Training Day: Thursday

So yet again the weather has been awful. Up bright and early ready to rock at 5:45 AM ready to head down to the pool at 7:00 AM.
But when I got up, the wind was howling still blowing steady at 30 to 40 mph gusting at 60 mph or above with heavy rain. So getting soaked on my way down wasn't too appealing, so I had to postpone my swim and gym session till later. So I waited for the rain to subside.

I headed down later for the same swim session as yesterday as follows:

100m - warm up
50m - full gas x 4 10 seconds recovery between each set (Without losing good form)
200m - easy
50m - full gas x 4 10 seconds recovery between each set (Without losing good form)
200m - easy
50m - full gas x 4 10 seconds recovery between each set (Without losing good form)
200m - easy
50m - full gas x 4 10 seconds recovery between each set (Without losing good form)

100m - cool down

I had watched a video that morning of a commentary analysing Lucy Charles' swim stroke. My stroke isn't awful but not perfect, so I had ago a applying some pointers and to some success. Despite the fatigue in my back and arms from yesterday's session I pulled out a little more speed than normal based on these pointers. I had one of the best "pumps" from this session

The Pump
"The pump is almost drug like, and is just as addicting. The pump is when your muscles swell up during your workout, which is caused from the excessive amount of blood going into the muscle and filling it up the same way you would fill up a water balloon." David Robson

For those of you who do not know Lucy Charles is one of the greatest triathlon swimmers of the present day. She absolutely smashed the women's swim course record at the 2018 Ironman World Championships.

When I had finished session I did an extra 100m cool down just because I felt like it. Usual thing after finishing this, rehydrate, then next headed upstairs. It was pretty busy in the gym at this time but the goal was to ring out and squeeze out any remaining glycogen in my lats, traps and shoulders. This pretty much consisted of:

15 x 6 Lat Pull Downs (45 kg)
12 x 5 Seated Rows (30 kg)
90 seconds rest between each set for both exercises.

This only took about 25 minutes all together but after an intense series of swim intervals at full gas it was quite taxing. After that I headed home to grab two cheesecakes out my fridge and went over to my girlfriend's house to start my cheat day going. We made chicken burgers, I also tucked into a 16 inch margarita pizza and had the two cheese cakes for desert. I must have consumed about 5,000 calories at least on Thursday but the rest of the time I am dieting.