training: day thirty

one month in. whew. 50 minute run--9 run, 1 rest. outside, because we had two nice days in a row...on a weekend. this is highly unusual. i actually did 60 minutes in the 9/1 run/walk--simply because it takes too long to walk home. i went all through town, all over the place. i really enjoyed it, too. it's a nice way to see the neighborhoods.

when i got home, i showered, soaked in the tub and did some errands. then i came home and crashed. totally. chris said i was out for almost two hours.

i did nothing but eat all day. not so good, but tomorrow's a new day and i'll just start up again. i weighed in at 116 this morning, but i think i am seriously dehydrated, so that's probably not an accurate number.

as of this post, there are 84 days, 3 hours and 27 minutes 'til the race begins. i need to find a countdown timer for my page!

eta: i found one!

training: day twenty-nine

YAY! finally, the weather held and i actually got in a bike ride on the bike! 1.5 hours later, i was pretty darn tired but happy. the adjustment to the handlebars made a world of difference. however, a new problem, there's something going on with the shifting on the bike, so i can't get the chain to go to the largest ring in the front. something else to work on, i guess.

i also need to figure out how to work weight training into my training schedule. urk.

training: day twenty-eight

today was a swimming workout.

100m, rest, 75m, rest, 50 m, rest, 25m, rest. i did another 100m using fins, so i could work on my breathing. lately i'm really afraid of inhaling water. it's stupid. i need to get a nose pinchy-thingy. also fins. i did okay as long as i went slow and focused on breathing out underwater and not trying to lift my head too far up as i came up for air.

training: home is where you work out

i went swimming right after work, at 2pm. nobody was there! it was my own personal pool!

these are two of the lifeguards who work at himberg pool, keeping me safe from sharks. i always make sure to thank the guards when i am done swimming.


here's the outside of himberg. pretty dumpy. it needs painted!

training: day twenty-seven

forty minutes on the sux0r stat bike. that is all.

training: day twenty-six

i have been trying to use training as a stress release (in the past, it was binge eating), but today, it was a good excuse to leave work early. work's been really stressful for the guys in my office, because of some ongoing issues. tater, a mellow d00d by any definition, is pretty lit. amazing. i haven't seen tater mad about anything in the two years i've worked with/sat next to him. so it's pretty depressing/anxiety causing because i pick up on all the bad vibes. as i result, i really don't want to be at work, so i fled at 11:30 to himberg pool, to avoid sharks and practice my laps. i think i will start taking a long lunch on tuesdays so i can swim laps during this time, because i had a lane all to myself. even if i take 3 hours, as long as i get in at 6am, i can still go home at 4pm. this should be OK, since the office is pretty good about letting me flex my time.

my form was pretty shitty and i need to slow down. but it got my mind off work and it felt good not to have five thousand, three hundred and fifteen thoughts going through my head-there was just one (OH SWEET BABBY ZOMBIE JEEBUS, KINDLY DO NOT LET ME DROWN) which was odd, i've never seriously been worried about drowning before. i know it has to do with my poor breathing/stroke technique (just call my Kiki McFlailey). i noticed the guys (all guys) swimming and the ones that were doing the laps in the fewest strokes were not going fast, they were going powerful. really nice strong, graceful strokes. hoo boy. i gotta long way to go before i sleep (sorry, robt. frost).

training: fini

my swimming lessons are done. i still need help, like i mentioned above, but i have seen some really good improvement.

training: z00t s00t

my replacement tri suit came today! i wear a small! yay! i tried another brand, but it didn't look as good as the TYR one.

training: ring-a-ding

i am 21 pounds lighter than i was in december and fully 10 pounds lighter than i was when i got married two years ago. my wedding ring slipped off three times today. i mean it just fell off. i'm wearing it on a necklace now, because i really can't have it resized without ruining the design of the ring. i forget it's on a necklace and have had several mini-coronarys because i keep thinking i've lost it. i am totally the spaz-0-matic 3000 lately, not just about the ring, but everything. i have got to stop with it, i am sure i am driving everyone (including myself) nuts.

also, a vendor who comes once-a-month to the BX stopped me and said "can i ask you something? i mean, you were pretty small to begin with, but have you lost weight? you're really tiny!" YAAAAAAAAATTTTTTTAAAAA!!!

