Wednesday, April 6, 2011

Back on Track

I've really struggled to get in my workouts lately. It seems like life just gets in the way. My mom was here last Thursday-Sunday too so of course, I would rather hang out with her than swim, bike, and run. So after a rocky couple of weeks, I gave myself a pep talk and got back to work.

Unfortunately, the big pool at UIC is being drained, cleaned, and upgraded so we have been relegated to the small pool. So we go from an 8 lane 50 meter pool so a 6 lane 25 yard pool. And we triple the number of swimmers. See, there's this triathlon club that swims at UIC in the mornings too. They are the usual inhabitants of the small pool. But now we have overtaken it and they swim with us. It was a little tough to get used to having so many people in a lane (kind of like high school swimming all over again) but it ended up being rather entertaining. If you know anything about triathletes, you know that the vast majority of them are not swimmers. They can swim well enough to do a tri but most were not competitive swimmers. So having the
m join in our practice and try to hang was pretty fun. They were all really nice though and we adapted practice and did some fun sets that lend themselves to crowded lanes.

This morning I had probably the best workout I have had since I started training. I missed yesterday's hour long run because I had to do some errands on my lunch break. So I extended my run today. On the schedule for today was a 45 min bike and a 30 min run. Riding a stationary bike can get a little boring so I tried to mix it up today. I broke it down by songs. I did an easy spin for one song, upped the resistance for the next song, then upped it even more and stood up on the bike for the next song. Then I kept repeating that for the full 45 minutes. Kept it interesting and didn't seem that long because you just had to get through the current song. So then I moved to the treadmill and decided to do the same thing there. I would run at 5 mph for a song, 5.5 mph for the next song, then 6 mph for the third. Then repeat. When I got to the end, I sprinted for two minutes then cooled down. I felt AWESOME. I really didn't want to get off the treadmill but sadly, I had to go to work.

After sitting at my desk all day long, however, my hips are a little on the sore side. Hopefully after a good night's sleep, I'll feel better in the morning :-)

On a side note, check out the cover of USA Triathlon Magazine. The woman on
the cover is Melissa Stockwell...also known as one of the most amazing women I have ever m
et. You may also have seen her on TV during March Madness as she has a new commercial that
aired. I first met Melissa last year at one of my swim practices. She also swims with the Chicago Masters. At practice one day, she introduced herself and we started talking. I told her that day that I was training for the half and every time I saw here thereafter, she would ask how my training was going and she was the first to ask how the race went when I came back to practice after Steelhead. I'll admit, after talking with her at practice, I did some Google-stalking and came across her website (www.melissastockwell.com). And shortly after that, I started seeing her name pop up everywhere. She is making a name for herself in the triathlon world and following her triathlon career helps keep me motivated. And she's just a nice person! Not everyone can be friendly and cheerful at 6am :-) I'll also point out that I am in love with her dog. He accompanies her to swim practice and is always happy to see you.

I'm glad to get back on track and feel good about my training...Louisville is less than 5 months away!!!!!!!!!