Week One Tri Training

So I'm going to try to post every Sunday night about the pervious week's triathlon training just to keep you all in the loop. This past week was the first official week of training, and I'm mildly proud of myself. I think that I could have pushed harder and worked more, but for the first week it's pretty good.

I ran Monday night, even though the schedule didn't require it. I really wanted to get a good physical start to my week. I ran hard for 30 minutes, and then did a 5 minute cool down run. It felt so good to run for the 30 minutes! It was cold outside, and I don't like to run outside at night alone, so I ran on the treadmill. Running indoors isn't as fun, but I pushed myself to do it anyway. I ran almost three miles. I know, not the best mile time, but I am just starting out...

Tuesday I skipped a work out, as the schedule stated. It was a nice rest for Valentine's Day.

Wednesday was our first group cycle training session. The session was held in St. Louis Park at the Bally Total Fitness. I figured that I was an intermediate biker, so I went with the first group. I'm really glad that I pushed myself up to that class, because it was really hard - but the good kind of hard. We rode the bikes for 30 minutes, and then did our coach's version of a mini boot camp. We worked our abs, butts and thighs for 45 minutes after the bikes. By the end of the night, we could barely walk. But it felt so good to work my body like that. It always reinstates my enthusiasm for my goal when I have a powerful workout.

Thursday was our first group swim training session. I wasn't sure whether to go with the beginners or the intermediate class. I can swim, but my form is horrible and I didn't know how long I could swim without stopping. I decided to go with the beginner’s class, and I'm SO glad that I did! The work out was so hard! We started with drills that help us learn the different important aspects of triathlon swimming: use your upper body strength, flutter kick with the legs to conserve leg muscles for the bike and run, breathe every four strokes if possible, etc. We did the drills for about 30 minutes. And then it was time to put those things together to try our bodies at the freestyle stroke. We were told to do four laps (one lap is down and back, by the way), going easy on the way down and then really swimming hard on the way back. I thought, four laps is nothing! During the actual tri I have to swim the equivalent of 32 laps. Four laps damn near killed me. I was winded. My form was lost. And then the coach told us to take a 10 second breather, and do it again. By lap 8 all I could think was I'm going to drown in this damn pool in St. Paul. They'll have to call my mom and tell her that her 23-year-old drown in a pool. But alas, I did it. And when I finished, I actually felt really good. The thing with swimming is that it can be learned. If you aren't a good swimmer at the start, you can learn the form and breathing and eventually get better at it. So, I'm motivated to keep trying and keep working at it until I can swim those 32 laps without a second thought.

Saturday mornings is usually our group run, but due to the 10 BELOW ZERO temp, it was cancelled. And because I ran on Monday and didn't need to, I let myself sleep in and relax a bit. It was much appreciated by me.

So, next week is when the real hard schedule starts. Six days a week of working out, two sessions for each of the three events. I'm going to try my best to follow the schedule and have focused workouts so that my body gets used to the work. But overall, I feel happy with my first week of training, and I'm really looking forward to next week's challenges.

Don't forget to visit my fundraising link to the left, and donate if you can!