training: losing your head

i lost my powder-blue swimcap last week. it wasn't at the gym or pool lost and found. i can't find it at home and i am still kind of annoyed. perhaps it was gobbled up by one of the himberg pool sharks. i am obsessive about things like this, so i went to buy another one (at a different store) but its the wrong colour and i want the correct colour blue so its another trip back to the place i purchased the now-lost cap. i normally don't lose things, but lately i have cranial-rectal inversion and thusly, my head is up my ass. i think i just need a day to stay home and calm down and not constantly feel like i'm behind on things for whatever reason.

training: day twenty-five

teh stat bike is teh sux0r, d00dz.
i rode the stat bike for one and a half HOURS. HOURS, people. i was at the fitness center from 9:15pm to 10:45pm. it was awful. but i did it.

training: out of habit

it takes 6 to 8 weeks to establish a habit. i am almost 4 weeks into the training. another couple of weeks and maybe i won' be fighting myself so much when it comes time to train.

training: day twenty-four

i ended up really switching around my workouts because despite my taking the day off, i ran out of time and didn't get to the bike ride or to the gym to use the stat bike. so it was 10 AT NIGHT and i was freaking out because the fitness center closes at 11pm and i wasn't going to fit in a 1.5 hour workout nor was I going to ride my bike in the dark. so i moved around the workouts even more than usual and did a 20 minute run which should have been wednesday's workout, but wednesday is my swimming lesson, so wednesday is usually switched with tuesday, which is supposed to be a swim. so today i did tuesday's w/o, on tuesday (tomorow) i'll do monday's workout and on wednesday it will be swimming. i'm glad i wrote it all down. anyway, the run in the dark at night was kinda unsettling, as even though there's some amount of light pollution here, it's still much darker than Columbia, MD ever was. I wasn't so much worried for my saftey, since japan is pretty safe, i was more worried about not seeing a chuckhole and wiping out -- my eyes don't dark-adapt well at all. one thing about running at night that was cool, was looking into livingrooms as i trotted past houses -- a lot of japanese are clutterbugs, don't let those pictures of the austere, immaculate, zen houses fool you.

training: angst

i was really upset at the prospect of missing a workout. mostly because yesterday i had told chris i have done 23 days of training without missing a workout...i've switched them up, but i haven't skipped any. i'm starting to get a little obsessive about workouts. i am supposed to go visit my kimono sensei at her home in akita in may and part of me doesn't want to because i can't figure out how to do the workouts.

training: sp(r)ite

don't chug a whole can of sprite and go for a brisk run. it makes your stomach very annoyed.

training: day twenty-three

recovery day. my recovery day is supposed to be monday but it never seems to work out that way. i haven't done a workout yet that was not changed from my training calendar. plus, i am finding i really dislike biking right now. i'm hoping that adjusting the fit will help me. i enjoy running, it's pretty straightforward. i like the swimming, not so much the effort itself, but i like how i feel afterwards. and right now, i like biking the least. maybe because it's the longest workout i am doing.

training: day twenty-two

today was a 30 minute run. uphill. sprinting. so i would sprint for a minute up the hill. walk down the hill. sprint up the hill, walk down the hill. at least i had a pretty spot to run, as the hill overlooked the lake and there was also a mountain view. i also got to run on a wide swath of grass, so my knees and ankles weren't too sore.

here's the hill and the views. the "slow moving vehicles entering road" would be me.
training: breaking wind (it's not what you think)

it was windy and the wind was really cold, probably because it was coming off the mountains and the lake. and it was blowing into my ears, so they really hurt, even though i had headphones in. it's also no fun running into to the wind, but it's nice to have it at your back, because it gives you a boost.

training: day twenty-one

swimming is harder than it looks. i did my 225 meters a bit too quickly, because my form went all to hell. that was pretty much it, when i was done, i got out and went home.

training: day twenty

easy biking day, 20 minutes, light on the pedals. i still got pissed off because i left my gym stuff at home, in the kitchen (of all places) this is the first time in a long while i've forgotten my gear. so i went and did errands and then went to the gym late. it has been freaking pouring out since 5am this morning. i think i will buy a wind/fluid trainer for my terry, since spring/rainy season is here for the next two months and i want to ride MY bike, not the stat bike in the gym. yeah, yeah, i should be out riding in the rain, blah, blah, blah but no. the roads get slick (yes, i know that bikes don't hydroplane and that despite their smooth appearance, my tires will grip just fine) but i am more concerned about visibility because bad fog often accompanies the spring rains here.
bad fog + blind curves = flat biker.

