The last two days have been all about pacing. And surviving fatigue!

Wednesday's swim was 200m negative splits - aiming to have the second 100m 5 seconds faster than the first.

My splits were:

1st 200m: -2.5sec
2nd 200m: even
3rd 200m: +2.5sec

I didn't succeed in the aims of the workout but there is a reason! Unfortunately not a terribly good one.

I've finally found someone my speed in my masters swim, or I guess I've improved enough to keep pace with someone who's always been faster. We started 5 seconds apart and the first 200m she was on my toes the whole way so I had a goad to get me to speed up. The second 200m she led and I ended up drafting the whole way, I couldn't pass as we were so evenly matched and there were four other people crowding a narrow lane so it was hard to gradually build up speed at my own pace. The third time the coach made us start 10 seconds apart ("You two are all over each other!") instead of 5. It was my turn to take the lead and, instead of focusing on the purpose of the workout or technique or anything useful, all that was going through my mind was "I've got to keep away from Karmen!" and I took off like a rocket right from the get go.

Normally I do actually know how to pace myself!

That night was an evil bike/run session where we went up Spanish Banks Hill as fast as we could then transitioned to running and took off back down the hill and repeated this three times. I'm a big fan of going up a hill once and then moving on.

On my ride home from the workout a spectacular storm blew up, seemingly from nowhere - the rain came on like someone had just cranked a faucet on full blast and I was soaked in minutes. This was highly unpleasant but when I saw lightning I was even less happy. We don't do lightning in Vancouver, we have long soggy stretches where static electricity is completely impossible, none of this lightning business, that's for ill-behaved, tempermental prairie weather. Out here on the coast we have civilized weather, where it takes weeks to go from mildly wet and cold to not quite so wet and somewhat warmer.

The worst part of the storm, however, was that I got part of a song stuck in my head and can't figure out what it is: "Thunder! Lightning! (something something something) was frightning." I still can't get it out of my head, if anyone can identify it that might help me exorcise this earworm.

Last night's track session was 4 x 1km at race pace. For the first three repeats I thought I was going way too fast but it turned out I was perfectly on pace - I'd forgotten what my ave 10km time was. Luckily other people in the club know my times.

This week wasn't my most brilliant. I managed to get seriously sleep deprived (I blame Connie Willis), which made me cranky and completely forgetful. I went far beyond "training brain" and deep into the realms of exercise-induced Alzheimer’s. My goal for next week - go to bed! And from now on I'm only reading midly interesting books, not completely engrossing ones that keep me up all night.