good news!

I went to the pool today and was able to swim!!! My shoulder was slightly tweaky — not quite right all the time, but not off all the time, either — and I was able to swim my full distance. *whew*

Even going slow and taking care of my shoulder, I'm swimming 100m in about 3 minutes, which is much faster than I was a week before the first tri. I am hopeful to meet my 2-hour goal this time. Between my swimming getting faster, spending a lot of time spinning, working on form in all three disciplines, this bike ride being 1.4 miles shorter, and learning more about how to effectively use my heart rate monitor, I think I can take 16 minutes off my time.

I'd like to get in to swim two more times this week, just to re-acclimate to the water. It's been a long time since I swam more than a couple hundred meters.

So I have Monday, Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. The plan is to spin and run Monday (tomorrow), swim Tuesday, swim Thursday, spin and run Friday, rest on Saturday.

Woo-hoo!!!

mock tri and open water swim

Last night, I did a sort of mock-tri at the gym. I swam 750 meters, then changed and went to a spin class (55 minutes — I left before the cool-down), then jogged for 25 minutes on the treadmill. I felt great when I was done! Woo-hoo! Happy happy happy :)

I went this afternoon and bought skins.

Tonight, there was an open-water practice swim at the lake. I've decided not to wear a wetsuit (I found it too constrictive in the shoulders — the buoyancy wasn't worth it). The skins were quite comfortable to swim in. I felt pretty exposed — I don't typically walk around in clothes that are all skin-tight — but the self-consciousness mostly wore off (and was not with me at all in the water this evening).

Swimming in a lake is way harder than swimming in a pool. I was surprised. First of all, the lake is kinda gross. I put my head in and could barely see my hand out in front of me. Ew. Otherwise ... it's hard to explain why.

The swim tonight was just up-and-back. On the way out, it was easy to go in a straight line — I swam by the wall and kept my eye on that when I came up to breathe. On the way back, I swam way crooked and ended up swimming quite a bit farther than I needed to. 's OK.

I took off too fast off the line. My stroke was nothing like what it is in the pool. Adrenaline? So it wasn't long before I was completely wiped out. I stopped and caught my breath, but the rest of the swim wasn't great. Now I know and can plan for it. They warned us to start out slow, and I thought, "I always swim slow!" but alas, I did not. I'm glad we had a practice swim :)

Tomorrow is a rest day. Sunday, I am doing a bike race. That'll be good. I can get a feel for it. I've biked a lot, but never in a race. We'll see...

The race is two weeks from tomorrow! Can hardly wait!!

ahhhh, back on the wagon!

I was right about being sore. It was completely contained in my quads, but I've had some trouble walking for two days now. That shut down my plans to go to spin class tonight. I did go and swim, and it felt good to be back in the pool. There is something soothing about the water that isn't available through other means of cardio. Also, the hot tub is there afterwards :)

I'm going to find time to go biking tomorrow, and maybe do a little upper body work if I have time. (I have a concert tomorrow night - the last of the season - so time is a little short.)

Saturday, I'm going to try on a wetsuit from someone who is selling one. Hopefully, it'll fit and I can write her a check and be done with that aspect of things. We'll see...

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.

misc from the last few days

Swim and upper body lift and swim and upper body lift. That's all I've been up to these days.

I swam today with a heart rate monitor, which was useful, not because I can use it in the way that most triathletes apparently do, but because my heart rate often spikes when I exercise. It's not bad in the pool at the speed that I'm happily swimming, so that's good :)

Last night, I had a bike maintenance workshop, sponsored by the triathlon people. I took my bike over. There was only one other woman who showed up, so we each got private lessons on changing tires. I left my bike there, as the back brake was broken (as it turned out) and it needs a tune up (I bought it in spring 2000, I think, and it's never been tuned up), but not before learning how to disengage the brakes, take the wheels off, take the tires off, put them back on, fill them with a CO2 cartridge, put the wheels back on, and re-engage the brakes. It's messy, but it was fun. They gave both of us bags that are hung from the back of one's seat containing a patch kit, CO2 cartridges, an inflator for the cartridges, and tire lever. Nice :)

I met my mentor, who is a neat woman, and I got two leads on a used wetsuit. This activity was definitely worth the time invested.

