I feel like I just beat Michael Phelps!!!!

Tonight I reached another milestone in my training and while this happens fairly frequently because I'm so new as a multi-sport athlete, this one has me really excited and feeling like a little kid.

Walden Pond at sunset

An open water swim was on my plan so Jerome and I headed over to Walden Pond.  This is one of my favorite workouts - basically because it doesn't feel like a workout.

A couple of weeks ago I swam 1.12 miles in an hour, I stopped at the far end of the pond to take in the view and the sun for about 5 mins. and then stopped and chatted with Beth for a few minutes in the middle of the pond on the way back.  I was super excited at the end of swim - and very exhuberant about my accomplishment.

Tonight my goal was to try and swim at least 0.9 miles without stopping because that's the distance of the swim for my next race, Cranberry Trifest - Olympic distance.  It was very cloudy when we got to the pond and there weren't as many swimmers as usual so it had a very different feel to it.  We had  run into Stephanie and Lindsey, E3 team mates and friends, on our way to the beach, chatted for a few minutes and headed into the water to do our respective workouts.

I did a dolphin-dive start and I was off.  It didn't take long and I was into a nice steady rhythm... if you asked me what I was thinking about I couldn't tell you....I was just swimming.  Spotting tonight was a challenge because the pond looked different - less swimmers in the water, fewer fisherman and recreational swimmers along the waters edge - so I tried to keep my focus on that.

Several times I felt myself 'glide' - this is an amazing feeling and one that Coach Karen, talks about and devises drills for because it's the ultimate goal.  The remainder of my swim I spent chasing that 'glide' and hold it - it really is an amazing feeling and very hard to explain.

Now for the Michael Phelps part.... when I finished I had swum 1.15 miles in 1 hour and 4 seconds.  While that won't win any prize it's the first time that I have gone that distance without any rests.

For more prospective, during this past winter E3 Training Solutions held an on-going swimming clinic for it's athletes. At the end of the sessions I was beyond estactic because I had managed to swim continuously for 15 mins. without needing to rest on the wall.

Michael Phelps hard work earned him many gold medals and tonight - I feel like the little kid in class who got a gold star on their forehead for the first time ever!!!