Where to begin? Do I start with the weight loss frustration? Do I start with the decision to postpone participating in the Half-Ironman Aquabike? Do I start with the massive, painful sunburn?
I guess I'll start with postponing the race. Before you freak out and think of me as a quitter, know I am still doing the swim race in June, the sprint Aquabike in July, and hope to do other swim races the rest of the summer. I have decided, after biking 25 windy, hilly miles of the 56 mile race route last Friday, that there just isn't a good chance that I will be ready within 3 months to do that race. I was never looking to compete, but I wanted to be able to finish. Well, it took me 3 hours just to ride 25 miles. There just isn't any way that I will be able to basically cut my time in half by September. Ok, there is a way, but it would require spending every waking moment working or biking, and I'm just not willing to do that. I have a family I want to spend time with, and want to enjoy life. I have an incredible amount of admiration for all of you who are gearing up for, or gearing down from, long bike races (Century Gary), running races (Melisa), and Ironman Triathlons (Dave and Emilie). Ultimately, after riding with David on Friday, I had to really think through what I am doing this for. I am doing it for my health and happiness. I was absolutely miserable on that ride. I really love riding 15-20 miles on bike trails. More than that, I just do not enjoy myself anymore. I realized that if I continued to push to ride 40-60 miles in the next 2 months, that I would not enjoy it. That would lead me to quit as soon as the race is over, which is pretty much the opposite of my purpose. I wanted to participate in these races as a way to keep myself in shape and active, not as a way to burn myself out. So, after talking things over with David, I decided, at this time, a 1.2 mile swim and 56 mile bike just isn't going to work for me.
This decision happened the same day I got a massive sunburn. I put sunscreen on, but didn't see the spot between the bottom of my shirt and top of my waistband. See, when I'm standing up the shirt and bike shorts connected...Well, leaning over on bicycle handbars for 3 hours I exposed the small of my back. It's painful, full of blisters and bright red. This is 4 days later... I can't wear anything with a waistband right now, or even think of putting on a bathing suit. So, I guess it's a recovery week for me...I'm hoping that it will feel better tomorrow so that I can start to train again, but figure it's got to be better by Thursday, right?
The weight loss problem is on-going. It came to a head last week. I watch what I ate Tuesday-Friday. No wine, no dessert, low carbs, healthy food, healthy choices. I was down to 178.6 Friday morning and the same Friday after the ride. 3 hours of riding in tough conditions, I figured I'd earned a bit of a reward, so I ate Chinese Friday night for dinner. 2 veggie egg rolls, fried rice, and Sesame Chicken. Yes, I know, terrible dinner, but I rode for 3 hours and had only protein drinks and a cliff bar the rest of the day! Weighing in on Saturday morning, I gained 2 pounds! Look, if biking for 3 hours can't earn me the right to eat Chinese one meal and maintain my weight, then something is wrong. So, I made an appointment for lab work and seeing my doctor. I just can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. It's so frustrating. I wouldn't care about giving up alcohol, desserts, and carbs most of the time, but really feel that I should be able to indulge after a long training session without losing all progress from the week.
So, now starts a new week. Once I can get back in the pool or back into bike shorts, I'm going to start focusing on enjoying my workouts. I'm going to increase swimming to a mile and a half, and focus biking on 15-20 mile bike trail rides. Each activity 3 times a week, and hopefully alot of the bike rides with David. I am planning on focusing eating protein and produce only for the next week and a half, staying away from alcohol and desserts in Vegas, and maintaining protein, produce, and healthy carbs eating for the rest of the summer. Maybe my doctor will find a reason that things aren't working the way I think they should, or maybe it's just alot harder now than it was 5 years ago.
Tuesday, May 31, 2011
Monday, May 23, 2011
Any Encouragement Appreciated
I read other blogs that are much more enlightened than my own, much more gracious, focusing on others and expressing love and appreciation. They are truly selfless people. My blog is selfish and focused on me. I apologize for that, especially the following post...
2 months ago, I started training for the Sprint Triathlon. The real purpose of the training and the race was to have a goal, a reason to exercise, and a reason to stick with it. I figured that in changing my habits from rarely working out to working out 6 days a week, I would just naturally lose weight. I made the committment to swim and/or bike for at least half an hour those 6 days a week. Now, I'm up to a mile of swimming, which takes 45 minutes, on swimming days and am supposed to be biking at least 25 miles on biking days.
