it's gonna blow!!!

My head, that is. I am foggy and my nose and head are full of nonsense today.

BUT I dragged my sorry arse out of bed for a pretty good swim today. I am leaving the drills for Sunday swims and taking on the workouts Coach Justin has sent me for Wednesdays. Today was a 500 easy warm-up, 200 easy kick, 100 easy swim. The main event was 20 x 50 meters. I started out doing them on 50 seconds but at number 6, could see that it was not going to go well very soon, so took a small break, re-grouped and did the remainder on 55 seconds. Then a warm-down. 2000 meters in the bank. There was 3 people in the pool today...I had lane to myself which was nice. Then the old dude in the bright pink (that is the exact color...) speedo showed up. He sat at the end of my lane and stretched on the pool deck....yeah, so just imagine what I was looking at when I came in for the last 4-5 50's....trying to see the pace clock around him...ewww.

That, my friends, is 5 workouts in 5 days. I need a break...tomorrow is a rest day and then 90 friggin minutes on my bike Friday....90 minutes...can my butt take it? And a run on Saturday morning.

four for four

As in 4 days in a row I have put body in the water, feet to the ground or butt to a bike seat. Today was a Carmichael classic...muscle tension drills. Let's all elevate our bikes 4-6 inches, in case you were thinking of measuring, it is the Saskatoon phone book and our copy of Children's Bedtime Stories, try to get on gracefully, do a warm up, and then 4 sets of 8 minutes in a big gear with 4 minutes easy pedalling in between. The idea: cadence is to be slow (50-60), heart rate low (130-135) and practice, practice, practice that pedal stroke. All the way around. Using muscles that I apparently did not use all summer on the bike. I am really paying attention this time around.

Tomorrow is some more time in the pool. I have a Coach Justin workout I am going to do. The local club is great, but we do all these drills and don't really get told if we are doing them properly so I asked for some swim workouts for Wednesday mornings. Practice does not make perfect....Perfect practice makes perfect. Looking at it for tomorrow, I have one word....ouch.

monday run

I.

Have a Goal.

To do all my workouts this week.

Last week was a lost effort. I wasn't feeling all that hot and was so busy, every morning I opted for sleep over working out. Coach Justin sent me a goal setting worksheet and I spent a good chunk of time on it this weekend. Raring to get at some of these now!!

So...up and at it early today as I had an 8:00am meeting. Ran 55 minutes with 2 times 15 minutes in my steady state heart rate. Gary Garmin says my pace during those 15 minute intervals were not too bad...however the second one felt a little rough. And 15 minutes is super friggin loooong to run at that pace/HR!! I was desperately looking at Gary around minutes 13 and 14 and egging him on to hurry up and get to number 15. I am not going to get obsessesed with my pace, I just think it is so interesting that only one year ago, running at that pace would have a) killed me b) put my heart rate over 200 c) killed me.

The best thing on today's run was that I spit a big loogie on the lawn of a friend's ex-husband!! I promised her I would....so every morning I am going to save the big ones for that house...

giggly school girls

Have you ever had something happen to you as an adult, or you run into someone you have not seen in many, many years and it takes you back to when you were a kid? You know...no real responsibilities and all fun? As I have posted before, my new/old swim friend Tammy is swimming Sunday mornings with me. We are always having a giggle or two about this and that in the middle of swim practice.

A new guy shows up at swimming today and whoa...it was as if I was standing on that very same pool deck 20 years ago...I had not seen him in about that long and if the truth be known, me and every other girl on the swim team had a HUGE crush on him!! HUGE. Smoldering eyes, cute smile, drop dead body...you know the type. Anyway, Tammy shows up late and when I get a chance, I say "Tammers...guess who showed up today?" I whisper his name (I am not kidding, if anyone had of been watching us, we were like two silly school girls today...) and she says "Shut UP!!" She was not wearing her contact lenses so I was trying discreetly to point him out to her...and she was discreetly trying to squint and have a look at him...anyway, we friggin giggled and remembered the good ole days when we would oogle over him back in the day!!! It was SO funny and I seriously felt like I was about 13 years old, again this morning.

Needless to say, the workout was okay but not all that tough. My calves are super sore today from all the drills we did yesterday at the run clinic. They kept tightening up the entire swim workout! Good thing the swim comes before the run in a triathlon....

uncoordinated...my middle name

I ended up signing up for the run clinic today. My tri-buddy Shannon and I met at 6:00am and got a pretty darn decent run in beforehand as the clinic started at 7.

It's official....I have no coordination and no balance.

The majority of the time was doing drills...eek!! I learned quite a bit about proper running technique and the drills totally made sense as to why we were doing them, but it took me many trys to get them right!! If I had of been in the water, let's just say I would have been choking and drinking the pool today. The last thing we did was run around the track twice and she video taped us. I could not stick around to watch it on the television but she told me that I run quite flat footed. I figured this already, so I am going to try to work on running more on the balls of my feet. I enjoy running but have never really been "a runner" so lots of info to mull over. And I find it so interesting the different styles of running....people who are "fast" do not look that fast...I felt fast on the track, but know I am not really all that fast!!!

And I bought a new pair of runners yesterday...finally...I think that part of the issue with my leg has been worn out runners. So I marched into the Running Room yesterday and dropped the money and they felt awesome today, and my leg was not sore one bit. Next up is a swim tomorrow.