Running Milestone

For the last week and a half I have been trying to complete one of my workouts from The Couch-to-5K Running Plan. I got stuck on the week 4 workout: 3 minute run, 90 second walk, 5 minute run, REPEAT. I was fine until the second 5 minute run. I just couldn’t make it. Finally I did it yesterday. Barely. I am definitely thrilled that I can see my improvement over the last few weeks, but I was disappointed that I just plateau’ed and couldn’t make it through the second 5 minutes. I hope today or tomorrow when I run, I’ll be able to do it again.

My feet continue to get hot quickly. I think I am going to take Jenny’s suggestion and head to a Fleet Feets for evaluation and maybe a new (hopefully inexpensive) pair of running shoes.

In the meantime I am going to keep going through my Couch-to-5K plan. It’s really been quite helpful. Saturday I am biking with some friends in the a.m. and as soon as I park my bike I’m going to do the workout again. I know I probably won’t be able to run the whole 5K but I’m going to shoot for it, set my goal as high as possible. Even just knowing that I’ve come this far is a good achievement.

The Tri event is not far off!

In the lane again…just can’t wait to get in the lane again.

I was almost going to jap-out on the pool last night because of my niece’s pre-school graduation, but I did end up going for the 9pm-10pm lap swimming slot. 

I’ve been bringing my snorkling fins to work out with.  My husband says it’s good for that front muscle of your leg and will help prevent cramps.  I know they sell shorter fins for distance swimming practice, but ebay sellers and sporting goods stores across the Rochester, NY area already have enough of my money for triathlon gear.  So my bright pink snorkling fins will do just fine.

Anyway, I swam for about 35 minutes.  I ended up in a lane with this little old German lady that does the backstroke pretty well, but she does the entire thing under water.   I don’t know why that just cracks me up, but I get a little giggle everytime I see her.

I think I must have whacked her with my fin or something because as I was coming back from a lap, I noticed she moved to a lane with another swimmer in it.  Ooops sorry.  I tried to be extra-non-kicky when I passed her, but she took up a lot of the lane (which is fine) and it was hard squeezing by.  Plus my bright pink fins are really long. 

Eh – I was going to try and apologize just in case I did, but I could never catch her during a rest. 

So, sorry underwater backstroke little German lady. 

Run barracuda, run

Still a little peeved about the swimming, but I’m headed back to the pool today.   I was looking for some sort of thing to get myself motivated and on the right track again, so I did the whole 5K last night on the treadmill in a time of 65:22.  I did run a total of 3.5 and interdispersed some walking in there for the rest.  Felt good, but I want to combine that with the bike or swim and see how I do; maybe this weekend.

Open Water Freakage

Ok – Hawk was trying out the open water swimming this last weekend, so as the older (and much less wiser) sister, I decided that I had to try it myself.  Gosh, it looks so easy from land – a 1/2 mile can’t be that far out there, right?  Hmmmph – I can run a 1/2 mile, so what’s so hard about swimming a 1/2 mile?

These were my thoughts before getting into Lake Ontario late Saturday afternoon about 500 feet off-shore.  My husband was there in the boat, I had a shortie wetsuit on, and my 8-year old son was in the water with me (with a life jacket) for company.

I started off pretty good and fairly confident (ahh, that white boat that I have to swim too isn’t that far; piece-o-cake).  My son was trying to talk to me while swimming and I had to tell him to stop so I could concentrate (gosh, how can this kid talk and swim at the same time?) 

Couple waves in my face and jet skis passing by, but nothing I couldn’t handle (yeh, you rather buff, tan guy on the jet ski, can’t you see I’m swimming here!?)  But then I started to realize how far that white boat still was; I had been swimming for what seemed like a long time and it really didn’t feel like I had gotten any further than when I first jumped into the water (you’re psyching yourself out; just keep going).

To make a rather short story even shorter, I had a semi-total freak out and swam back to the boat (with a big L for loser on my swim-capped forehead) after only about .1 miles.  Meanwhile, my 9-year old was just as happy as can be and kept swimming all the way to shore (make that a bolded, bright red, capital L on my forehead).

I got in the boat and was immediately disappointed that I didn’t stick it out and that a child, who has not been training diligently for a triathlon, did better than me.  My husband encouraged me to get back in, but by then I was beaten down and pissed off (okay, so maybe I’ll only do the bike and run legs of the race).

I’m definitely going to try the open-water thing several more times over the next few weeks.  I’m discouraged by my first attempt, but it’s all good and it’s not a challenge if it’s easy, right? (please say ‘Right’)