Last Week’s Workouts

Since I’ve stopped working and my kids are no longer in daycare, their “social” time is at our gym’s daycare (I call it Gym School 🙂 ). They love going there. And I love that I get 2 full hours of being able to do what I want–and sometimes that’s absolutely nothing, lol! #keepingitreal

We’ve gotten into a routine now of going every day M-F and that has helped me get into a good workout routine. This was the third week in a row where I worked out 5 or more times.

Monday–was a rest day. I had worked out the 3 days prior (400 yd swim, 8 miles, 8 miles) so I was beat.

Tuesday — Comfortable 5 miler at 8:58/mile.

Wednesday–I got on the stationary bike for 8 miles on the interval setting. I wanted to hit 8 miles as that is the bike distance for my first tri this weekend. I got in some core work and MYRTLES (thanks Allison!) afterward.

Thursday–This was going to be a run day but my buddy Olivia @BalancingMommy invited me to spin class. I remembered my tough 8 miler the day before but said yes anyway, lol.

It was a fun, hard class as that’s usually the case with the couple of times I’ve done spin. I love sweating and spin never disappoints, ja!

13.8 miles!

13.8 miles!

Friday–I have quite a few friends doing the tri I’m doing, and one of them, T, wanted to do a trial run of the whole thing. The whole thing. I remembered my tough bike 8 miler on Wednesday, and my tough 13. 8 miler at spin on Thursday, but said yes anyway, lol! (Noticing a theme here??)

So we did 400m in the pool first. This was so ridiculously hard. I stopped after each 50 to make sure I was still alive. I tried my hardest to keep the pauses short and there were a few times I had to stop in between, but I finished. I was so happy I finished. And I was really happy that I’d agreed to do it because it definitely helped build my confidence going into the real thing.

Then we got on the bike for 8 miles. We kept this at a low, easy setting so it wasn’t hard. The real thing though? HILLS. Lots of them. Olivia, my spin class buddy, did this tri last year and said people were walking their bikes up the hills. Yikes.

Finally, after the bike we immediately went to the treadmills. T showed me the new treadys that I hadn’t seen as I don’t usually venture to that side of the gym. They were Woodways!! I only know of Woodway treadmills because of my buddy RunEMZ who has done 100 milers on them (yes, you read that right). Once I got on it, I could tell why she loved running on her Woody. It was such a smooth ride! I finished my 2 miler (the real thing will be 2.5 and outside) feeling accomplished. I finished!!

 

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Saturday–The logical thing to do would be rest but you know that’s not how I roll. I woke in the morning and met up with T yet again for a 10 miler. We started at 5:45, got 4 miles, then swung back and met up with the rest of our friends for the final 6 which we negative split!!

First four

First four

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Negative split!

After all of that, my husband and I took our kids to our local Beer & BBQ festival 🙂

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I was def up for a break and took a nice rest day on Sunday 🙂 Overall, it was a great week of working out. I did neglect my core and MYRTLES a bit but am resolved to pick it up again this week.

Swim : 400m Bike : 29.8 miles Run : 17 miles

Now it’s a mini taper leading up to my first tri this Saturday!! Eeeeep!!

–How was your workout week?

–Have you ever done a tri? How did your first one go? Just to put it out there, I’m terrified, lol!!!

 

No Running–Week 4 Recap

Okay, this is no running business is starting to get hard….

I miss running. BUT, instead of being a negative Nancy, I got my butt in the gym last week to get my workout on in other ways.

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#igotthis

Monday was my first day of vacation (aka: no work and kids still in school) and I did some Christmas shopping, got in some good walking, and wondered why I didn’t wear a pedometer or something.

I met one of my running buddies at the gym Tuesday morning for my first official attempt at swimming . We were there for a good hour and I learned how to put on a water cap and goggles, swim without plugging my nose with my hand, and the 1-2-3 breathe method. I felt like a rockstar when I finished because I felt like I accomplished so much–and I had!

I abhor wearing bathing suits so getting in one is something huge for me; I went in knowing absolutely nothing about swimming and managed to freestyle swim without looking completely ridiculous; opening my eyes underwater and swimming without plugging my nose were things I just never did. It took a while for me to get used to trusting the goggles and practice not breathing/swallowing in water but after a while, I managed to somewhat get it down. I was SO thankful for my patient friend T–I would never have attempted the feat on my own.

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Wednesday I met up with the same friend at the gym. Technically I was supposed to wait for my check-up on Monday for bike clearance but I’m pretty confident I’ll get it so I went with her to spin promising myself I would take it easy–especially whenever I had to stand on the bike.

And I was completely fine. Still no pain and I def took it easy–so much so, I felt like the instructor was pointing me out when she yelled, “If you’re not dying then you’re not riding hard enough!” I wanted to tell her I was new (and injured), lol!

Sssh! My first time spinning!

Sssh! My first time spinning!

I was back in the pool Thursday and I felt like the honeymoon was over. I had left Tuesday feeling good about how I’d done with my swimming attempts but that morning, I felt like I had regressed. I wasn’t breathing correctly, my butt/hips were sinking, and my strokes were all over the place. We practiced a few things to help correct them and then jumped in the hot tub to recover. I was pooped!

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It was Christmas Eve and my kids left Santa cookies and carrots for his reindeer. My little guy wanted to eat Santa’s cookies sooooo bad.

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Pleeeeease Mommy!!??

Fridays are my usual rest days and I did just that. It was a nice relaxed Christmas and we hung out in our jammies all day. It was perfect.

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My Christmas present to Mom ❤ #adeletickets

And I did do a one minute plank before bed too 😀

My husband ran his 16 miler Saturday morning like the machine that he is–he’ll be running Phoenix Marathon–and I hung out with the kids all morning. I did a short arm/upper body workout before bed and called it a day. I’ve been looking at some good, short routines I could do at home to work my upper body. Any recs?

Sunday I was back at the pool. My friend T, and two other buddies joined me and we worked on a few things to help with my breathing and strokes. After a few tries, I felt improvement and that made me feel better. Swimming is hard. I like hard, but I also like feeling like I’m at least progressing and not wasting people’s time. My friends are amazing and would never feel that way, but you guys know what I mean.

My first check-up is Monday, today, and I’m nervous. I never felt any pain so it’s hard for me to gauge if my injury has been improving. I’m just hoping whatever he sees on the x-rays shows things are going the way they should. I want to run!

I’ll update on Instagram 🙂 Hope you all have a great week!!!

–How was your Christmas? (If you celebrate)

–Do you think swimming is hard? What tips can you offer me?