Now, to be completely honest, the last two weeks I've cheated some on the biking. I only biked 2 days, swimming 4 days, the week before last and last week I biked 3 days, but did those workouts on the trainer due to time and weather constraints. I can only last about and hour and a half on the trainer on any given day, which I know translates to 20 miles or less rather than the 25-30 miles I was supposed to ride last week. The weather has been rather rainy on days that I have time to ride outside, but that's really an excuse. Mostly, I'm just frustrated. Since I enjoy biking less than swimming, biking suffers when I'm frustrated.
I did this to lose weight. I didn't have those wonderful personal goals, like wanting to do a race to push myself to my limits, or wanting to participate in an Ironman. My goal was to lose weight, be skinny again, and be happy when I look in the mirror. Really, part of it is that I want people to look at David and think how lucky he is to have a pretty wife. I know, it's petty and superficial, but if I can't be honest in a blog...
Therein lies my problem. I've increased my activity incredibly in the past 2 months, but I'm not losing weight. Since beginning training, I've only lost 5 permanent pounds. I was once down to 179.6 for a day, but have kind of stuck at 181. Part of the problem is that I tell myself, well, I swam 1 mile today, so I can eat this. Another part is that I just love sweets. I know I've said this before, but if it's there, I'll eat it, and I have a hard time not buying it. I use any excuse: friends coming over for dinner, kids have been good so lets go get ice cream, birthday parties, tough weeks, and any other convenient reason I can come up with. I've become known as the person who makes desserts, so I use that as a reason to make desserts for any occasion. The last part that is a challenge to losing weight is that I'm so frakking HUNGRY after I work out. I'll get home and grab a bag of chips and a handful of M&Ms. The sad thing is, I won't even think about the bowl of apples or the bunch of bananas sitting on the counter. I go right for the bad stuff.
I really despise that the working out isn't enough. It makes me resentful that I spend at least an hour a day now swimming or biking, yet I'm not losing weight and now I have to suck up the fact that I'm going to have to watch what I eat on top of training 1-3 hours a day, 6 days a week. I'm just so upset that now I'm going to have to stop eating what I want and stop drinking what I want, too. I'm pretty sure I've been here before, and said the same stuff, so you can see how much I am trying to avoid this step.
I remember when I started this, that I wanted to be in the 140s by the time our 10 year anniversary came along. Well, 2 months from now we celebrate that anniversary and I've made very little progress towards that goal. A little less than 6 years ago, I weighed 130 pounds. I lost 65 pounds in 8 months back then. Now, I've only lost 5 pounds in 2 months and really almost all of that was in the first month. The more frustrated I get with the weight loss part, the more frustrated I get with being a size 16, the less I enjoy working out. I have this friend who only has to workout 3 times a week, maybe 4 times, for an hour and she loses weight without having to watch what she eats. Not that she needed to lose weight in the first place, and I'm so jealous.
This whole thing makes me feel so shallow. I know that what really makes a person a good person is what's inside, so why do I care about my outside so much? I justify it with statements about how being 180 pounds isn't healthy, and I want to be healthy and live a long life for my kids. But really, it's mostly about me judging myself on my appearances. I want to be that size 6 again. I miss what I looked like in high school. I miss the attention, really, for my looks. Which is completely against every bone in my body, and completely against everything I want to teach my own kids. It's a good thing they're not reading this...
2 months ago, I started training for the Sprint Triathlon. The real purpose of the training and the race was to have a goal, a reason to exercise, and a reason to stick with it. I figured that in changing my habits from rarely working out to working out 6 days a week, I would just naturally lose weight. I made the committment to swim and/or bike for at least half an hour those 6 days a week. Now, I'm up to a mile of swimming, which takes 45 minutes, on swimming days and am supposed to be biking at least 25 miles on biking days.
Now, to be completely honest, the last two weeks I've cheated some on the biking. I only biked 2 days, swimming 4 days, the week before last and last week I biked 3 days, but did those workouts on the trainer due to time and weather constraints. I can only last about and hour and a half on the trainer on any given day, which I know translates to 20 miles or less rather than the 25-30 miles I was supposed to ride last week. The weather has been rather rainy on days that I have time to ride outside, but that's really an excuse. Mostly, I'm just frustrated. Since I enjoy biking less than swimming, biking suffers when I'm frustrated.
