one week til race #2!

I saw the physical therapist on Monday and Wednesday mornings this week. My shoulder is still unhappy. I'm hoping another visit or two will clear up this dumb shoulder thing.


As planned, I trained with my trainer on Monday. As to avoid aggravating the shoulder, we did all lower body/core.

Tuesday, I went to spin.

Wednesday was a built-in rest day. It would have been a rest day anyway, as my legs were not happily functional.

Thursday, I was still sore just walking, so I didn't exercise again.

Friday, I went to spin.

Today, I am planning to spend some time on the stepper, the treadmill, and maybe the rower. Tomorrow, I am going to attempt swimming again. If I can't swim freestyle, I'll use a kickboard. Either way, tomorrow's workout is in the pool.

This week upcoming ... not sure ... Lots of cardio. Other than that, who knows?

two weeks til race #2!!

I'm on the downhill until the next race. According to advice I got from a very seasoned triathlete, this is what I should be doing:

No weight lifting for the last 10 days before a race (the muscle doesn't grow fast enough, I think)
The week before the race, taper time spent, but don't reduce speed

The 10-day mark is Wednesday.

This is the thing, though, and I didn't mention this to him: I don't lift weights explicitly to help me race. And I don't spend a lot of time running or swimming.

So this is what I'm thinking.

Today I'm going to do some more interval work on the treadmill and then see if I can swim. My shoulder is still a little sore, which by this point is just plain pissing me off. I have an appointment with the physical therapist tomorrow.

Tomorrow I'm training — my last session with my trainer before he moves across the country. *sniff*

Tuesday I'll spin.

Wednesdays from now through April are built-in rest days. I have a meeting after school and rehearsal early in the evening. I barely have time to eat dinner. I thought about getting up early on Wednesdays and going for a swim before work, and then I decided that rest days are good and mine will just always be on Wednesday.

Thursday I might spin again.

Friday, treadmill and light lifting.

If my shoulder feels better, there will be some swimming in there.

Saturday, a cardio mix, I think, including some stairs and rowing. I'd like to get up super-early and go to the gym, just to sort of let my body know what it's in for. The race starts at 6:30. My wave won't be first, but I'll need to be there and have my transition area set up by 6, I'm sure, which is earlier than I wake up for work. Ugh.

We'll see how it goes... Despite losing my trainer and this shoulder setback, I'm excited about this race!!

week of 9-6

Another didn't-go-as-planned week, but it's OK.

Monday I lifted but didn't train for a long set of reasons that I needn't type out.

Tuesday spin.

Wednesday, my husband had surgery, so it was a hospital day.

Thursday was also a no-exercise day.

Friday: interval training on the treadmill.

Saturday I had a great session lifting :)

Yesterday I tried swimming, but my shoulder is still tweaky. If my race was today, I would be able to swim it (I think), but my shoulder wouldn't be so excited about it and would not be happy tomorrow. But it's usable. So I did just 600 m, 50m freestyle and 150 with the kick board three times. It was OK.

Today I'm planning to bang out some nifty 50s.

Tomorrow I'm planning to call the physical therapist who I went to in the spring and see if he can't work some wonders on my shoulder.

Plan for the week? Currently up in the air. But I'm very tired and pretty cranky, so it's not a great day to plan the week's activities. I'm sure something will get done...

Race is three weeks from yesterday!

week of 8-30

Well, last week didn't go as planned after Tuesday.

I trained on Monday, as planned, and Tuesday, my left shoulder hurt like mad, right in the front. Right shoulder was sore in the same place, but left shoulder hurt. Couldn't lift a glass to drink. Over the course of the week, it's gotten better, to the point where yesterday it twinged once or twice but that was all. I have been careful not to use it at the gym at all, soooo....

Tuesday I went to spin as planned.

Wednesday my whole body was sore and tired, so I went and used the steam room and the hot tub :) I've never gone to the gym with the intention not to exercise before, so that was kinda weird, but it was a good, relaxing, healthy thing to do.

Thursday I did some interval training on the treadmill.

Friday I did just the stairmaster. I'm close to being back where I was before monitoring my heart rate, which feels good!