Tonight, I bought some compression shorts (this hamstring is pissing me off), some wrap-around sunglasses, some anti-chafing stuff, and some bamboo socks. The only things left to buy (I think) are:

a new bike helmet (mine sustained a crash some time ago and must be replaced)
a wetsuit
skins or something similar for sun protection

Is there anything I'm forgetting?

looking forward

I'm ready to use my legs again.

They're almost ready.

I'm going to tell B. "no legs" on Tuesday when I train again.

I plan to be spinning by next weekend. I think that's possible. But I'm not doing anything before Thursday, regardless of how it feels.

With lifting, I'm definitely getting stronger, but it's taking a lot longer than it did last time. I wonder if chemo has anything to do with that. Weird. Frustrating. But progress is progress, regardless of how slow it is...

I took the saddle baskets off of my bike this evening; they're not so good for racing. There is a bike maintenance workshop on Thursday that I'm going to, which will be great :)

Swimming tomorrow. Going to try to go a little bit faster and a little bit farther. Maybe an extra 50-100 meters in the same time I've been swimming 750? I don't know if that's a realistic goal or not, but that's what I'll set it at anyway :)

I don't have many training sessions left, I don't think, which is sad. I don't think there's cash around to buy more when these run out, so I'll just need to savor the last few...

back in the game :)

I went swimming last night, swam 30 laps (about 27-28 minutes). It felt good, it wasn't hard physically or mentally (though still harder mentally than physically).

I'm ready to speed it up a little, I think, at least for part of the time.

I'm going to start swimming farther as well.

Hamstring is getting better.

Can't complain too much :)

*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.)

today's swim

I did it.

By now, I knew I could do it, and that it was just a matter of deciding, and today, I decided.

I swam 750 meters. That is the distance I need to swim for my triathlon. Today is the first time I swam that far at all, let alone without stopping to rest.

The tri is in open water, and this was in the pool, so it's not the same — I don't get to push off the wall every 25 meters in Tempe Town Lake. But when I was done, I could have kept going (physically) if I had wanted to. But for today, that was enough.

I'm gonna kick this tri's ass :) (As if it has an ass to kick...)

Feb 11

I did a solid abs workout today, then tested out the ol' hamstring.

I was able to do the elliptical for 15 minutes without issue (not pushing too hard, but enough to get the heart pumping). I did about 5 minutes on the treadmill, then stretched (to see how it felt), and it was starting to get tight, so I stopped.

Went to the pool and did 10 laps. It's hard to swim the day after an upper-body training with B. — everything is sore. I worked on breathing to the left, as I have some trouble with that and thought today would be a good day to do it. It's getting better.

my history of swimming

I started swimming laps within the last 6 or 8 months. In that time, I have not been very good at, and while I wanted to do a tri (it was a New Year's goal), I wanted to be sure I'd be able to swim far enough first.

My typical swim before a month or so ago was two laps with a kickboard (one way = one lap; 25 meters), two laps freestyle, back and forth, repeat for a total of 10 or 12 laps, exhausted.

Dec 30: "for the first time ever, the first lap was easy" and a few days prior, I had been able to do 75 meters for the first time

Jan 11: after working with B. on going more slowly and kicking less, I was able to do 6 continuous laps ("continuous" isn't actually non-stop, as I can't flip-turn — it really means "touch the wall, turn around erect, and start swimming again right away")

Jan 21: ecstatic that I could do 8 continuous laps

Today, I got in the pool with only about 20 minutes to swim, so I set this goal: keep swimming the whole time, even if that meant going to a doggie paddle or something. Well, I am pleased to announce that I was able to swim freestyle the entire time! 20 laps, about 19 minutes. That's 500 meters! That's 2/3 of the race swim (though I'll need to adjust for pushing off the wall, of course). I'm very VERY happy about my progress in this aspect. I have lots of good news for B. when I see him this week!