Time to Relax

What a week. I feel like this is the first time in over a week that I've been able to feel rested and relaxed. With the triathlon last Sunday, my sister visiting, the hubby taking all his tests (and passing so far!!), and being sick, it's been a whopper of a week. I was a zombie for much of the week at work, and was totally unable to do any workouts until Thursday. But now?

A - O - K.

Thursday night we had swim drills in the dark. I opted for the longer 1500 meter workout, which wasn't too hard because this is week 2 of our training cycle. Coach lit into me about my lack of body rotation, telling me that I'd sacrificed form for speed. Oops. I guess all this time in the pool with drills, I'd focused entirely on fixing my rotator cuff issues with hip flicks instead of working on the body rotation! This earned me a special invite to a torture session on Monday night. Perhaps I'm on my way to a faster swim?

Friday night, I thought I'd be adventurous and went off on a 3-mile run. The same 3-mile run that I'd done at the start of training in June, except I lopped about 1/2 a mile off of it back in June because I wasn't familiar with the distance at the time. Anyway, at that time, my 2.7 mile run took me 34 minutes, and it was HARD! Very hard. I had to walk pretty frequently, and I felt like vomiting afterwards. On Friday, I set out to be slow. Slow, steady, yet purposeful. Instead of doing 5 minutes of run, 1 minute of walk, I decided to run until I thought I needed a little rest. That took 17 minutes. I walked for one, then ran it the rest of the way in.....doing the entire 3 miles in 29 minutes. This is a pretty good incline, mind you, and I was so proud of myself when I got back! Heart rate was still in the "could run all day" range, and my legs felt strong. I didn't feel sick at all, and got home and went about my business. (icing...that is my business when I run!) So, not too bad after 3 months of training.

This morning, Coach had encouraged me to work out with the Olympians....they were driving out to the course where their race is in 2 weeks to do the 25 mile bike course. She said I definitely had the speed to be at the front of the pack, and she was pretty sure my training would take me the distance. (I'm a sprinter--- 20 miles has been the max I've done so far!) I was seriously going to do that, but they wanted to leave at 5:30am. Yeah, not so agreeable to Miss Sleepy here. My knee was a bit weird, too, so I somehow missed my alarm this morning and ended up heading to Long Beach for a practice with the rest of our team.

7:30 am, we headed out on a 30-minute bike and a 15-minute run. Easy, easy brick. My bike felt great, pushing 20 mph the whole way out, and 19 mph back because I'd gotten a little tired and my knee ached a tiny bit. I caught up with everyone else on the way back and decided to have a casual ride in on the streets with a few of my pals. So in all, I did about 9 miles in 30 minutes, but I'd consider the last 5 minutes to be leisurely at best. We had a lazy transition, then off we went on our quick run. I was with a marathoner who paces really well, so we just chatted the whole way and really enjoyed our run....until Coach caught up and told us to make sure we couldn't talk anymore. So I took off and booked it back to where we'd racked our bikes, ending up doing 1.5 miles in about 12 minutes--- a VERY good pace for me. I was impressed! Anyway, these little improvements are very exciting. I am hoping that by next summer, perhaps I may actually start to get competitive here?

After our practice, we had a tire changing clinic and I totally changed my back tire. Well, not totally. I have trouble getting the wheel back on the bike with the rear derailleur in the way and all that....I'm not mechanically inclined at all and I whined like a baby until the 44-time Ironman came to my rescue. Anyways, suffice it to say that if I do get a flat on course, I may actually be able to change it in the future. I'll just need to cry and beg a man to move the derailleur for me. Hey, I have no shame anymore.

The best part of the day was our guest speaker, Wendy Ingraham! She is a 44-time Iron(wo)man, and has the best sense of humor EVER. She perhaps also has the best ever YouTube clip on the planet....you want to see sheer grit and determination? Behold this:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MTn1v5TGK_w

I came home in awe and proceeded to watch Ironman videos on YouTube all afternoon. I still have no desire to ever do it, but there's a little devil in my head telling me to go longer....... So rest assured, Olympic-distance, here I come! (Next year)

So, that's the skinny on the triathlon front. There really isn't anything else....I'm addicted, and that has been my life lately. Hubby is hanging in there, and hopefully in 2 weeks I can report back that he is now a first officer! But until then, I'll still be nervous and not open any of his airline mail. Eating-wise, I now don't count points. I've posted no gain since stopping counting, and now I am experimenting with different nutrition to see how it affects my exercising. I'm definitely still following the plan and not overeating, but I know that I have to eat before and after a workout, and I make sure to do that regardless of whether it falls inside or outside of a regular meal time. Today, I had about 6 little meals.....but I feel good, and that is the point. I ate a 250-calorie recovery bar for breakfast/post-workout this morning and didn't feel any guilt-- can you believe that? Anyway, will report back on how this all shakes out over time.

Until then, I'll cease and desist. Buena sera.