training: the bee's knees

my knees are getting a little sore. not bad, just a subtle stiffness. i hope this doesn't bode badly for me. maybe it is from swimming with the fins yesterday.

training: the cat's pyjamas

i am in my jammies and in bed by 8:30pm lately. although i do have to add that i get up around 4am. i am not even a month into training and i know that i'll need even more sleep as training progresses. sheesh.

training: visible results

a co-worker complimented me on my appearance today, remarking that i must be spending a lot of time in the gym, since i look really good lately. YAY! take that, stupid clingy last three pounds!

training: day nineteen

today was a non-stop swim of 200 meters. i did it! slowly, but i did it. before swim class! and then oh, man, there was no mercy in swim class. the instructor kept me moving the entire time. i also got to practice flip turns and get gallons of water up my nose.

i had one lap where i felt GREAT. i think i actually had good form, as it felt effortless and fluid and i was hauling down the lane. alas, it was not to be continuous and i ended up back to my floundering technique. i need to review the total immersion course DVD and practice the drills some more.

training: one size fits . . . most

when i got home from swimming, there was a package for me from team estrogen. it contained my trisuit! i was really excited about it, until i put the suit on. it looked great but the fit wasn't quite right. i fired off an email to customer service and asked about how the suits should fit. the answer (which came back within an hour)is "tightly"...which means that my medium-sized tri suit is too big. i ordered another of the same make in a small as well as another brand in a medium (sizing for this brand seems to run smaller). now i just have to wait...argh, waiting.

training: day eighteen

Today was an easy day, only 20 minutes on the treadmill. Hardly anything, really. I'm more worried about the swim workout tomorrow, 200m without stopping. the tinman website had the registration forms online, so i downloaded it, printed it and filled it out. i need to get it mailed now and start planning out our trip. i also noticed they changed the info on the swim--it's 800m not 750.i sorta freaked out but then calmer minds prevailed: 800 is a nice even number and anyway, what's 50 more m at this point? actually, fifty more m's look exactly like this:
mmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm
i also think i'm gonna need a wetsuit, after all. terrific, as if the bathing suit wasn't bad enough, now i'm really gonna look like a 5 foot tall sausage. just call me jimmy dean.

training: ankle bite(r)

my ankle is still way cranky. although the visible bruise has diminished, it hurts deeply, which is not like other bruises i have had. it doesn't seem to hurt during my workouts though and my range of motion seems okay, it just is this dull, annoying ache, a persistent sore spot. it is tender to the touch, although it wouldn't be tender to the touch if i didn't keep on poking at it, going "ow! ow! ow!"

training: weighting game

maybe that should be the crying game. my weight loss has plateaued and i've been stuck at the same place (3 pounds shy of my goal weight) for three weeks. i've tried eating less (crazy) more (fun but disconcerting) and a few other things. looks like i need to really, seriously start lifting weights. the reluctance of the scale to inch downward, well, it's got me a bit upset but at least over the last few months, i've started to notice that i'm looking fitter (some muscles, however stringy, have appeared and i have collar bones now) and that some of my clothes are really baggy. but that 3 pounds is bugging the hell out of me. the lighter i get, the faster i go. go away, three pounds!

training: day seventeen

today would have been a rest day, but like i mentioned earlier, my workouts were all shifted one day to let me catch up for taking saturday off. so today was 1 hour and 15 minutes on the stationary bike. i had been looking forward to riding outside, but we were having 40mph wind gusts and had no desire to get blown into the path of an oncoming vehicle. i totally had a bunch of errands to do and waffled all the way from the office to the gym. i really wanted to do my errands first but i was a good girl and got on that stupid suck-ass bike. for 1:15. Urk. it wasn't a hard workout, just long. and boring.

