On Again. Off Again. On Again...

My goal for this blog is to get in the habit of logging my workouts and how it went, and make it my exercise diary for this training season.

Got a little burnt out there after 2 marathons in 4 months. I prefer to make winter my running season because I'm miserable in the heat. But as a result I have a bad habit of leaping straight into the summer triathlon season without giving my body a decent rest. But this time I actually managed to take about 6 weeks off to myself, and simply putzed around the gym instead of "training," and no races.

Getting back on track with a good training program and slow/long build-up to my next event: Half Ironman.

Going into this training season, my biggest hurdle is going to be reigning in my swimming and balancing my workouts. With a swimming background I tend to practice swimming for triathlons the same way I used to practice swimming for competition = hard and fast. This is the primary reason I didn't do well at the Rocketman (olympic distance) Triathlon last fall. I came blazing out of the water, with a time comparable to the top 20 competitors, then my bike was barely par for my age group, and I had no energy left for the run and totally bonked, with one of my worst 10K times ever.

http://www.trinewbies.com/tno_swim/tno_swimarticle_01.asp

So, this week is all about getting back into a regular Gym habit. Simply going when I said I would go, and sticking to shorter, core workouts to build my base back up.

Monday I went to Spin Class, and my rump feels like I have a bruise the exact size/shape of a bike saddle. Even my cushy bike shorts with the extra padding didn't feel like they helped much. My posterior has a ways to go before I'm comfortable riding with only a chamois for padding. But - as I frequently need to remind myself - no judging yet. It's just about going to the gym and doing it. Well, I went, and I did it. So - Yay!

Tuesday/Yesterday was spent in the Pool. I did my favorite 1500 easy workout: 200 SKPS as warm up, timed 500 swim, then 200 freestyle drill as cool down. The timed 500 was 09:24. I'm not sure how to feel about that, because I was pushing my self to about 80% perceived exertion, and compared to my 500 race times "back in the day," a 09:20 is miserable. HOWEVER, I know that the 1500m swim at Rocketman I came out of the water approx 32min. Which is a hair under 11min 500's. And that was too fast. So I need to play with the numbers and figure out how much I need to slow that down if I'm going to have any energy left for the rest of the race.

And tonight's plan was to go to a 'Body Works' class at the gym, but I have to take the kitten to the vet first and don't think we'll be done in time. I'll do a P90 DVD instead.

Also, I am trying a new crock pot recipe, "Easy Chili" from my "5 ingredients or less" crock pot cook book. If it turns out okay I'll have to start tweaking it - like I'm doing with my other favorite recipes - to make it as healthy as possible. (and "healthy" does not equal "low fat" or "low calorie" or any of that other nonsense. "healthy" simply means Healthy... balanced... ingredients I can actually pronounce and good for my digestion!)