This week was recovery week for Schmitty. I won't get into 'splainin' the nuts and bolts of periodization training but in the most simple of terms -- an athlete progresses through a training plan made up primarily of three-week "build blocks" broken up by one step-back week to help the body recover and to promote adaptation (science!). Anyway, this recovery week still included 8.5 hours of the swimming, biking and running fun. Coach Liz has already loaded the next three week block to Training Peaks and it looks like Schmitty is set to Recovery week is usually a good time to baseline your fitness since we are still about a month out from the start of race season. And last night Coach Keith herded the goggled, swimming masses at the UIC pool for another 10x100m threshold pace swim test (:20s rest between each 100). I loath swim tests but gained another 3-4 seconds per 100 over my last test. Schmitty's still slow, just less slow than a month ago. As I say at all my races...any swim that I can walk away from is a good swim.
Is it selfish of me to think that I'm really glad Jen is getting back to her Jen self? I've tried my very best to keep things together here in casa de Schmitty but if you pull back the curtain there's a lot of Scotch tape and gum keeping everything from falling apart. Up to this point I've been just smart enough to keep my life, work and training propped up and moving forward. But Schmitty is reaching a tipping point and Jen's recovery is coming along at a good time. Thank God for our Triathlife together. There's no such thing as quit if you're a Schmitty. Although there's plenty of whining, complaining, shaking fists and cursing when the alarm goes off in the morning.
The current shoreline water temp for Lake Michigan is 46 degrees. The big ITU World Triathlon race here in Chicago takes place in about 70 days. I here there are reports of ice chunks still floating about in the middle of the lake. That being the case the ITU has declared a rule change for the swim whereby a swimmer may grab hold of an ice float to rest as long as they do not use the ice to propel themselves forward. (Thank you Schenectady! You've been great!).
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