Firsts

A few firsts today:

• First club workout of the year
• First run of the year
• First ice bath of the year
• First time ever running in a swim suit

The club workout was great, although 45 minutes in I was wondering if the new 1.5 hour swim format was a good idea. It's a long time to be in the water. We did a whole pile of drills (I've already forgotten most of them) and the main set was 10 x 100m on 30sec R, descending 1-5 and 6-10. It was a fun set, one I'll do again on my own for sure, and it was nice to know I wasn't as out of shape as I'd thought.

The run was an overly ambitious (aka - stupid) 1:16:00 with Teresa. Considering that my last run was before Christmas and I've been sick or post-sick since the 26th it probably would have been smart to start with a shorter distance. The run was super slow, frustratingly so at points, but Teresa and I had a great conversation - things got philosophical, which is always cool (I also had a few rants, not so philosophical but I'd had a lot of coffee this morning).

The ice bath was 1 minute of hell, 8 minutes of "I don't like this" and 1 minute of "am I done yet?" As I hadn't prepared my usual "ice bergs" (water frozen in 1L yogurt containers) I didn't think the bath would be too cold. I didn't take into account, however, the effect of cold weather on my aparment building's water supply. It took about an hour after I was out of the bath until I stopped shivering.

And the last first? No, I'm not preparing for minimalist tri attire this season. And yes, I did wear something on top of the bathing suit. Lots of layers of something.

This morning I forgot my towel, which was survivable, and underwear, which was a bit more of a challenge. Joanne offered to lend me her bathing suit (dry & clean, she brought two this morning) and I figured as I was only planning to run 20-30 minutes it was worth a try. The swim suit was great to run in, in fact I forgot I had on something different and it was only when I went to take off my heart rate monitor strap when I got home that I remembered. I'll have to try biking in one and see how that feels. Maybe I will go minimal in a race this season?