Two for the price of One

Blogs, that is!

1) Sunday: Training Triathlon.
Let me begin by saying, WOW, what a day Sunday was. Not only was I committed to the TNT training tri but my husband and I had to move out of our house in Lexington! Can we say CRAZY!?!! But, hey, I work well under pressure so why not? So while our husbands and my in-laws begin the feat of packing our house, Lindsy and I begin our training tri with the swim portion. The point of this day was to get a feel for the course and you could do however much you wanted. (see Lindsy's blog for more details...she's great at capturing the moment! http://lindsystnttri.blogspot.com/) The swim went okay, I definitely need to work on my endurance and keeping my goggles from fogging up. I couldn't freestyle the whole thing (I only did 600 of the 800 meters) and had to bring in other random swimming techniques to finish--it wasn't pretty, but I finished. And I realized I can do all 800 if I put my mind to it..I just need to learn a few breathing techniques to make this easier on myself. Next up: the 18 mile bike portion. It was AWESOME. I absolutely love to bike. Check out this site for the course we rode http://www.onemillionrevolutions.org/maps/map.php?ID=664. I felt great and loved every minute of it. It is times like this when I am so thankful for my health and the opportunity to do this with my best friend.

After the training tri, Lindsy and I high-tailed it back to my house to pack! There really isn't much to say about it, but that it was stressful and not so much fun. I have a mixture of emotions in moving out of our first house. We had a lot of good times there, and the four years passed so quickly. I cannot believe we are moving back to Western KY. So, we loaded up the ginormous truck and my in-laws drove it to our new house. Unfortunately they hit a minor snafoo in the process of parking the truck in the driveway of the new house. Long story short, the driveway is at a relatively steep angle and at 11:00 last night, they got the truck stuck in between the driveway and the road with the rear wheels not in contact with the ground!! Josh and I felt so bad that they had to deal with this through the middle of the night (we were still in Lexington) but thankfully they managed to get it fixed. Needless to say it was a stressful day/night.

2) Monday: Brick Training Session
What's a brick you say? No, it isn't an architectural piece, but rather a combo bike/run. And not an easy thing to do!! You kinda feel like you may have hit a BRICK wall afterwards!! Or your quads feel like bricks... Whatever, it is a great way to practice transitioning from the bike portion to the run portion of an event. Tonight, we biked about 3 miles and then ran 5 minutes. We did this combo 3 times. The mileage and minutes don't sound like much, but by the end I was spent!! It is a very weird feeling to run after just biking hard. Coach Susan mentioned it felt like you were marching (especially if you don't stretch well before the run..yes, while still on the bike), and she is very correct! It is difficult to make your legs change so abruptly from one activity to another! Tomorrow, working on the swim!

The hysteria that is Long Course

This morning was mine and Lindsy's first time swimming the long course at the pool. I can't speak for anyone else, but I have a difficult time doing the basic swim so I was pretty nervous about doubling the length and practice time and pretending to be a real swimmer. Luckily, Susan (our coach) let Lindsy, Jackie, and me stay in a lane next to the wall so that if we needed to, we could hold on and prevent drowning. We also shared a lane with a man who was a new swimmer (even newer than us!). Let the laughter begin!!

Because there were 4 of us in the lane, we did a circle swim where you swim up one side of the lane and back down the other. Well, we were swimming swimming swimming and I am kinda fast (haven't figured out how to pace myself yet) and was swimming behind the man in our lane. I was doing a drill where one arm remains out in front the whole time and you essentially swim on your side, stroking with the other arm. I was going along, trying to keep in mind all the things I needed to work on, when my front hand ran into something soft. I jolted up because I was only 1/2 way down the pool and didn't see anything ahead of me, that's when I realized that my hand went right into this poor man's crotch!!!! Oh wow. He is probably scarred for life.

THEN, Susan asked us to put these floaty things between our ankles. We learned they are called Pull Buoys, and they force you to use only your upper body to pull yourself across the pool! I.e. no kicking. This has to be the most difficult thing I have done in the pool yet, not being able to kick makes you feel like you aren't going anywhere and you struggle to make your arms move. Then panic sets in. Your arms sting from doing all the work. Breathing becomes extremely difficult. You flounder in the water (right underneath the life-guard's nose--I am sure she was laughing her bum off) and pray no one is watching. Finally, you realize it's ok that you look ridiculous and you begin to get the giggles, underwater. This turns into full fledged laughter in the middle of the swim lane, and you cannot touch! Lindsy and I actually went to the side so we wouldn't drown! Oh, it was fun. Sometimes you just have to laugh at yourself. But I will say, after practicing with the pull buoys for 200 meters, I was able to swim much better and felt better about it too!

Pull Buoy

SO, all-in-all it was a wonderful swim. Yes, it was longer. But I know I can do it and that makes me feel much better about the actual race in October. The laughter and having my best friend there makes it so much more enjoyable, and I think the fact that the lane is longer makes me pace myself so I don't feel as out of breath towards the end...I don't know what it was but I liked this swim better than any other yet!

Sometimes you just gotta bite the bullet

This week I received very little sleep, and went to bed really late last night since I was waiting for Josh to get home (yay!). Obviously, I knew I needed to get to bed early for my 7 am run this morning--it didn't happen--and when my alarm sounded I turned it off and decided I needed the rest. It wasn't too much longer before my partner in crime (Lindsy) called me and woke me up. She always feels bad when she wakes me up, but this morning I needed it. During my brief conversation with Lindsy (and despite my early morning confusion) I remembered why I am doing this. A child with leukemia must face their disease every day, all day. I only have to face the early morning run for a quick moment, once I am up and on my way it isn't that bad. It was a rough start, I really wasn't feeling it...but I guess sometimes you just have to bite the bullet. Despite the early morning toughness, I managed to get in a good 4 miles today!! It was so nice to be running with my friends (another friend, Billie, met us out there for the second half of the run). Tomorrow should be interesting, it will be my first time doing the "long swim" with actual swimmers. Stay tuned for that!