Today I swam 1500 yards, biked 5.5 miles on the stationary and then ran a mile on the treadmill.
I can't tell you how happy I was, and still am, five hours later. I feel, finally, like this is possible.
The swimming thing has been conquered. I struggled, at the beginning, to complete 800 yards in 20 minutes. This afternoon, I did 1500 yards in 30 minutes. Actually, closer to 29, 28 minutes. Can you believe that shit?
There is so much you have to think of while doing the swim. Before I would just try (tri?) to finish it, without a single thought to form, but today, I was swiveling my body left and right, like a corkscrew sort of, I was reaching as far away from my toes as I could with each stroke. I attempted to keep my extended arm straight out while breathing for air, before following through with the stroke. I wriggled and swam like a quick little minnow. Well, a six foot long minnow with love handles, boob fat and blackheads.
It's crazy how fast 1500 yards goes by when you're used to chugging along for 2,025.
After that swim, I hauled ass into the shower, toweled off and rushed to the locker room to change. Other women, busy chatting about blahblah, seemed a little weirded out about my hurry. But whatever, I didn't care. I do know, however, that I will need ear plugs for my triathlon swim. No amount of stomping, head shaking, finger-digging, could let the water out of my ears. It was actually a slightly gross feeling, while biking and running.
I bustled into Gold Gym's cardio theater and got my butt on the bike. My sore butt on the bike, since I have recently been using my dad's hardcore super rad mountain bike for my outdoor rides, and the seat is basically a bike-seat-shaped brick of horror.
But I persevered! Plus I got to watch Rocky. I have never seen Rocky, and suddenly I am really wanting to see the whole thing. Anyways. 5.5 miles later, in that hot ass room of sweaty people, I hopped off, cleaned the bike and then hopped onto a treadmill.
Well, four minutes after going for 6mph, I had to scale back to 5.5mph. Turns out swimming and biking can negatively affect your running speed. Thank God for Rocky! I hung in there, finished up my mile and dashed back home so I could cuddle my baby, coat the second half of my black and white cookies with the cocoa glaze, shower, eat dinner and come on here and brag about it on my blog.
But NO, wait! The real reason I'm blogging about it, is because I want more people to try (tri) this. This has been such an amazing journey. I used to be unable to complete a 20 minute swim without switching to backstroke, sidestroke or breast stroke due to the sheer fatigue, and the massive amounts of pool water I'd consumed. I used to not be able to ride a bike for more than 20, 30 minutes due to boredom or a sore ass. Running... well, I've always been fond of that, but to consider a run the easy portion of a workout? That's rad.
I'll never do an Ironman triathlon, but now I have something in common with those hardcore honey badgers: my run is officially my cool down portion of the workout. True, theirs is a marathon. But I don't care. Tonight I did an itty bitty triathlon, and all it did was make me 100% certain that this goal, a full sprint triathlon, is MINE.
It's yours, too. If you dare to tri.
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