs of gum a day in addition to the food to try and curb my cravings of food.

I am going to chart my food intake the next couple days and watch for patterns and weak spots. By next week I should be able to really focus on my weak spots and try to find some adjustments to help me out.

I did not bike last night. This would have easily put me back on track because I would have burned 2000+ calories easy riding. I will be biking tonight instead as Amanda needs to run and we agreed to exercise together. I need to get in a good workout tonight, hope my legs recover quickly for my long run tomorrow morning so I can get in my long ride as well this weekend.

Moving back to my swim workout this morning I was just not feeling it. I felt so sluggish in the water. Despite some of my times that I should have been happy about, none of it felt good. I am sure the junk last night helped contribute to this feeling. I had a good night sleep as I did not bike so I was sleeping by 9. My legs are tired from the three days of running, but that is not really a new feeling. I don’t know what it was, but I just felt BLAH! The good thing was that the pool was dead and I had a lane to myself.

Warm-Up
300 SW – 150 free, 150 pull – I did this in 5:27 which includes switching up
200 kick – 100 with board, 100 on back in 4:46
100 SW – Freestyle in 1:38(good time despite not feeling it)
200 kick – 100 with board, 100 on back in 4:51

Main Set
3 sets of
300 Pull Negative Split 30 RI
3 x 100 Descending 1-3 15 RI

Set 1 – 4:48, 1:36, 1:30, 1:26 (descent pull time and great times for my 100 despite not feeling like I was swimming well)
Set 2 – 4:54, 1:35, 1:33, 1:26
Set 3 – 4:56, 1:36, 1:28, 1:23 – this was a great last set. Felt good to push and feel a little burn in the lungs. I still felt slow despite a good time the last 100.

300 Free with couting strokes on even 50 – time was 5:03 with strokes around 15-16
Cool Down of 100 yards – kick with board in 2:13

Total Swim Time – 52:25
Total Yardage – 3000 yards

I look forward to a good workout tonight on the bike. I am excited for swim clinic this weekend. I am bringing my wetsuit and am going to swim a little bit with the suit on after the class ends. It should provide interesting to getting the suit on outside of the comforts of my home and then trying to figure out how to swim in a suit.