Yesterday I did nifty 50s on lower body and core: ball squats, calf raises, crunches, oblique twists, back extensions, hip flexors.

Today, I am going to do more interval training on the treadmill and also use the steam room and hot tub.

Tomorrow, I am going to train. Tuesday, I'm going to spin. After that, it all kind of depends on how my shoulder feels. If it's not feeling better by Tuesday, I'm going to call the PT who worked wonders on my hamstring and see if he can do the same magic on my shoulder. In the meantime, my trainer did give me some exercises I can do for my shoulder, which I have been doing.

We'll see how it goes. The tri is four weeks from today!!

been sick :(

Well, since I last posted ... I had half of an upper body workout in the exercise room at a hotel, I went for a swim, and I've been dancing twice. I had The Crud and it took a while before I felt functional.

Yesterday, I was finally feeling kind of better, so I went to the gym and just did a little elliptical. It felt good to be moving and sweating.

Today, I trained with B. It was excellent :) I expect to be sore tomorrow, and that's OK. So now I'm in hyper training mode, as the tri is coming up fast and I've lost a lot of training time :(

It'll be great.

ready to be healed...

I swam yesterday, and my right shoulder was a little tweaky. This is Not Good.

I figure it's some combination of swimming a lot and lots of upper-body strength training. I always have at least one rest day between lifting days, often more, but I wonder if the swim days in between made days off less restful.

Today, it feels pretty good. I'm not exercising today.

My hamstring, however, is not healing. I'm very frustrated (to put it mildly), and I'm going to look into physical therapy and/or a chiropractor. I have a recommendation for a physical therapist, and there was a doc who came to our school and gave massages who I have info for. (I'm more likely to go with the first, since he was personally recommended.)

To add to my frustration, I've been using my heart rate monitor. I can swim comfortably and keep my HR under 165 (which is where I have the alarm set for). But on Saturday when I was lifting, I set the dumb thing off with almost every set of exercises. 20 pushups? HR=170. I thought we had moved on from this problem, but I guess not. I'm planning to wear it tomorrow when (if) I train. My mom suggested I get my thyroid checked. I need to get bloodwork done this week anyway, for the oncologist. I'm going to ask them if they'll tack the two tests she suggested on. And I usually have my blood chemistry checked every March, so I'll ask about that, too. I don't know if they'll do all that, but I figure, there's no harm in asking...

I'm not sure if I should train tomorrow or not. My gut is saying "rest another day," so that's what I'm likely to go with. I need to talk to B. and maybe reschedule for Thursday or early morning Wednesday.

*BAM!* mental wall

I hit the mental wall at the gym today.

Planned to lift and swim today (which tends not to be a great combo anyway, since I'm lifting upper body (stupid hamstring) and swimming is all upper body) since I didn't do anything yesterday and I can't lift tomorrow because I'm training on Tuesday. Got to the gym WAY later than I'd planned and so decided just to swim.

Swim swim swim swim ... and it occurs to me that I might have done the math wrong the day that I (thought I) did 750 meters. So I'm recalculating in my head. As it turns out, I should just not think and swim at the same time. So I came home and checked my workout log, and I recorded meters, not laps, so I'll never know.

But I'm pretty sure I was wrong.

I swam 600 meters today (for sure - 24 laps x 25 meters). I needed only to go up and back three more times to hit 750. I just didn't feel like it. Didn't want to. Didn't do it. Seems kind of dumb no to. Eh. Whatever.

And somewhere around 400 meters, when I was already tired of swimming, I thought, "What was I thinking?! A triathlon?! Wait til the reality of trying to actually do it hits." Not thinking that's going to help me, for sure, which I was completely aware of, and was trying to reframe (all while swimming laps), but it wasn't working.

I think I'm just frustrated with my leg and am worried about losing all of this training time. It'll be OK. I'll be back in the pool tomorrow, and I'll be able to do this thing. Just you wait and see. (OK, you probably already believe that I can. That was more to convince myself.)

stupid leg

My right hamstring is hurting again. It was feeling better. I was nice to it. I was careful. I trained on Tuesday, including some squats. Wednesday, it was hurting. Still it. I have it wrapped today, which feels pretty good. I need it to heal. I haven't run or biked in a long time :(

hurt and sick

Well, I didn't work out at all on Saturday. My hamstring was sore, even when I wasn't stretching it, and I was tired and cranky. Not the best reasons, perhaps, but reasons none-the-less.

