Week Two Tri Training

Week two went a lot better than week one. Although I didn't stick exactly to the schedule, I did most of the workouts and felt great all week because of it. It's a lot easier to eat healthy throughout the day when you know that you worked hard in the morning.

Monday morning was a bit of a slow start to the week. I woke up early to do a morning run on the treadmill. It's really hard to me to run on the treadmill because I think it's SO boring! Even though I had my Ipod, I was still bored by mile two. If I run outside I can at least see other people and other things. So it was hard to have motivation Monday morning, but I did run for 20 minutes and speed walk for 10 minutes.

Tuesday was a swim day. I had plans for a one woman Olympic party that night (just me, a Lean Cuisine, a wine cooler and the ladies figure skating short program - what could be better?). After work I was going to head to the gym to swim, but I thought that I'd head home and just swim there. Not such a good idea. The pool here at our apartment is so small that by the time I did two strokes of the crawl, I was at the end of the pool. I did a 30-minute swim, but I did feel like it wasn't the most efficient work out ever. At least I got out there.

Wednesday was the best work out of the week. I had my cycle team training, and we did our first tri brick. A brick is when you alternate between two events, doing a short, hard push for each event. We did cycle and running, and it was really hard! We would run for 10 minutes, then spin for 10 minutes, and then back to running. We did that for over an hour. After that, we worked on core training for about a half hour. I got home and my abs hurt so much it was hard to even sit down.

Thursday I didn't work out. Usually I swim with the team on Thursday nights, but the finals for the figure skating were on and I didn't want to miss it. I know, it's a really bad reason to skip a work out, but I felt like I had worked hard the beginning of the week that I deserved a break. Plus, the Olympics are only on every four years! I think that's an ok excuse...

Friday morning I got up early and biked downstairs in the gym for 30 minutes. It wasn't the work out I was hoping for. We don't have spin bikes here, so I didn't feel like I was truly doing training. But I suppose that the fact that I got up and did anything at all is better than laying in bed for 45 more minutes. I am thinking about taking a spin class one night a week so that my two bike sessions a week are really hard and really make me push myself.

Saturday morning is the team run, but Mark and I had had people over for dinner and drinks the night before, so I wasn't feeling up to getting up early to run. At 7:00 AM it was a good idea to stay in bed, but I was angry with myself later in the day because that meant that I had to run on Sunday. I hate working out on Sundays. Plus, I don't like to miss two team training sessions in a week. I think it really helps to see everyone else trying really hard and pushing themselves.

So, Sunday morning came and I really didn't want to run, but I did it. And just to punish myself a little more for being lazy on Saturday, I ran outside. It was about 18 degrees out. I got all bundled up in my great running gear, and as soon as I hit the cold air I was ready to go. I was pumped up and energized and excited to be out there running and getting my body going.

Every week I try to set a goal for myself in additional to my work out goals. This week my goal dealt with eating at work. If you work in an office, you know that for some reason crap food always seems to appear. Brownies, cookies, cake, you name it. Pretty much every day something new appears in my office. And I can't help the sweets - I LOVE them. I don't just have a sweet tooth - my whole upper row of teeth is sweet. So, my goal this week was to eat nothing at work. No sweets, no crap food, nothing extra. And I did it. I didn't have anything extra at all. It was so hard! When everyone else was taking cookies in the Monday morning staff meeting, I didn't have anything. When my boss bought scones for us all, I said "No, thank you". When we had popsicles and ice cream for the monthly birthday celebration, I didn't touch it. I was so proud of myself. I overcame my office sweet teeth, and it felt so good. When Friday afternoon came and I knew that I had reached my goal, I think that I did a little dance. It feels so good to set a goal for yourself and realize that you've actually reached the goal.

I think that my goal for this next week is going to be to continue with my no sweets at work rule and also to focus on water intake. I am usually really great about water intake the first part of the week, and then I lose for some reason by Friday I'm not drinking any at all during the day. My goal is to drink two Nalgene bottles full every day.

Overall, I had a great week and felt wonderful with how I performed. Next week I'm going to try to find a spin class to attend weekly as well as a yoga class to increase my core strength.

Don't forget to check out my fundraising web site (and maybe donate, too...) by using the link to the right.