training: ring of fire

last evening, when i was running on the treadmill, i took off my wedding band and dropped it into the cup holder. the ring is loose-fitting to begin with and once i get sweaty and swinging my arms, it has a propensity go flying off. normally, i am good about collecting up all my stuff but i'm off my usual routine and i just flew out of the gym when i was done because it was getting late and i had other stuff to do. i got up this morning, showered and went to reach for my ring (it's rote to take it off before i shower) and all of a sudden it hit me-i had left my one-of-a-kind-custom-made wedding band AT THE GYM. i finished getting ready in record time and drove like a bat out of hell to the gym. of course, the one treadmill i needed to check was in use (out of four) and i think i freaked out the guy using it but luckily, the ring was still there.

training: day sixteen

i've moved my workouts around to accomodate our daytrip to kakunodate. today was 40 minutes on the treadmill. i did 10 minute miles and did them comfortably. improvement!

training: feel the (heart)burn

my resting heart rate is about 63bpm. Not great but not bad either. it still shoots up like crazy during workouts (if the heart rate monitor is correct) to about 163, but I don't feel winded, really. i have noticed that my recovery time is getting better, with my heart rate dropping much more quickly than it did two months ago.

training: day fifteen

we are going on a day trip, so i am taking the day off. this means i will need to shuffle my workouts around a little. my ankle (see yesterday's entry) is still sore, so maybe i should skip the 40 minute run entirely, but part of me is very loathe to do that. sunday's training is supposed to be a bike ride. maybe i can brick the workouts? hmmm...

training: day fourteen

a pool workout. i went back and forth for forty minutes today, with a little break at the end of each length, for a total of 225 meters. the thermometer said 86 degrees for the pool but it sure didn't feel like it, it was a bit chilly upon entering but once i got moving it was okay. as usual, i was starving when i hauled my waterlogged ass out of the water. having a can of hot milk tea helped, but not much. what i really wanted was a grilled cheese, onion rings, two beers and half a dozen donuts. what i had was a small salad and a quarter cup of rice and some veggies.

training: dizzy up the girl

i don't know if it is because i am dieting or dehydrated or dying or whatever, but i damn near blacked out twice this morning. upon getting out of bed. i stood up, reached for my glasses and then next thing i knew, sat down hard on the floor. no big thing, i figured i had just stood up too fast after lying asleep for 11 hours. so i stood up properly and went to the bathroom. upstairs is chris' bathroom, and it has a raised threshold you have to step over upon entering or exiting. i went in, bent down to flip the toilet lid up, stood up and and everything went whoooooops! the next thing i knew i had fallen through the doorway (causing the door to fly open with a BANG!) and fell over the threshold and spilled out into the hallway. in the process, i banged the hell out of my ankle. (the bruise was showing by the time i came around). chris said he practically flew out of the bedroom when he heard the commotion. i think he asked me "what happened?" and i think i said "i think i may have just fainted. or i got dizzy." and "i banged up my ankle." it's all sort of muzzy. at any rate, i ended up semi-lucid and sprawled out in the hallway wearing nothing but a pair of lime-green panties. at least i didn't pee all over myself or the bathroom or the hall runner. criminy. and despite eating and drinking a bit more than usual, i still felt woozy most of the rest of the day.

training: day thirteen

i went for a bike ride! on a real bike! my bike! it was a little cooler than i expected once i got moving. i'll need to add another layer next time. i need to raise my handlebar stem and adjust my clipless pedals/shoes, whenever i hit a bump, i come unhooked. mostly went at an easy speed, trying out shifting, cadence, "pulling" on the pedals. i did have one little sprint--when an obaachan (granny) went by on a pokey old moped, i chased after her. i did this for a few minutes, but it seemed to really make her nervous that i was right behind her (can you draft a moped?) and i was getting winded, so i stopped and went back to cruising speed. the 40 minutes went a lot faster than it does when i am on the stationary bike.

