New swimsuit and warm weather

Last week I had an 800 time trial in the pool scheduled for Tuesday.  I pushed as hard as I could and wound up with a time about a minute slower than my best.  Now, while that time would usually come well into the season after lots of speedwork, being a minute off seemed like a bit much.  I recorded the time in my log, noted it was slow, but my coach told me it was not bad.  After all, it was about 15 seconds faster than the one I did last month.  But then I thought to myself, maybe it's just time for a new swimsuit?  So, after my workouts on Wednesday, I made my way to Sports Authority and checked out which suits were on sale, found one in my size and took it home.

Thursday morning I hopped in the pool for a set that began with an 800 steady.  So, off I went.  And, without working particularly hard, that 800 was a bit faster than my all out 800 on Tuesday.  Yep, sometimes all it takes is a new suit.  And I know you're wondering, and I saw the old suit in the mirror and it didn't look that bad, it was just that the outer layer of fabric had really started to create sort of a parachute effect, apparently.  But at least swimming has gotten a lot easier now and that suit is definitely in the trash.

What else?  Well, I have been watching the news in the morning and noting how much of what I'm seeing is based on the weather and how unbelievably cold and snowy it is all over the country.  Then I look out my window and wonder why I ever bother to put up with that.  Ok, I get it, I enjoy a good snow storm every once in a while and didn't even mind the blizzard that occurred right before I left to come out here.  Actually, it's probably good that it postponed my trip a day to prevent me from getting here too early.  But when you log onto facebook and at least four of your friends back home have posted pictures of their car thermometers reading -9 or whatever and you go swim in the outdoor pool and know it's supposed to be 70 again today, well, it's hard to argue that this is the much better place to be right now. 

I honestly almost feel guilty about it, even though it's not like it's my fault it's so cold there and it's so warm here.  Of course, the trade off is that you have to remember I am completely alone out here.  I'm doing fine with it so far, although I know eventually it will really start to get old.  But hopefully by then it will be time to come home, and I'll get a bit of a reprieve because my mom and my aunt are coming to visit in February.  I think after all of this next winter my mother might be the one who spends next winter somewhere warm.  Seriously, if all you have to do is find somewhere warm to go, why do we even put up with it at all?

Other than that, lots of training going on, of course.  Also on my run yesterday I got to add coyote to the list of wildlife I've come across while training.  At this point there's not a lot left for me to run into.  Fortunately he did not appear interested in me at all, and after we made eye contact he just trotted off leisurely in another direction.  Been logging lots of miles on the bike, a decent amount on the run and lots of time in the water.  I will say that I am definitely looking forward to my rest week next week, though.  Although I do notice that I definitely am much more aware of how alone I am on the days with less training, but maybe I'll try to think of something fun to do. 

Anyway, that's about it.  Enjoying the warm weather, not feeling like I'm missing out on the snow and cold and training, training, training.