I Zoomed today - plus, the joys of hot yoga

I hate when I have two things to write about! Then I don't know how to title my post. Anyway.

So today I had my intense swim on the schedule, but after yesterday's yuckiness - I just don't know why I felt so unhappy - I decided I needed a dose of hot yoga. Since hot yoga is at 6:30 a.m., that prevented me from going to my swim class at 7. So I went to the pool at 5 to swim for 45-50 minutes before hot yoga.

I followed a workout plan they had posted on a wall - it basically called for a long warmup, then a main set of 5 100's of swimming and 5 pulling, faster each time.

So for my swim 100's, I decided to wear my Z2 Zoomer fins. At first I was wearing them for the kick part of my workout, but I kept them on because I liked their feel. I know I swim faster in open water - you can look at any of my race times and see that outside, I swim better than in the pool. I think there are two reasons for this: No turning, and also my wetsuit. I'm not about to be a zillion degrees and wear my wetsuit in the pool, so I was thinking the fins would give me the little extra speed that I get from wearing a full wetsuit outside.

Plus, I wanted the speed because I have been feeling slightly bad about my (lack of) speed. I mean, there is a cutoff for the Ironman swim - and I have to know I can make it! So it just made sense to use a device that might simulate my real speed in open water (I'll test that in May when I start swimming outdoors).

Okay, I'm totally justifying. But only because my 100 times rocked! Here they are:

1: 1:44
2: 1:39
3: 1:33
4: 1:30
5: 1:30

So, I did what the directions said - get faster each time - except for the last time. And that was because that was the point at which I started to panic. I broke form, started splashing around, only breathed on one side, and pretty much freaked out. It's happened before when I race; I need to learn to control that. But I'm pretty happy it took until the last half of the last length of the last 100 to make it happen.

I didn't time my pulls, because there were too many numbers to keep straight in my head. But I did them fast. And without the fins.

Then I got to treat myself to hot yoga. I hadn't taken a class with this instructor before, and like the others that I do know, she was amazing. I liked how her class differed from the others' classes; it wasn't hugely dissimilar, but different enough that I got to do different poses in different orders, and it felt amazing. I was able to stay with the entire class, although my Wheel pose wasn't great today. I did manage to do a good job on the balancing poses - where you're only on one leg, like Airplane and Warrior 3. I really like those.

Oh! And one other thing! I got a new pair of yoga pants from Lululemon. I'd link to them, but they're not online. Anyway, when I was shopping, I'd gone to a different store and tried on pants, and left thinking I was hugely fat and should give up on exercise and just eat ice cream all day. Then I went to Lululemon. Their pants do something magic where they hide the lumps and bumps on my thighs and bottom. I looked in the mirror and actually liked what I saw! And today, in hot yoga, I could look at my legs and behind in the mirror and not want to puke!

I know that's totally shallow, but I can't help it. I care what I look like. And it's nice when I think I look okay.