okay, moment of truth. i am pretty nervous when i bike. mostly i am afraid of wiping out. i do carry an id card written in Japanese and English with phone numbers in case i am totally damaged, so that helps alleviate some aspects of crash anxiety. i didn't learn to ride a bike until i was about eight. some of my issues may be related to the fact that i always had a bike that was too big for me, but i always feel like a crash is imminent. the little terry is rather light and nimble and i always have a this sneaking suspicion that it is going to squirt out from underneath me and it will all end in tears. and road rash. although, if i crash and bust something up and i get a piece of titanium as a result, i think that may just qualify me for "real cyclist" status. it doesn't help that the roads in misawa are full of frost heaves and chuckholes and wonky patch jobs, so that was a little rough. at least the japanese are accustomed to sharing the road with bikes, so that wasn't so bad, they don't panic or get aggresive. i appreciate the wide berth they give me...did you know i can bow on a bike? i can! i did a lot of bowing this morning because drivers were really kind to me. HOWEVER rounding a blind curve, a lady tried to pass a truck and she was coming right toward me and i really didn't have any shoulder to go onto, so a bail-out would have entailed going into one of the sewage ditches. urgh. that lady could tell i was cussing her out, especially because she was trying to pass in an area marked no passing! but back to my obsession with crashing. i had a really bad spill when i was a teenager, involving a near-collision with a car and me careening off into a ditch. i think that's when the anxiety really started. i am also obsessed with getting a flat tyre. (with my car, i am obsessed with running out of gas). all i can do is ride more, focus on booting the fearful, negative thoughts out of my head, and, uh, ride more.

training: resistance is futile

i had completely forgot about wind resistance because i am usually on the stationary bike. right now, it is trying to be spring so if it's not rainy, it's windy or it's both. and this morning, my dumb ass always managed to be biking into the wind no matter which way i went. it didn't ruin the fact that i had a really nice bike ride, though.

training: day twelve

i did 1 lap today (two pool lengths or 50 metres) only 700 more meters to work up to! my form is getting a little better, but not much. We did glide stroke today. i think kendo has taken its toll on my shoulders--i definitely notice a problem with the range of motion in the left shoulder. and it makes clicky noises now and again. perhaps yoga will help me loosen up my shoulders. i also have a very weird bony protrusion on the top of the left shoulder and it is significantly larger than the bony protrusion on the right side. i am a freak! ack!

training: great goggle-y moggle-y!

you know your swim goggles are on too tight when they leave bruises around your eyes. i look like a freaking tanuki (a japanese animal that is sort of like a cross between a racoon and a badger). i cranked the goggles down because i had my contacts in and i didn't want to risk losing them. i guess i need to loosen them up a little. chris thought it was pretty funny until i reminded him we're going to the doctor tomorrow and i wouldn't be suprised if they turn him in for giving his wife two black eyes.

training: day eleven

a real run. outdoors. ouch. i did the full 30 minutes though. i'll have to drive the course and see what the actual distance is and post it later (distance round-trip was 5k or 3.1 miles). man, the first 10 minutes were so hard. i forget how much easier (if boring) it is to run on a treadmill. i must admit though, it is nice running in the morning. right now, the sun is up at about 4:40. by mid-summer, it will be light by 4:20 or so. it was crisp out, if a little damp, and i ran through a neighborhood i usually just drive by. not a lot of people or traffic, just birds and fields and the sun coming up.

my knees are killing me. time to think about new running shoes--ones that actually have padding in them. also, i feel like i've got a hairball i need to cough up, but i always feel like that after a run.

training: t for 2

reading about transitions and how to handle them. tri shorthad is t, and there are two t's in a tri race. t1 is swim-to-bike and t2 is bike-to-run. i guess t's aren't much fun any way you look at them, but basically, it helps to be organized and to practice. i'm already organized, now i just gotta practice. when i start doing bricks (back to back workouts to simulate the legs of the tri) i'll incorporate practicing the transitions into the brick practice. i can't wait to see how many times i fall over or down or whatever. stuff i've been reading also suggests practicing mental transistions as well as the physical ones. like i already don't have enough to think about, what with the sharks in the water and all.

training: day ten

the stationary bike sucks. and it sucks even more after 60 minutes, 22 miles and only 280 calories burned. thank you. that is all.