I did this to lose weight. I didn't have those wonderful personal goals, like wanting to do a race to push myself to my limits, or wanting to participate in an Ironman. My goal was to lose weight, be skinny again, and be happy when I look in the mirror. Really, part of it is that I want people to look at David and think how lucky he is to have a pretty wife. I know, it's petty and superficial, but if I can't be honest in a blog...
Therein lies my problem. I've increased my activity incredibly in the past 2 months, but I'm not losing weight. Since beginning training, I've only lost 5 permanent pounds. I was once down to 179.6 for a day, but have kind of stuck at 181. Part of the problem is that I tell myself, well, I swam 1 mile today, so I can eat this. Another part is that I just love sweets. I know I've said this before, but if it's there, I'll eat it, and I have a hard time not buying it. I use any excuse: friends coming over for dinner, kids have been good so lets go get ice cream, birthday parties, tough weeks, and any other convenient reason I can come up with. I've become known as the person who makes desserts, so I use that as a reason to make desserts for any occasion. The last part that is a challenge to losing weight is that I'm so frakking HUNGRY after I work out. I'll get home and grab a bag of chips and a handful of M&Ms. The sad thing is, I won't even think about the bowl of apples or the bunch of bananas sitting on the counter. I go right for the bad stuff.
I really despise that the working out isn't enough. It makes me resentful that I spend at least an hour a day now swimming or biking, yet I'm not losing weight and now I have to suck up the fact that I'm going to have to watch what I eat on top of training 1-3 hours a day, 6 days a week. I'm just so upset that now I'm going to have to stop eating what I want and stop drinking what I want, too. I'm pretty sure I've been here before, and said the same stuff, so you can see how much I am trying to avoid this step.
I remember when I started this, that I wanted to be in the 140s by the time our 10 year anniversary came along. Well, 2 months from now we celebrate that anniversary and I've made very little progress towards that goal. A little less than 6 years ago, I weighed 130 pounds. I lost 65 pounds in 8 months back then. Now, I've only lost 5 pounds in 2 months and really almost all of that was in the first month. The more frustrated I get with the weight loss part, the more frustrated I get with being a size 16, the less I enjoy working out. I have this friend who only has to workout 3 times a week, maybe 4 times, for an hour and she loses weight without having to watch what she eats. Not that she needed to lose weight in the first place, and I'm so jealous.
This whole thing makes me feel so shallow. I know that what really makes a person a good person is what's inside, so why do I care about my outside so much? I justify it with statements about how being 180 pounds isn't healthy, and I want to be healthy and live a long life for my kids. But really, it's mostly about me judging myself on my appearances. I want to be that size 6 again. I miss what I looked like in high school. I miss the attention, really, for my looks. Which is completely against every bone in my body, and completely against everything I want to teach my own kids. It's a good thing they're not reading this...
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Going it alone
I cherish swimming alone. Not quite alone, I guess, I like it when there's one person per lane. So much so that I try to find times in the pool when there aren't alot of other people. It's not so much about the crowd, really, it's about the rhythm. There's just something about the sound of the water splashing by just one or two other people. There's something cool about being able to watch (since I swim the breaststroke I can watch others) other swimmers. Some are almost silent, which I love. Watching them is almost mesmerizing and serene. Some others splash alot and seem to work so hard at swimming. Some of the splashers are consistent and give me great white noise. Others are just noisy with no real rhythm, but they make me feel good about myself :-) I really love it when there is a "mature" lady in the lane next to me who is doing solo water aerobics. They always just look so happy and peaceful.
I like swimming in the afternoons the best. The mornings tend to have mostly very serious, very skilled swimmers. I feel like the ugly duckling in the mornings. In the afternoons, it seems like the other swimmers are more on my level. They're there for a good workout and to improve, and I somehow feel less intimidated.
I just love the "zoning out" part of swimming. It's the combination of white noise, repetition, cool water, and the amazing way I feel tired and invigorated all at the same time.
I feel very differently about biking. I don't know why. I enjoy the after-effects of biking. I love that I can say I rode 20 miles. I love that I feel nice and tired. I definitely feel like I've worked out hard on the biking days. Biking, though, makes me lonely. While I love swimming alone, I don't always enjoy biking alone. When I'm biking with someone else, on the very rare occasion, I push myself harder. When I'm by myself, I'm slower, and just want to get it done. Biking is the time that I really wish I was training with others. Maybe it's because the biking days are long workout days or maybe it's because I don't enjoy biking as much as swimming, but I just wish that I had someone to bike with. David can't exactly bike with me, since the kids are too big to ride in trailer and too small to keep up with us. I'd rather save the sitter opportunities for actual date nights.
