Swimming and then a horrific running injury

OK. So the running injury wasn't that horrific. I'll get to it in a second.

Swimming

Today started with a 60 minute session with Swim Coach Paul.

100 m swim
300 m drills
4 repeats of 4 x 50 and 1 x 100 (total of 1200 m)
150 m drills

At the end of the 1200 m I swam my last 100 m section in 2:05 which is a fine time for me. But, it did drive my heart rate through the roof.

Psychologically, the same problems continue. I can swim along with a heart rate c. 150 beats/min but it feels really hard. Unlike running where 150 beats per minute is slow and sustainable.

Every time I work with Paul, though, I get better. I really feel like my swimming has improved immensely and that this summer I will not be embarrassed by my sluggishness. I don't expect that I will lead the pack but I am hoping that I will not bring up the back, either.

Running

After a brief break I went for a 60 minute run at 5:45/km. This is an easy pace. At times I find myself cruising along at 5:30 which appears to be a pace which requires very little focus on my part. To run at 4:55/km (my Boston qualifying pace) I have to keep focused. To run at 5:30 my mind can wander and my legs will pretty much cruise along in auto-pilot.

In any event I was really enjoying the run until "the incident." Approaching the curb and getting ready to cross the street I note a small (6 inches?) ice berm at the edge of the sidewalk. I attempt a gentle hurdle of the berm. It would have been no problem except that Hannah the Dog thought that we were turning down the sidewalk instead of crossing the street. She pulled to the right just enough that my toe caught the berm and down I went -- left palm, elbow, and hip.

I sat on the road and checked myself over. I noted my scraped hand and sore elbow. Nothing broken. Hannah seemed bemused by the whole affair and gave me a couple of licks for good measure. I got up and finished my run. A more thorough inspection was made once I got home.

First the hand. Nothing serious. A little scrape in the beefy part of the palm.


Then I got Arthur to take of pic of the jacket which, until this moment, I did not know was ripped. Grrr... it's my favourite jacket. Strangely, the rip is high up and not at the elbow which took the bulk of the force of the fall. You can see from the much that it was elbow-roll-onto-back.


Did make me wonder what things were going to look like underneath? The kids were impressed.

And a final shot after the wound was cleaned although it made almost no difference.


There is a pretty big chunk missing right at the bottom of this pic but overall it's a pretty minor scrape. Heather made me bandage it so that I didn't accidentally get blood on something that she cares about.