Different

Yeah so I did my leg maintenance and went to the gym for my swim workout. The difference between my swim yesterday and the one from earlier this week was less drag...less drag and less sinking feeling. So, I will have to keep up on the shaving during the cool winter months...which I suppose is a good thing.

The not so good thing...there were several people milling about the pool and in the hot tub area. It was enough to make me feel intimidated - mostly because of the 4 people in the pool, only two of us were actually swimming. The two teen-age goofballs in one of the lanes were just goofing around. Then there was a woman waiting IN the pool for a lane to open up so she could get a headstart on her non-swim workout (Aquafit) so that wasn't helping my nerves any. Swimming after 5pm is very different than swimming in the early morning hours.

If I had an extra 10 grand laying around (HA!) I would figure out a way to get one of these...

 

Endless Pool -  Fastlane set-up

 

 

 

A girl can dream...although if I were to dream big my choice would be a full size pool in my house. That seems to be an unlikely dream, so it's LA Fitness and the goofballs forever!

Psycho...

...logical.

Yeah, so I have noticed for the last 3 or 4 swims that I have not been "gliding" through the water as easily as when I was shaving my legs all the time during the summer for cycling season. I've gotten lazy in the last week since there haven't been many days to get out on the bike and wear shorts...thus sporting smooth legs. For some reason I am feeling definite drag in the pool as I'm swimming - could it be a psychological thing or ???

It's hard to say, but I think I will do a little leg maintenance tomorrow and see if there is a difference on Wednesday.

I'll report later this week....should be interesting.

Lazy, lazy...

My inspiration kind of went downhill after we did the Harvest Ride on the 9th. I had hoped to ride the Century route, or the 75 mile route at the very least, but with the rain, I wasn't in the mood to ride past 45 miles all soaking wet.

So after that ride, I kind of felt run down and tired. So I took time off from the bike (including spin) and treadmill since then. I did keep swimming though, so it's not like I abandoned everything all at once. Just took a break from spinning and running. The running just takes a lot of effort, so I was okay with leaving that behind for a while longer.

Well, I'm starting to feel like a slacker, so it must be time to start up again. More swimming of course...but need to really get serious about running. The spin part is not a problem, riding a bike is easy for me...I'll work on gaining more speed later as we get closer to Time Trial and Multisport season.

I'm not the greatest runner, I've made my peace with that, but if I don't run I'll never improve. So I'll have to get on the treadmill next week and start up again. Will need to get new shoes though, but that will have to wait for a another month or so. Plus I want to check out what shoes are out there for my running style which is mostly slowly-but-surely-don't-laugh-at-me running ;)

Some people say this is the off season, which may be true, but for me it's about getting ready for the real training. I've only got a couple of months left of this willy-nilly doing this and that type of training. January I will start getting serious about EVERYTHING and really try to get more structured about training. Right now I'm trying out different scenarios to see how things work. I'm thinking if I can swim every other day that will be a little bit of variety from week to week I suppose I could do the same with my running too...alternating enough so that my days are more interesting. I guess the good thing with running is that I can easily do my run workouts on the Treadmill at the gym before going into spin class if I wanted to do that instead of schlepping everything to work for my noon workouts...oooh...I like options!

Here's to preparing for real training for a Sprint Tri

Results Are In

John actually showed up early this past Wednesday and we did our Lactate Threshold Field Test. Tom said it's like doing a Time Trial - um, no...it's not. It's MUCH harder than that, all out effort riding as hard as you can for 30 minutes...the only thing that resembles a Time Trial is the 30 minutes part.

Anyway, I've got my numbers...that's the good thing. The bad thing, I don't know what to do with them yet. Oh, and I don't have my own Heart Rate Monitor - YET. I think Tom mentioned that John has some that he would sell at a super discount. Discontinued models...discount gooood....here are the numbers

I'll have to see what Happy Hard is all about. I mean really, who does Happy Hard anything?

I'm on the road to better training! 

Inspiration

Looking for inspiration wherever I can...this guy moves so slowly to the bike start it's no wonder what happens to him before he actually starts...

Time To Get Serious

The last couple three weeks or so I have been a slacker - sort of. I haven't run at all, did the very minimal amount of anything and got back into spin class. Just lazy I guess.

So, this past Saturday since I was thinking about swimming so much that I decided that after leaving Jenni's house (PartyLite gathering) I would go to the gym before going home. The gym isn't exactly on the way home from Jenni's but I thought that more swimming isn't a bad thing. So, 20 minutes and eight and a half laps later I went home and felt pretty good about my extra swim for the week!

This week I am getting back into my 8-5 work schedule and just to get on track I brought my running clothes/shoes and went upstairs and got on the treadmill. No running just yet, just walking for 30 minutes right now and watching a little TV so that the time goes a little quicker.

It's time to get intentional about everything - running, spinning and swimming. Especially swimming and running since I don't do either all that well, but I am seeing more improvement with swimming all the time. I suppose if I kept at running as I should I would see improvement there too - Go figure.

Now all I have to do is work on my nutrition...ugh. Let's save that for another day.

Here's looking forward to Blue Lake 2011 and other events!

just swimmin' and spinnin'

Haven't been running at all these last couple of weeks. My knee was hurting during the Peach on Sunday so I took it easy.

POOL TIME
Got into the pool on M-W-F and did alright. Getting better each time. I am amazed that I can do 2 laps in a row only stopping to turn around...2 laps!!! Doing FREESTYLE!! A year ago I was the goof-ball trying to get to the other end of the pool swimming any ol' stroke that would keep me going. Now I'm actually getting back into swimming and able to swim a total of 7-8 laps - MOSTLY FREESTYLE. I'm a little excited :) Now all I need to do is swim at least a dozen more laps to make up a half mile distance...swim, Swim, SWIM!

LACTATE THRESHOLD
Good ol' John was supposed to have done a Lactate Threshold Field Test on Wednesday, but he ended up oversleeping and getting to the gym too late. So now we are hoping he doesn't oversleep NEXT Wednesday! It should be interested to find out what my heart rate zone is...John says it is a good training tool. He should know, he's a trainer of sorts, so when John says anything it's free training tidbits! Check him out HERE or HERE.

TUNE-UP
I took my bike into the shop on Monday for a tune-up and it would be my luck that this would have been the best week to do some bike commuting to work. Oh well...when I get my bike back later today Tom and I will have to go for a quick ride to make sure all is well. A new chain and brake pads - cool beans!

So yeah, a sprint tri in 2011 maybe even two, but not one of these -