R&R coupled with improvements

Not that I needed reminded but as someone recently pointed out on Twitter, rest is as important as training. After running Coniston 14 at the weekend, I think general tiredness coupled with a busy life caught up with me yesterday – so I made the wise decision to have a complete day off training – and most of today too – knowing that I was going to swim tonight. I’ll probably write up a bit more about this at the weekend – but on a different note – taking the day or so off wasn’t a bad thing I was planning a CSS test tonight.

I dragged a mate out with me to swim tonight – because he needed to do his CSS too (according to me anyway!) so I sent him the set – and didn’t get a reply. I was mean though and sent him the advanced set! I still made him do the intermediate one. Because I am nice like that!

Anyway – on to the important stuff – I wasn’t really sure where my pace was at in all honesty. It was November when I last did my CSS – which was 1:59/100m – I was over the moon at this as I roughly knew I was around the 2 minute mark but to have it just under after a rocky year swim wise – I was very happy. Any one who swims regularly knows that it actually takes a lot of effort to actually bring the pace down in swimming compared to making improvements in running and cycling (unless your me then running takes forever).

Doing my CSS test tonight was definitely going into the unknown. I knew I wasn’t any slower than I was in November – my training has been quite consistent and I have been pushing myself more so when I got out of the pool and checked it – it’s come down to 1:52/100, – so 7s faster. That doesn’t sound like a particularly huge improvement but I am rather pleased with that – and will happily take that.

I just need to put some serious effort into my cycling as I know full well I have not been on it – and having just bought a brand new second hand Ridley Phaeton – its about time I did!