30 more minutes of working alone, and I can go enjoy the white noise of swimming alone.
I like swimming in the afternoons the best. The mornings tend to have mostly very serious, very skilled swimmers. I feel like the ugly duckling in the mornings. In the afternoons, it seems like the other swimmers are more on my level. They're there for a good workout and to improve, and I somehow feel less intimidated.
I just love the "zoning out" part of swimming. It's the combination of white noise, repetition, cool water, and the amazing way I feel tired and invigorated all at the same time.
I feel very differently about biking. I don't know why. I enjoy the after-effects of biking. I love that I can say I rode 20 miles. I love that I feel nice and tired. I definitely feel like I've worked out hard on the biking days. Biking, though, makes me lonely. While I love swimming alone, I don't always enjoy biking alone. When I'm biking with someone else, on the very rare occasion, I push myself harder. When I'm by myself, I'm slower, and just want to get it done. Biking is the time that I really wish I was training with others. Maybe it's because the biking days are long workout days or maybe it's because I don't enjoy biking as much as swimming, but I just wish that I had someone to bike with. David can't exactly bike with me, since the kids are too big to ride in trailer and too small to keep up with us. I'd rather save the sitter opportunities for actual date nights.
30 more minutes of working alone, and I can go enjoy the white noise of swimming alone.
Monday, May 9, 2011
A renewed commitment
Last week was pretty tough, motivation-wise. I just wasn't motivated much for anything. The house was a and I had no motivation to clean it. The yard needed some serious help; vegetables needed to be planted, fencing needed to go up, lawn needed to be mowed, dog spots needed new grass seed, bird droppings needed to be cleaned off the deck. I needed to train 6 days of the week and just had no desire. I was pretty much burned out on everything.
I went to a clinic at Tribella on Wednesday night. Tribella is a women's only triathlon shop in downtown Denver. A friend invited me to go with her to hear a world-class (ranked #4 in the world) triathlete speak. Honestly, most of it was way over my head, although it was cool hearing about the elite athletes of the sport. One thing she said really resonated with me, though. She said, "You're not doing the race for the training, your training for the race." She was talking about not over-training and not overdoing it the week of the race. I really started thinking about what she was saying. I've been thinking about it for the past 4 days, actually. I discovered that, for me, I really am doing the race for the training. The race is my motivation to keep on training. I'm doing this to get healthy, lose weight, and to not cringe any time I look in the mirror or put on a pair of pants.
I think part of my problem last week was that I was so focused on the race that I forgot why I am doing it in the first place. I'm not racing to compete, I'm racing to train and I'm training to force the habit of exercise. I got so caught up in thinking about whether or not I will finish the race in September and got so down about it as right now I am about 4 mph short of what I need to be at on the bike that it killed my motivation. Combine that with trying to figure out the freestyle stroke instead of just sticking with what I know and enjoy, breaststroke, it made for a bad week.
Oh yeah, and I got a flat tire after missing the bike trail I was supposed to take on my long ride on Friday. I was going to ride from work to Cherry Creek to home. Coming back, I missed the Cherry Creek trail and ended up on Highline Canal Trail instead. No big deal, I was just going to ride to Emma's babysitter's house and meet David there instead of at home. Well, I hit a bump and got an instant flat tire. I had no idea where I was, really, until I finally crossed Mississippi and Parker Road. So, after riding 20 miles, I walked another 3 miles (shin splints burning pain) with the bike to Alameda and Dayton where my wonderful sister-in-law picked me up (Thanks Natalie). I really need to learn how to change a flat! By the time this rolled around, I was already lacking motivation.
So, yesterday I sat down with my training plan and mapped out what I am supposed to do each week. I realized that I've been swimming too much, so I cut that back to the amount of swimming on the training plan. I've also decided that, against most advice, I am going to just stick with breaststroke. If, in the July race, it just doesn't work out, I'll try to switch to freestyle by September. I just want to enjoy the workouts and not dread them. I also decided, after driving the race route and seeing how small to non-existent the bike lane is, that I will try to ride it once before the July race, but focus more on riding on trails where I enjoy riding. I'll get enough hill practice in just riding from work to home that I should gain strength and speed. Mostly, I decided that I need to arrange my training so that I will enjoy it; swimming when the pool is not crowded, doing the double workout day on Friday when I have time to myself and don't have to feel guilty, and finding nice bike trails to ride in the afternoons. I need to stop worrying about whether or not I can do the half-ironman race as: a) it is 4 months away and b) it really doesn't matter if I officially finish, it's the training and trying that matter most.