no, wait! that is not all! since the stat bike pissed me off so much, i actually had incentive to drag my little black and white "symmetry" model terry bike out of the storage space underneath our stairwell. my bike lives with the water heater during winter. it has been a while so, boy are we glad to see each other. my bike, it needs cleaned and tuned. i can clean it, i know how to clean just about anything, but i guess i have to figure out how to do the "tune" part. i know there's a book somewhere on my shelves, and there's always the www. the tyres are OK, if a little flat. at first i thought they had dry rot, but it turned out it was just some dust from being in storage. in case you were wondering, the front tyre is indeed smaller than the rear. on this model, 16 and 17.5" sizes have 24" front/700c rear wheels; 19, 20 and 21.5" sizes have 650c wheels front and rear; 23" has 700c wheels front and rear. i am a peanut, so i need the 16" size. but back to the tyres, i need to order spare tubes (i am not gonna find high pressure presta-valve tubes here, in the land of the one-speed-utility special) hey! i found my shoes, too!i got them on sale a couple years back at Mt. Airy Bicycles. oh, and i need a new brain bucket. mine's five years old and i'm not sure how kindly the move overseas treated it. i hope its nice this weekend (ha ha ha) so i can ride outdoors .

training: day nine

i switched out my rest days. i am supposed to rest on monday (4/10) but that didn't fit my schedule -- i got behind in my housework (i cleaned my house and somebody else's house, too) and didn't make it to the gym to do the stationary bike. maybe the weather will be nice tomorrow and i can take a real bike ride around.

however OK i sound about my workout schedule being switched around, i am not. in fact, not being able to make my workout upset me a lot. i was all antsy and crazy. i am afraid that if i miss even one, i'll never start back up and there goes the tri, right out the window. i am such a spaz.

i am thinking come may when the beach opens up, i'll get a hold of wetsuit and practice open-water swims. i am not sure at all how to do sighting, either, so i guess i will practice that, too. right now i practice in the pool and i am still not real good, i crash into the lane markers, the sides of the pool and the end of the lane, too.

training: day eight

a week in! so far, so okay. today was a thirty minute run at an easy pace. it was pouring out, so onto the treadmill i went. I did a 12, an 11, then a 10 minute mile. i would like like to be able to do the run leg of the tri in under an hour. i think 45 - 50 minutes would not be unreasonable.

training: suit yourself

bought STUFF! a book on the mental aspects of tri. i'm completely mental, so i should be good at that. also chris got me another bathing suit, a cap and a warm up suit to match. since i am swimming two days a week, this makes it much easier on me as far as laundry logistics and it should make the suits last longer and it will be nice to throw on a track suit after practice and be comfy.

training: day seven

swimming today. do a lap. rest. do a lap. rest. do a half lap, fuck around. working on some of the total immerison drills. my groin hurts from doing frog kicks. do a lap. rest. do a lap. get water up nose. float on back and stare at ugly-ass ceiling. practice frog kicks. do half a lap. feel smug that there are fourteen year old girls with big ol' guts who don't look nearly as good in their suits as i do in mine. swim in a little circle. gloat. try out chris' zip fins. do a lap. call it a workout.

i love the japanese. when i went to takeda sports for the infamous swimsuit, i noticed that they had "grow your own" swim goggles. PRESCRIPTION swim goggles. you buy the strap (which comes with 3 nose pieces of varying size) and then buy each lens. they had a wide range of diopters, all the way to -10.00. i am -3.5 in the right eye and -5.5 in the left. i had no problem finding lenses in my power. this totally resolved my issue about being scared that i would lose my contacts in the pool if my regular goggles came off. i used them today. they were terrific.

do not ever go grocery shopping after you go swimming. the cool water fools your body into thinking it is hungry when it is really not and going grocery shopping when you are hungry (or really not) is madness. i bought all kinds of crazy shit.

tomorrow is a 30 minute run. if the weather is nice (ha! snow on the ground this morning) i want to run outside. i hate the fucking treadmill with the fire of a thousand suns.

training: day six

the stationary bike sucks ass. speaking of ass, my sit bones (proper term "ischial tuberosities") hurt. everything hurts. and it hasn't even been a week. sweet zombie babby jeebus.

training: day five

there are no sharks in himberg pool.

just flounders. =)

because floundering pretty much describes my swimming form right now.

wow. i am sore! my first lesson went very well, except i was running behind (not late, i am rarely, if ever late) and i was a bit rushed. rucky, i had my suit on under my street clothes, so it was a presto-change-o!

i hate looking like a total dweeb, and i knew my form was wretched so i had signed up saying i had no experience swimming. i grew up on an island! i swam in the river. i also damn near flunked phys ed because of my innate inability to swim properly. so i said i had no experience in the water, thinking no one would be able to tell i could dog paddle.

