My trivial dilemma

I tend to forget to give context so here you go – I am not coached.  I think for two reasons.  First, I can’t afford it.  Second, I’m not sure I’m coachable.  More context – as long as I’m physically and mentally well, I will follow my training plan as close as possible.  Finally – I’m using a plan from www.beginnertriathlete.com.  I pretty much like everything about that site.  I use the logs and race reports and like the forums.

Now the dilemma.  This mornings swim was a 50 minute swim and called for 1 x 2500 yards.  What a horrible thing to read before going to sleep (I have my workouts emailed to me at 9:00 PM).  I have no problem with the distance.  That is my typical distance.  I just had a problem with the fact that there was no warm-up or cool down.  I had no chance to stand at the end of the lane concentrating on my watch.  I also had no chance to talk to the people around me and make comments about the water temperature or the clarity of the water. 

So I get to the pool and start swimming.  I also start counting my distance.  I was at around 1500 yards when I checked my time and discovered that this workout wasn’t going to take me 50 minutes.  I was in a quandary.  You see, on my workout logs, I have a handy bar chart that shows what my planned volume for that week is supposed to be.  If I swim 43 minutes rather than 50, my whole week will appear as a slacker week.

By the time I had hit 1750 yards I was in full contemplation rule.  Is it worse to swim more than 2500 yards or swim less than 50 minutes.  By 2000 yards I was contemplating about what I would do if bike and run specified both time and distance.  Thankfully that isn’t the case. 

By the time I hit 2400 yards I decided that I was going to do a cool down for the final 5-7 minutes.  But then I wondered whether I would be breaking the spirit of the workout which was a 1 X workout without any warm-up or cool down.  So I just kept swimming until I hit 50 minutes.  I ended up going 3000 yards.  Nice and convenient. 

I think I chose correctly when I reviewed my log this morning.  Nothing told me I went too far and I noticed that my time was adding up nicely. 

I love trivial dilemmas.  Now to bigger questions – how can I incorporate more Nutella into my diet?