So this week, I have made a renewed commitment to training the right way. Training how and when I want to, not doing too much, and focusing on the original goal of looking good and feeling good.
I went to a clinic at Tribella on Wednesday night. Tribella is a women's only triathlon shop in downtown Denver. A friend invited me to go with her to hear a world-class (ranked #4 in the world) triathlete speak. Honestly, most of it was way over my head, although it was cool hearing about the elite athletes of the sport. One thing she said really resonated with me, though. She said, "You're not doing the race for the training, your training for the race." She was talking about not over-training and not overdoing it the week of the race. I really started thinking about what she was saying. I've been thinking about it for the past 4 days, actually. I discovered that, for me, I really am doing the race for the training. The race is my motivation to keep on training. I'm doing this to get healthy, lose weight, and to not cringe any time I look in the mirror or put on a pair of pants.
I think part of my problem last week was that I was so focused on the race that I forgot why I am doing it in the first place. I'm not racing to compete, I'm racing to train and I'm training to force the habit of exercise. I got so caught up in thinking about whether or not I will finish the race in September and got so down about it as right now I am about 4 mph short of what I need to be at on the bike that it killed my motivation. Combine that with trying to figure out the freestyle stroke instead of just sticking with what I know and enjoy, breaststroke, it made for a bad week.
Oh yeah, and I got a flat tire after missing the bike trail I was supposed to take on my long ride on Friday. I was going to ride from work to Cherry Creek to home. Coming back, I missed the Cherry Creek trail and ended up on Highline Canal Trail instead. No big deal, I was just going to ride to Emma's babysitter's house and meet David there instead of at home. Well, I hit a bump and got an instant flat tire. I had no idea where I was, really, until I finally crossed Mississippi and Parker Road. So, after riding 20 miles, I walked another 3 miles (shin splints burning pain) with the bike to Alameda and Dayton where my wonderful sister-in-law picked me up (Thanks Natalie). I really need to learn how to change a flat! By the time this rolled around, I was already lacking motivation.
So, yesterday I sat down with my training plan and mapped out what I am supposed to do each week. I realized that I've been swimming too much, so I cut that back to the amount of swimming on the training plan. I've also decided that, against most advice, I am going to just stick with breaststroke. If, in the July race, it just doesn't work out, I'll try to switch to freestyle by September. I just want to enjoy the workouts and not dread them. I also decided, after driving the race route and seeing how small to non-existent the bike lane is, that I will try to ride it once before the July race, but focus more on riding on trails where I enjoy riding. I'll get enough hill practice in just riding from work to home that I should gain strength and speed. Mostly, I decided that I need to arrange my training so that I will enjoy it; swimming when the pool is not crowded, doing the double workout day on Friday when I have time to myself and don't have to feel guilty, and finding nice bike trails to ride in the afternoons. I need to stop worrying about whether or not I can do the half-ironman race as: a) it is 4 months away and b) it really doesn't matter if I officially finish, it's the training and trying that matter most.
So this week, I have made a renewed commitment to training the right way. Training how and when I want to, not doing too much, and focusing on the original goal of looking good and feeling good.
Monday, May 2, 2011
Now, I'm nervous...
So, as I begin week 7 of training, a few thoughts continue to swim around this brain of mine...
First, it's only been 7 weeks?! I feel like I've been doing this forever. Granted, since being a mom my memory has been pretty shoddy. I can't remember movies. It's so bad that I'm frequently asking David, "Have we seen that movie?" only to get an eye-roll and laugh. However, I swear I've been doing this training way longer than 7 weeks. At the same time, it does make me feel a bit better about only losing 4 pounds since it's only been 7 weeks.
I would like to lose weight at a quicker rate, and am hoping to start that journey this week. However, today Gibson hit Emma hard enough to leave a big red mark and Emma told Gibson that no one loves him all in the span of me cooking dinner in time for David to leave for his hockey game. So, I took a bath and had a drink and chocolate. Oops. The rest of the week needs to shape up!
The other main stream of thoughts going through my head seems to be around nerves about signing up for the Half-Ironman Aquabike and thinking that I jumped the gun.
