My Butt Hurts

Yep.

Three hours. On the trainer. Longest bike ride EVER.

Man, the sore legs weren't too bad. The trainer wasn't even too bad - I put in Fellowship of the Ring and geeked out. My butt, on the other hand, was KILLING me. I was wearing bike shorts but I'm just not quite conditioned yet.

Otherwise it went really well. Next up is tomorrow's 1:45 run. Hopefully my legs will feel at least somewhat fresh in the morning.

GOOD Swim! Yay!

Had to take yesterday off due to feeling like crap. Mother Nature stopped by for her monthly visit, the bitch, and left me feeling totally drained.

However, after a solid two weeks of frustration in the pool, I had a breakthrough today. Still don't have a lot of stamina, but something clicked about halfway through my workout and I was hitting well under a 2:30/100 pace. I even did one 50 yard lap in 1:10. Yay! (Keep in mind, this is without doing flip-turns, which I have no idea how to do.)

So, I'm still a lousy swimmer, but I'm LESS lousy. I also e-mailed my coach to schedule another lesson at the end of next week. (I'm going for one lesson every two weeks for the forseeable future.) Hopefully I'll get even better!

Long Run, Long Bike, and More Bad Swimming

Friday's 2.5 hour bike went really well. I had two back-to-back "Listen-Only" type meetings so I actually did it during work. Kept my heartrate around 140.

Saturday was a 90 minute long run. Did it on a treadmill and started at a nice easy 9:31 with no incline. Want to go slow after last week's blowup during the long run. Increased it to 9:03 for the last half hour. Once again, felt great! Plus I had an excuse to put on my compression socks and hang out on the couch watching the Olympics the rest of the day.

This is a light week, so not much happening. I've been working the swim. Good news is I can breathe every OTHER stroke now, but bad news I can only do it for 50 yards at a time and at a 2:50 pace. Sigh.

Tempting to skip today's bike - just got my period and am REALLY dragging. We'll see.

Swim Lesson

The one part of my training that hasn't been going well lately is swimming. Well today I finally got in touch with my awesome swim coach. Turns out she was heading to the pool at the same time I was, so she spent nearly an hour walking back forth alonside the pool shouting corrections while I did laps.

Because of my out of control kick, I got to use a pull buoy. It felt very weird to have a large bouyant thing between my legs.

(Did I get a spit-take on that one? Hee.)

Anyway, I got so much good stuff today, it's a shame the pool is closed over the weekend for the final basketball games. Boo. (Actually, it's a good thing because I'm not supposed to swim again until Tuesday and otherwise I'd be ignoring my plan and doing extra swimming.)

Yay!

First Week of Training Complete

It was tough. I'm sore. My knee is a bit achy. I'm behind in work. But I completed the first week of HIM training without missing a workout. YAY!

It culminated in Saturday's brick. I woke up at 5 to take my meds, dozed until six, and then got up, had breakfast and coffee, and was on my bike by 7:00. Two hours later, I hopped off, used the bathroom, threw on about three more layers of clothing, and then headed out for a 45 minute run in 5 degree F weather. BRRRR!!! My skin was so cold that I didn't realize that my Fuel belt was bouncing around and scraping me until afterwards.

All in all it went great! I felt tired but not worn out after the bike, hit my 9:00 race pace on the first mile, and while miles three and four were tough, got a nice shot of endorphins to finish strong!

Thank God, because yesterday's swim was a real goggle-thrower. Grrr. My speed is going DOWN, if that's even possible without actually sinking.

First Week of HIM Training and POOL IS OPEN!!!

First week of HIM training has begun. It started on Superbowl Sunday - managed to get the hour on the trainer in before the party without a problem.

The volume is incredible. This plan brings up the volume early and then focuses on speed the rest of the time, so keeping up has been a challenge. I'm desperately training to complete the volume so that I don't have to drop down to the beginner plan. The real test for this week will be Friday's 2 hour bike/45 minute run brick. (Yeah, you heard me. Five months out, this is what they want.)

Today's run was the hardest I've done in a long time. I did 10 minutes at a 9:13 pace, then did a 40 minute tempo run at 8:27. Cooldown was 5 minutes at 9:22 and 5 minutes at 10:00. I was a wuss and didn't incline the treadmill although you're supposed to. It was 7 miles even, total.

The pool opened just in time for my training plan. (Literally - it opened Monday, the day of my first pool workout.) I took it easy on Monday - 50 yard warmup, 4x100, then 100 yard cooldown. Hit two sub-2:30 splits, so I haven't gotten any slower. I was a bit sore on Tuesday though, so it's good I kept it short. Figured it was a good idea since I hadn't swam in two months.

I'm going to do 100 WU, 6x100, 100 CD this afternoon - I'll get back up to the long workouts they want soon enough.

Last Week of Off-Season

Well, this is officially my last week of the off-season. My half IronMan plan starts on Superbowl Sunday. AAAAAHHHH!!!

The pool is STILL closed (it's been almost two months now), but FINALLY got an update saying that they at long last got the pump running and now are just waiting for the temperature to come up. I'm ready to show up TODAY with my wetsuit - 70 degrees is perfectly fine with a wetsuit.

I did 40 minutes on the trainer today. It was one-leg drills, which was really tough. My left leg rides nice and smooth but I have a big "dead space" at the top of my stroke with my right foot. It was enlightening.

Tonight is Karate - I missed all last week so definitely have to drag my ass over there no matter how tired I am. (That's what usually gets me - class doesn't even START until 6:30, by which time I'm starting to crash, especially in the winter when it's already dark out.)