Tri Training Week 2

Tri Club training is in it's second week, and already it seems like it's been longer than that.  But things are going swimmingly (ha!).

Hubby came by a decent racing bike, via a generous co-worker who does longer length races and bought a newer one a while back.  Price was a donation to the animal shelter and we can deal with that.  The bike is currently being tuned up, with some new parts and tires, at Spoke Cycles, a new shop in Wake Forest for roughly $200 or so - not too bad.  Bike currently has clip-in pedals and he's going to give that a go as that will be new for him.  I prefer to stick with my regular pedals on my Giant Escape hybrid.  I have no desire for a racing bike right now.  I was able to eek out a respectable 16 mph in my first race and I expect to do better this time around.  So, I'm good.

First night of training was Run Club, where we did warm-ups and dynamic stretching, a timed 1 mile test (10:30 for me, 7:30 for hubby), etc.  First night of Tri Club training included core weight training - lots of planks and TRX - and a half hour of swimming (about 800 yards), followed by four days of stomach soreness like you would not believe.  Guess my core needs some work!

A 400 yard and 100 yard swim test a few days later put me at about 1:45 or thereabout for my swim time.  Also expecting that to improve.  Haven't really been in the water much lately, after all.

The following week included time in the pool -  2000 yards of snaking, alternating easy and fast swimming, more core work and cycling, Run Club with hill repeats, more cycling class (too cold to go outside), then another class with 600 yards of snaking (sets of 150 followed by running up and back down the outside stairs to get used to the transition for the race), and a 5k run-through of the run course.  I was supposed to swim today, but it's supposed to snow and the kiddos are off school, so I will do it later this week!

All in all, it's going well.  I tweaked a stomach muscle during the timed swim test, but that seems to be improving, and my core muscle soreness has subsided.  Right calf is tight, but that is pretty usual for me.  I did not like the run course for the race.  There's a fair amount of off road / loose gravel to it and I can't really understand why the race organizers couldn't come up with an all-paved option.  It's a weird course, and kind of dicey if you ask me.  But, I'm easily completing a 5k now and that's a huge improvement over last year.  Running is not my thing.

In all events, I can safely say that I am built more for endurance than speed.  Sigh.  Hubby is better than me.  And he's competitive - voted most likely to get caught up in the whole race thing, but more on that later.  It's been fun, and nice to know that a 43-year-old broad can still hang.  Cheers!