Stairs and Swim

Sigh, I never did the elliptical yesterday. Got home after the drive back from Burleson and got caught up with grocery shopping, watching the kids, and helping clean up the house.

So to make up for yesterday's double loss (no bike ride AND no home workout) - and to start simulating the tri's multiple events - I did a double workout today. I planned to do 30 minutes of the Stairmaster (thinking that it's a reasonable facsimile to biking in terms of a leg workout) and then swim 1,000 meters. Ideally, the order should have been reversed, but by swimming second I wouldn't have the hassles and/or stares to taking a quick shower or insufficiently toweling off and smelling like chlorine while on the Stairmaster.

Anyway, it didn't start off very well. I think I may have been too ambitious and set the Stairmaster at too high of a level because 15 minutes into it I was really dying, and at 19 minutes or so, I just had to stop. So, disgusted, I switched it off, grabbed my water bottle and other gear and headed to the pool.

Here, although I didn't know it at first, things got better. I started my swim at (what I thought was) a slow pace, but kept it up and by my fifth lap I was really cruising along. Even though I had my stopwatch running, I wasn't paying much attention to it since I assumed that my time was not going to be good - having already done almost 20 minutes (and had planned to do 30) of stairs. But as I came in from lap 22 (500 meters), I decided to do a quick check. 12:43 - my fastest time yet! Fired up, I made a conscious effort to finish up the rest of the 44 laps strongly. And, lo and behold, I did the entire 1,000 meters in 25:18. Since I took about a 10 second break between the first set of 22 laps and the second, I actually swam the second 500 meters in 12:25 - even FASTER than the first 500 m.

Take-away thoughts:

1. I hate the StairMaster (but it is doing its job). I hope that the actual biking (12.4 miles) and running (5 km) will use a lot less leg strength/endurance than an equivalent time on that machine (at the setting that I was using).


2. Swimming with tri-shorts (this was the first time I used them in a pool - my only previous use was at Grapevine Lake) versus regular baggy swim trunks must really make a difference in speed. (Everyone already told me this, but now I have experienced it first-hand)


3. I learned that it takes me about 30 "hand strokes" (actually, I counted 15 strokes of my right arm) to do a 25-yard lap in the pool. This is good knowledge for me know in terms of approximating how much swimming I will need to do to hit the various distance buoys in the upcoming tri (while realizing that current and other deleterious conditions in the lake will slow my pace and increase the number of strokes required)

In other news, I am looking at doing the Mesquite Rodeo Bike Tour next weekend to make up for the rained-out Burleson Honey Tour. Looks like a really nice ride and a well-organized event.