Triathlete- March 2011

Since some of you have shown an interest in my healthy living journey, I thought I write a monthly blog post to share how I'm progressing towards my triathlon goal. Here are my results for the month of March.

For the 31 days in the month of March, I trained 27 days and had 4 days off.

Bike
For my first full month with the new bike, I had 8 rides. Almost all of these were after a swim lesson. I feel like I'm making a bit of progress and am feeling steadier. On my last ride this month, I was able to lift my hand off the handlebars and adjust my cadence computer. Lifting hands off safely is a good thing!

Even with a good pair of biking shorts, I'm still having lots of discomfort from the bike seat. My trainer, Joy, suggested some name brands of other shorts to try. It's not my lungs nor my legs that hold me back in a bike ride. It's pain in my seat!

When I read about bikers and talk to a few of them, they talk about their day's bike mileage in the 20-100 mile range. And I just laugh. I'm still trying not to fall off! At first, I could only ride for about 30 minutes. Now I'm up to 55 minutes and I plan on staying on for over an hour in April. My maximum mileage for a ride is 11 miles. A far cry from 20 or more. But I have seen some progress this month so I'm happy with that.

In addition to 8 rides this month, I also attended 3 RPM spin classes.

Swim
I had 8 swim lessons this month and had 2 swim practices on my own. I was able to swim several 75's freestyle without stopping which I couldn't do last month. My kick has improved and I'm feeling more comfortable during practice. At the start of the month, I would complete around 1500 yards during a lesson but the majority of that would be with a kickboard and fins. Now I complete 1800 - 2000 yards per lesson and over half of that is without fins. I have a great rapport with my trainer Gus. I feel very blessed to get to have these lessons with him.

Run
On 4/11, I was doing a quick run on the treadmill at the gym. My trainer Joy came over and said, "You are killing me running like this. We have to fix this." When an Ironman champion wants to help you with your running form for free, you pay attention! She had me tilt forward and positioned my arms until she was happy with my form. Then she increased my speed and told me to keep the speed there and to memorize that form. I did and I ran faster than I ever had before.

Because of the tweaks in my running form, I was able to get some faster speeds this month. Check it out.

Tempo runs:
5 miles in 47 minutes. 9:40 pace Ran a negative split for the first time.
4 miles in 37 minutes. 9:25 pace The day Joy worked with me.
5 miles in 44 minutes. 8:80 pace. First time I've run under 9min mile pace.
4 miles in 35 minutes. 8:75 pace
3 miles in 27 minutes. 9:00 pace

Long Run:
11 miles in 1:50. 10:00 pace
7.56 miles in 1:11. 9:39 pace
12 miles in 1:55. 9:58 pace

Strength
My trainer Joy is still kicking my but every Tuesday morning. I completed 5 strength training sessions with her and did 3 sessions on my own.

Other
Body Combat
Oh, how I love my Tuesday morning Body Combat classes. I got in 4 classes this month and I simply love them. I get to "punch" out any aggression and the class leaves my shoulders and glutes sore for days.

Weight
All of this cross-training continues to shape my body. Even though I'm not trying to lose more weight, I dropped five pounds from February. I'm now at 120 and will be more than happy if I can hold my weight there for a while.

And that's the end of another month! Thanks for reading.

If you are interested, here are more posts about the journey.

February 2011 summary
January 2011 summary
December 2010 summary


Goal: Triathlon in 2012- initial post from December 2010
One Little Word: Triathlete post