It’s a leap year, which means and extra training this month, and we’re just over halfway thru February. It’s been three weeks with with two hour Sunday swimming and I’m starting to feel the effects of my long training weeks. My shoulders are sore and swimming doesn’t feel as good on Sunday’s as it does during the week.

This week is winter break for kids. Which usually means scheduling changes. For me I’ll use this week as a recovery week. Sleeping slightly longer than usual with my only before 0800 workout being spinning at 06:30 on Wednesday.

Currently I’m on track to hit all my targets this year with all my goals for 2020. The main reason things are going so well is simple. I have not yet had and business trips in 2020. My first planned trip in March has now been delayed until May. And my training in Florence will be at the end of April. I’m hoping to maintain a small buffer so I won’t get too far behind because the planned trips. Swimming is the only goal that I can really afford to be behind by the time Open Water swimming starts, since I know I will be swimming longer this summer than I did last summer.

My Masters swimming seems to be generating roughly 18km a week (4+5+4+5).  I try to get an extra solo swim in once a week for a minimum 3km.  And on the weeks that we swim 2 hours on Sundays I get an extra 1500-2000m in.

So far this year I have been able to make it to five workouts a week. If I keep that up I will wind up with about 250 workouts for the year.  But I know that with SM I will workout less, with my two planned trips I will work out less, and the weeks around Vansbro I will workout less.  July-August I will see if I can find time to just maintain with 1-2 workouts a week.

This is the one goal I have no concern over making. I now swim about 7 hours a week, so all my other workouts are just bonus training.

Depending on how my lighter week 8 feels I’ll be able to plan my taper building up to Swedish Nationals March 20-22. Even though my focus this year is the million meter challenge and the Viking 42km swim in Aug, it would be nice to swim well in the pool too. I can’t let Lily think she is faster than me for too long, and now Iris is starting to catch up with me.

One thing I’ve learned in the last 7 weeks is that I feel better being active, but I need to eat more often during the day to keep my energy leveled. I’ve also reduced the amount of coffee I drink Monday to Friday drinking more water instead and don’t feel any difference until Sunday night when it feels like I’m going to get a headache. But that could also be because I should drink more water on the weekends.