AHH, IT'S GOING

Some lovely friends have asked me how my training is going. These people are kind, and they mean well. They may actually care about my training and or athletic prowess, although for the most part I think they are just being thoughtful.

My pat response has been "Ahh, its going." What this really means is I am running, biking and swimming when I can, but it's not the highlight of my life.

Henri  Nouwen is actually the current highlight of my life but alas I will save my love for Henri for another day. (Henri is pictured here for fun).

Swimming is good. But for the Division I Varsity swimmer who beat my tail back and forth at the RAC pool last week, I have felt strong and confident in the water. I have also enjoyed swimming more than I have in years which to me is a great blessing.

Biking has been fine. I have yet to face plant and I have decided the biking shorts with room for two may not be a great fit, so I am in the market for shorts that only have room for one person. This is a good start on the bike I think.

The real hard part has been running. I have been jogging, and jogging and jogging more, yet I am still terrible at it. It's hot out, my legs feel heavy and I generally count down the minutes until I am at home sipping something cold. That was until last night. Last night I went for a late jog - goal, 32 minutes or around 3.2 miles.

According to http://www.mapmyrun.com/ - it wasn't actually a 3.2 miler - more like a 3 miler, but it didn't hurt and I only looked at my watch once. This friends, is a mini miracle. For the first time in years, I ran and didn't hate every step.

I came home excited, almost thrilled. I told Whit the run was so not bad, so surprisingly not terrible, it was almost fun.

So ask me today how the training is going and I won't say "Ahh, its going." I will say - "It's going well, thank you" and I will maintain this sentiment until the next time I go for a jog and hate every minute.

MAP MY FUN RUN

After the "I told you so" incident with my husband over the weekend, I decided I needed a triathlon plan. (read the Mule post if you were not unaware of my stubborn issues).

Why do I need a plan?

Because even lolly gaggers need to do the miles.... There I said it. I can't do this triathlon thing without training my body to swim, bike and run.

For now, I have set my training plan to be pretty general:
1 hour in the pool a week
10 miles running a week
20 miles on the bike (yes, a week)

Tonight I went for another fun run. I refuse to call it a run because statistically speaking, I wasn't running. According to Mapmyrun.com (which by the way is a great website) I ran 2.73 miles. According to my Mother's stove, I was out for 30 minutes.

That's not very fast, thus the fun run title.

Again, my attempt to do math is pretty awful: 2.73 / 30 = 1/n .... So N, means I was running almost 11 min. miles. Wow. That might be a new speed record for slowest run of all times. I am pretty sure there were nursing home patients in the ER I passed walking faster. I saw at least one woman who was probably 8 months pregnant, pushing 2 kids in a stroller, jogging at a better pace that I was.

So while I felt good about my attempt at running 3 miles, and proud that I did not need to stop or ask to borrow the 2L of O2 the nursing home patient in the ER was pulling behind him, I have a room for improvement.

I also need to run 7.23 more miles this week... and walk my Dogs, bike 20 miles, clean my house, argue stuff for clients, wear a suit to work, swim for another 20 minutes and clean the hair out of my bathroom drain.

It could be a busy week. If my hip and knee get their way, I may also be going to buy new running shoes. Ok, I meant fun run shoes.

Until then, I may email that pregnant lady and ask if she wants to race. I could maybe take her if she goes into labor.