swimming Archives - Ari's Menu

Well, after a pretty mellow week with 3 full rest days, I definitely kicked it into gear last week! By Sunday afternoon my weekly mileage on daily mile reached 100! No, I did not ride extra miles on my bike just because I wanted to see a 3 digit mileage number. Who does things like that? Crazy, number obsessed people. I just happened to ride exactly 17 miles when my daily mile was at 83. Obviously. 😉

Monday: 3 miles with Jason. Remember when this guy ran like 12 minute miles? Umm, our average pace was 10:06. He’s amazing, and I’m starting to really get a lot out of our weekly runs together!

Tuesday: Spin, Strength & Swimming. I kind of felt awesome after completing 3 workouts in one day. I mean, sure, my strength training was all of 15 minutes, but I was still sore the next day from it! I am working on getting up to a 5 minute plank like this girl, and Tuesday I got to 2:20. Obviously, I have a ways to go. Spin class was awesome as usual, then I had my first swimming work out with my fav triathlete! I swam 400 yards, and it was hard and awesome.

Wednesday: Tempo run. This run was not fun. I had 6 miles on the schedule with 4 tempo miles @ 9:03. Well, my last tempo run was the same thing with the tempo miles at 9:07, and it was hard, but I killed it, and even had my last mile below 8:50. This run felt entirely different. I was struggling .5 miles in, it was 80 degrees out, and I left my ipod at home, so I could literally hear myself grasping for air. I stayed on pace, but had to stop after the second and third tempo mile to catch my breath. As frustrated as I was by this run, I feel like I learned a lot from it. I had a great talk with my coach about it, and realized that I’m really not hydrating well enough, and that as it gets hotter, I need to be okay with slowing down. It won’t be this hot in Seattle or in NYC, so I need to focus on how I feel rather than what my garmin says. This is especially hard for me since my focus on running numbers has been such a huge aid in taking my focus away from scale numbers. I am number focused. It’s how I measure my progress, and when the numbers don’t reflect my effort, I get frustrated, discouraged, and whiney. That’s okay. I don’t think I will feel that way forever. I’m not going to beat myself up about the way I feel or react to things. I am simply going to note it, try to be more aware, and do my best to not let it get me down.

Thursday: Spin. Sweaty, hilly love.

Friday: 20 mile bike ride with Nicole. We had a great time, and chatted the whole 20 miles. Perfect way to start the day!

Saturday: Long run. Our team training runs for Chances for Children don’t officially start until I leave for Portland, but Susan invited us to come run with her, and the group she coaches, so I jumped on the opportunity! My alarm went off at 3:55am (yikes!), and I headed out to meet the group. Unfortunately, the park bathrooms were locked, and so when Stacey arrived, we went in search of a restroom and ended up starting closer to 5:30 than the 5:00 start time. We started off running with Susan’s husband bill who was so nice and went slow with us to show us the path. Around mile 2.5, we separated from Bill because my stomach is still a mess, and I had to stop at this resort to use the bathroom. Even considering that, I was feeling the best I have on a long run in weeks! We were maintaining around a 10:25 pace, which is right on target for my plan, it wasn’t too warm out yet, and I just felt really into the run. By the end, though, I started fading a bit, and Stacey was pushing me through, then at the last mile, we saw Susan who had waiting for us long after everyone who had started on time was already gone, and came up to run the last mile with us! Having a coach is freaking amazing, let me tell you. That was the push I needed, because I finished the last mile in 9:26, and ended 13.06 miles with an average pace of 10:16, which, for me, is pretty awesome! I had serious runners high all day long!

Sunday: 17 mile bike ride with Steve and Jason. I wanted to go on a bike ride, and I wanted to hit 100 miles, so that’s what I did 😉

What a great week! Even with a crappy run, I still feel like it’s one of the best training weeks I’ve had in a long time!

How did you work it out last week? How do you stay motivated and track your progress when the numbers start to kind of suck??

Okay, so yesterday I was a little cranky. Sorry about that. You guys were so nice, and left me some really amazing comments that made my day, and made me feel 10 million times better. Thanks for being awesome! The day before I got cranky, something amazing happened! Well, amazing to me anyway 😉 My super awesome triathlete BBFF Nicole taught me how to swim! I’m pretty sure it looked something like this

Just keep swimming, just keep swimming

source

Except I forgot my floaties, and swim coach Nicole didn’t bring me any. Rude. She obviously doesn’t care if I drown on her watch. Okay, so I know how to swim in theory. I love swimming in the summer time, and by swimming I mean standing in the shallow end, staying cool in the 110 degree heat, and occasionally dunking my head under my water if I decide I’m willing to get my hair wet. OH!! And water slides!!! I LOVE water slides!!

I’ve wanted to learn how to actually swim pretty much since I got my bike. I fell in love with riding right away, and it was about .5 seconds before I started dreaming about doing a triathlon. I even had one in mind to register for, but I chickened out, and the swimming has felt so intimidating to me, but yesterday I bought a cap and goggles, and went over to the Kiwanis wave pool (the waves were off, sad, that would have been fun!) with Nicole for my first lesson.

Nicole was a great teacher! She was super patient, and made me feel totally comfortable while I’m sure I looked ridiculous. She taught me how to put on my swim cap and goggles, breathe, kick, stroke, and most importantly take awesome locker room photos.

Or maybe I taught her the last one? 😉 We ended up swimming 400 yards in probably a ridiculously long amount of time, but I didn’t care! I LOVED it! Okay, let me say that this was tough. I felt ridiculously out of shape, I inhaled about a gallon of water, and I looked more like Dumbo than Ariel, but again I didn’t care in the slightest! I love the feeling of being in the water, I love the idea of a new challenge, and I love pushing myself and expanding my fitness capabilities. I loved it so much, that I am ready to shell out the money this weekend for a real fitness swim suit. Not because I want to fit in, but let’s just say mine was not cutting it, and it definitely was not a kids show in my lane. Yikes. I’ll spare you the deets. You’re welcome.

This seems like really great timing to start too, because the weather is just getting too hot to run or bike outside (although I will have to keep it up for my Seattle and NYC training), and it will be something I can continue while I’m in Portland this summer! I’m also pretty sure some amazing, hilarious, speedy swimming lifeguard might be able to take me under her wing in exchange for pushing her with some running. Ahem, Laurel. This will be your summer “Laurel, help me swim! Laurel, help me swim! Laurel, run 15 miles with me!” You will be so ready to go back to Detroit 😉

Okay, I’m off track. For a change. I loved swimming! I can’t wait to do it again, and I can’t wait to take more locker room photos with Niole while the other swimmers watch us in judgement.