there's no fooling some people, especially japanese instructors. probably what gave it away was when the instructor asked me if i could put my face in the water. i thought this was a weird request--of course i can put my face in the water, who can't? it's not brain surgery, you just put your face in the water!

so i shrugged, took a breath and plunked my face in, and blew bubbles for a while. when i came back up, she asked me if i could already swim. i thought i would be able to pass as a complete newbie, but no. the instructor sussed out that i'd been swimming before. i asked her how she knew and she said "body language and no fear of the water." so much for starting from scratch.

the instructor asked me why i was taking lessons. i told her that i needed to learn good, efficient technique, because i am going to try to do a triathlon and i need to be able to do a 750m swim (about half a mile). by july!

so my eval: my crawl is sloppy but doable and my breaststroke is pretty good, except for the left foot, which likes to get lazy and "flap" rather than "frog". the arms look good. for that, i would like to thank an old high school friend: jill murray, wherever you are, thank you for showing me the "cookie" trick to help me remember good form for the arm part of the breast stroke! after more than fifteen years, i still remember! i have a habit of bunching up my shoulders and not making myself "long".

my teacher has nice legs! just thought i would add that.

the teacher said that she could tell i liked doing the breast stroke better than the crawl and that i could probably do very well with the breast stroke. i still want to have a good crawl, too so i can switch it up during the tri if i get worn out.

i ended up doing two laps and tiring myself out. by the time i got home, i was hurting. my arms, my legs, my hips were killing me. oh yes, the swim is going to be the hardest part. well, that and having to see myself in bathing suit...oh, the horror, the horror.

oh, the cellulite.

training: day four

i switched out my workouts for today and tomorrow. today was supposed to be swim, tomorrow, run. however swim lessons start tomorrow and i might as well kill two birdies with one workout. so today was a 20 minute run. on the treadmill, which is boring, but suprisingly, i ran two ten-minute miles. i haven't run in six months! however, 10 minute miles means that it would take me an hour to run the 10k leg of the tri and i am not really thrilled about that.

i am more worried about the open-water swim, since i just had a thought:

SHARKS!

training: day three

today is a rest day. i thought i would be all macho and do some training anyway but i was suprised by the fact i was really kinda tired! tomorrow is swimming. hoo boy.

training: day two

today was one hour on the stationary bike, at an easy pace. trying to focus on "pulling" and not bouncing on the seat, but still it was BORING. Except for the part at the end, where I jumped off the bike and tried to run around the training area. I learned that if you bike and then try to run, it feels like your legs are on inside-out. And this wasn't even a HARD workout. I shudder to think...

i need to look into purchasing a fluid trainer so i can use my own bike. waiting for nice(r) weather to start so i can bike outside. i don't know if i can find a bike shop to help me tune my cute little terry bikey, which means i have to learn to do it myself. yikes! the last time i did anything to my bike, the wheel fell off, and as a result, so did i.

training is probably going to put a crimp in my already minimal social life. that is ok by me, i have been downright antisocial lately but i rather like my own company more than anyone else's at this time. i get like this from time to time, might as well take advantage of it.

browsing the web for heart monitors, fluid trainers and other such gear, hopefully i can find a bike rack to fit my pajero jr. if not, i have to figure out how to stuff it into the back of the paj. also thinking about the logistics of trying to get to hawaii for the tri. maybe roll our homestay into the trip, so a week in hawaii, a week on the west coast and a week on the east coast to visit family. looks like middle of july to middle of august for the trip.

tomorrow is supposed to be a day of rest but i think i will do some weights and some yoga anyway.

i believe i have lost my mind. as an avowed couch potato, i have suddenly gotten it into my head that i am going to do a triathlon. this summer. this july. this is three months away and that is sooner than i think. this is not an april fool's joke.

my first step in tri training was to lop off all my hair into a louise brooks-style bob. less hair should make me more aerodynamic. i need all the help i can get.

the next step was to sign up on some tri-training websites and the next was to buy some magazines, including a gear magazine.

and the step after that was wondering if i sold my husband if that would get me enough cash to buy this.

my official, scheduled training starts today.

my swimming lessons start next wednesday.

my first official nervous breakdown will probably come at the 1.5 month mark, i believe.