Who's to Blame?

Following the general trend of things, today, I refuse to accept responsibility for this morning's training session. I'm quite sure it is either Bolder or Trigreyhound who shoulder the blame.

The plan called for an hour swim to help work the final post-marathon kinks out of my legs. Completing the sub-four hour race had left my legs feeling as they haven't felt in a long time. Tight. Sore. Incapable of handling stairs with any kind of grace. A good swim would help the recovery.

I was up at 4:30 a.m. and ready to go shortly after that. As I got my breakfast, lunch, and snacks together, I looked at the dishwasher and thought of poor Bolder and his ongoing saga of washing dishes by hand. And I thought of my wife, who might appreciate it if some of the clean dishes were put away. I spent a bit more time than planned on that, and headed out the door right at 5 a.m. (which is when I should have been at the YMCA).

I threw my lunch and gear bag in the car, headed to the gym, and got there only to find out I had forgotten one minor item. Okay two items. And not so minor. One would be called pants. The other, we shall name shirt. Which meant I had exactly underwear, two shoes, socks, and a belt to wear to work. Admittedly, the belt would be pointless without the pants.

While the delays in the morning clearly point to Bolder, the clothes issues appears to be the result of Trigreyhound jinxing me by starting this whole situation. Sure, I may have forgotten underwear in the past and wore my running shorts under my pants, instead. But that required no extra travel or missed training. Grey had to "one up" me by forgetting his dress shoes and opt to forego training in order to get said shoes. (It must be admitted that business meetings lose some of their professionalism when wearing Asics Gel Kayano XIs instead of black wingtips). And, obviously out of some deep seeded competitive nature, I made a subconscious effort to one-up him, right back.

So, my nice hour swim became a hurried 25 minute swim. And just to toot Bolder's horn, we'll use his 1000 yard time trial as a comparison. He really does rule the seas, at least any where I am swimming. He did his 1000 yards in 16:40 (for 1:40/100yds). Given the same 25 yard pool with open turns, I completed the same 1000 yards (okay, 1027) in 23:55. That comes out to about 2:20/100yds. So, Bolder, given the same pace over 2.4 miles, you would come out of the water somewhere around 29 minutes ahead of me. And while it may be all about the bike, 29 minutes is one hell of a lead to overcome. Perhaps there is something to be said for improved swim times.