The new Day 1

So today I woke up knowing I got to get back on the training wagon. What a great feeling that was, especially after 10 hours of sleep! Yup, that's right - 10 solid hours. My body is taking this rest time seriously! It took me about an hour to get my lungs opened up enough to go for a run. So, at about 8:30am I headed out for my 50min EASY run. I left the kids behind today. 'S' took them last night, so I didn't feel to guilty. They are so much fun to run with, but at the same time it's more of a workout. They like to go FAST, and Abby who's not yet 2 is still learning the rules of the road. In fact, my left shoulder is having some issues right now due to her skillful act of bolting to the left, then the right while I'm trying to go STRAIGHT! Anyway, I knew it was going to be a SLOW run today, and I was going to try to keep my HR is the lower end of zone 2.

It was beautiful out today. So nice, I was able to shed the running tights for the first time in a couple months & put on my Red & White runningskirt. The run went well. I logged 49:30 seconds by the route I chose for today. A couple climbs in there too. We don't need to talk about the mileage tho - it wasn't pretty. Either way I'm happy to report I did it, and I kept my HR just where I wanted to - avg 150.

Next on the agenda (with a little work in between) was my masters swim. My training schedule had 1500meters (tempo) on it for the day, so I decided to try to adjust the masters workout accordingly. Usually I'll swim the extra, but just getting back to health I decided to stick with the lower end. So - my workouts was:

Warmup:

200

4X50 dril

200 easy

Main Set

300 level 4 (I did more of a level 3, not enough energy for 4 yet)

250 level 2
200 level 4

150 level 2

100 level 4

Cooldown

200 choice

1800yards in total. I'm used to doing meters, and my workout is set at such, so I figured 1800yards is pretty darn close to 1500meters. Surprisingly, I felt pretty darned good. I didn't have a level 4 in me (faster than race pace) that's for sure, but I wasn't slow like I thought I'd be. Mostly my struggle was with the little shoulder issue mentioned above. (can you really get mad at a face like this tho? (see right)

I am really trying to work on my swim. I used to think it was hopeless. I'm a decent swimmer, but my race times are all over the place. It seemed like it never really mattered how much I would swim, I'd always get to a certain speed and plateau. This year I decided to do something about it. I went to a local triathlon coach who teaches the total immersion way of swimming and had a swim video analysis done. I actually found out that I have some pretty good potential to get FAST! Fast, really??? For someone who is usually racing in the upper half of her age group, with the possibility of a top % finish - then only to be passed up in the RUN and drop down the charts, FAST is a good word! It would give me a little extra time to get out ahead of all those fast runners. As an aside, I actually started out this crazy endurance life as a RUNNER! Who'd of thought - it's probably my worst discipline now! Anyway, back to the swim analysis. I've got a few things (form) to work on. To list a few:

Head position - need to look DOWN, not forward
Arm position - low elbow on recovery & pull
Slight timing on pull/hand entry

-- I've been trying to download one of the video clips to show you all what I'm talking about, but I'm having a little "technical difficulty" making it work...

All of these are minor, but tweaking them slightly should help my "glide" and overall speed. So, today I practiced the high elbow and timing of my hand entry/pull start. On a few of the laps I really felt like I actually was GLIDING through the water. I just happened to check the clock on one of my hundreds - 1:34! I was pretty excited about that, especially because I wasn't even trying! Now, if I could just manage to do that more often....

So, all in all it was a great day 1. We'll see how tomorrow goes. I'm doing my strength training workout with Daniel in the am, and either suffering thru an hour of spinning on the bike machines at his gym, or doing a later afternoon bike ride. Somewhere in between there I'm heading to momo's for a little "work" training. Hopefully someday I'll be all the way up to speed so I don't have to rely on her expertise & help so much to get the job done!

Oh, and since I couldn't get my video to download & this blog is starting to look a little boring without some pictures added, I'm going to post a couple of "fun" pics just because :-) Enjoy!

"Mom - do you REALLY need to be working?"