Sunday I went and did upper body and abs, and then went for a swim. A self-proclaimed health nut stopped me when I was done lifting and offered 20-minutes-worth of health advice which, while interesting, would have been better another time.

Today I had a meeting after school 4:30-6:30, then was supposed to go to jazz band 7:30-8:30, but I woke up this morning with a head full of snot, so I'm skipping jazz band and going to bed.

Tomorrow I'm scheduled to train, which will be good.

If I'm not feeling fabulous (or maybe even if I am), I'm thinking about taking off on Wednesday. I don't have many classes, made fewer by an assembly, and the afternoon meeting is not one relevant to what I teach. So, while typically a rest day, I might go in and get in a swim on Wednesday.

My hamstring is feeling much better today (although still not normal). I'm hoping to be running/biking/etc. by Thursday.

I got an email saying to look out for a message from my tri mentor. I'm looking forward to it! Hooray! I was also notified of some group workouts on the course a little farther down the line. I'm glad that those will be available to us.

I also looked at the workout schedule offered. The swimming workouts include all kinds of gear that I don't have. I plan to ask how important all of that stuff is. We're making some small sacrifices so that I can buy a wetsuit and pay the entrance fees to this event, and I'm not wanting to buy more stuff. If I really like doing this, I might invest in more toys over time, but not right now...

Feb 4, 5

Well, Wednesdays during the school year are almost always rest days, as I have meetings at work until 5 or so, 45-60-minute drive home, eat some dinner, and be out the door at 6:30 or so for a 7:00 rehearsal. If there is no rehearsal or no meetings, I can get in a workout.

Anyway, yesterday was a rest day.

Today, due to many discipline issues that needed to be dealt with, I didn't get home from work until 6. My turn to cook dinner, and tonight's planned meal takes 45 minutes or so to make. After preparing and eating, I made the "fatal" mistake of sitting down :)

I'm really tired, and my hamstring is still tight (it's a little bit looser than it was yesterday, but I still need to adjust to tie my shoes), so I think I'm going to put some heat on the leg, give it a gentle stretch, and go to sleep. Sleep will be good :)

My upper body isn't quite as sore as I expected it to be, after Tuesday's workout. Tomorrow I'm definitely spending some good time in the pool. I'm not sure about working out legs if my hamstring is still tight. Can I work other muscles, or are they too inter-connected? I don't want to hurt myself, so if I can't get an answer from my (or another) trainer, I'll just lay off the lower body until the hamstring feels better. So if the leg is in good shape, I'll do lower/abs and swim. If the leg isn't in good shape, I think I'll still do abs and swim.

Feb 3

Yesterday was a cardio day. I did 15 minutes on each of the elliptical (level 6, "random"), the rower (average over 60 watts, 2600 meters), the stairmaster (level 5) and the treadmill (various speeds including a cool-down, most time on 5 mph, highest was 6.5).

I went to stretch and noticed that my right hamstring was super-tight. It still is. I can walk, jog, take stairs with no problem, but I can't tie my shoes without bending a little extra in other places. I'm taking care to make sure that it doesn't go from tight to injured.

Tonight, I trained with B., upper body. It was a long hour, with arms very gummy at the end. A good workout. Really hard. I like working out hard, though I sometimes have trouble pushing myself. That's why I like having a good trainer. (I've had many bad trainers.)

I don't have a tri plan yet, but the current lifting plan is upper and lower/abs twice a week each (one of those typically with B.). On days that I do lower, or days that I don't lift, I can swim. I need to log a lot of time in the pool. Wednesdays are typically rest days because of my schedule. One day over the weekend (depending on how the lift schedule falls), I need to get to a spin class. At some point, I'll start to brick a spin class with a run on the treadmill and see how that feels.

This week: rest tomorrow, lower body Thursday if the hamstring is feeling better. If not, just cardio, including pool time. Friday, upper body. I think I need to sit down with a calendar and figure all of this out...