Recovery swim

I’m not doing a full-blown taper for the 2-mile Chris Greene Lake Cable Swim in Charlottesville, Va. on Saturday. I’m actually running a bit harder than usual, to see how my hip does with some tempo runs before my appointment with my running doc tomorrow.Tonight, that means the 5-ish-mile beach loop/hill run with Pacers, which involves running on my beloved Rock Creek Park trails before heading to what I’m sure will be some brutal hills.

That said, I am easing up a bit as the week goes on, nixing the core work I recently added to my repertoire. Considering my glutes are still screeching at me after a stability-ball workout on Sunday, I think this is a wise call. I’m also declaring tomorrow an off-day, and put in a nice, easy swim yesterday.

Here’s the lovely, sprint-free recovery workout, which included just enough hard effort to give me a pre-race ego boost, yet not enough to wear me out. I’ve been really into 800s lately, ever since Megan Killian (check out her training blog here) recommended a workout including a set of them. Do three of those bad boys, and wham! You’re almost done with your workout! If they’re too hard, you can back off on the speed — you get brownie points just for swimming the distance. If they’re getting boring, you can step things up a bit by inserting several hard strokes each 50.

3X 800 free w/pull buoy; first one easy, second one harder, third one w/seven hard strokes at the beginning of each 50

After each 800, do a 200 IM; first one hard, second one easier, third one cool-down.