I've been counseled to work towards being able to do the freestyle swim stroke. I'm very nervous about this. Any time I try it, I get exhausted quickly, get water up my nose and dripping down my throat no matter how forcefully I breathe out or how much I breathe out using my nose,get out of breath quickly, and I feel like I'm going to drown. I can do the breaststroke for a mile and a half in an hour and 15 minutes. I enjoy it and can finish in under the race time cutoff. However, I've been told a range of things including: 1) I need to be able to swim freestyle before I can do a Half-Ironman, 2) I can't do breaststroke in a wetsuit, and 3) I'll end up kicking people if I do breaststroke, which will make me feel just terrible. So, I've been kind of freaking out about the swimming. I've signed up for a non-refundable race for which I was originally just worried about being able to finish the bike portion in the 4 hour time limit. Now I'm worrying, "What if I never get better at freestyle?" and "What if I never enjoy freestyle like I enjoy breaststroke?" I know I can finish the swim leg in time, but will I be the one idiot out there doing breaststroke and annoying all the other athletes.
Add to that my original nerves about the bike leg. I know I can finish the bike leg out of sheer will, but I am really unsure that I can complete it before the cutoff time. On my old bike, I made it the 15 miles to my parents' house in an hour and a half. That's 10 miles an hour. I figured that getting a new bike would make a big difference. However, I biked from Hinkley to home, 8 miles, on Friday in 50 minutes. Still 10 miles an hour. Granted, it's pretty much all uphill from Hinkley to home and I wasn't really pushing it, but I thought my time would improve some as a result of the new bike and couple weeks of additional training under my belt. I need to be riding at a speed of 14 miles an hour to finish the 56 miles in 4 hours.
So now, I'm nervous about both parts of the race. The problem with that is that I don't know which part to focus more training on. All of the training plans I've pulled from the internet are for triathlons. They have running as part of the training. So, do I turn the running workouts into biking workouts because my time is so bad on those, or on swimming workouts to try and become a freestyle swimmer?
The last thing cycling through my head is how do I allow myself time to train and get good enough to race without becoming a bad wife and mother? This morning, I had to cut my swim workout short because I had to get home to the kids and let David go to work. Then, I got off the bike trainer three times during a short 45 minute ride to get the kids breakfast, let the dogs out, and let the dogs back in. I'm frequently yelling at the kids not to touch the bike, as it's sitting in the middle of our family room/dining room area. Tomorrow, I have a meeting at 9am and another one after work until 6pm. I have to ride 45 minutes and "run" 30 minutes. So, do I swim 30 minutes in the morning (hardly seems worth getting up at 5 am, going to the gym to share a lane with at least 1 other person), swim 30 minutes after my 6pm meeting, or bike for an hour and 15 minutes?
Anyone out there wanna help me calm my nerves?
First, it's only been 7 weeks?! I feel like I've been doing this forever. Granted, since being a mom my memory has been pretty shoddy. I can't remember movies. It's so bad that I'm frequently asking David, "Have we seen that movie?" only to get an eye-roll and laugh. However, I swear I've been doing this training way longer than 7 weeks. At the same time, it does make me feel a bit better about only losing 4 pounds since it's only been 7 weeks.
I would like to lose weight at a quicker rate, and am hoping to start that journey this week. However, today Gibson hit Emma hard enough to leave a big red mark and Emma told Gibson that no one loves him all in the span of me cooking dinner in time for David to leave for his hockey game. So, I took a bath and had a drink and chocolate. Oops. The rest of the week needs to shape up!
The other main stream of thoughts going through my head seems to be around nerves about signing up for the Half-Ironman Aquabike and thinking that I jumped the gun.
I've been counseled to work towards being able to do the freestyle swim stroke. I'm very nervous about this. Any time I try it, I get exhausted quickly, get water up my nose and dripping down my throat no matter how forcefully I breathe out or how much I breathe out using my nose,get out of breath quickly, and I feel like I'm going to drown. I can do the breaststroke for a mile and a half in an hour and 15 minutes. I enjoy it and can finish in under the race time cutoff. However, I've been told a range of things including: 1) I need to be able to swim freestyle before I can do a Half-Ironman, 2) I can't do breaststroke in a wetsuit, and 3) I'll end up kicking people if I do breaststroke, which will make me feel just terrible. So, I've been kind of freaking out about the swimming. I've signed up for a non-refundable race for which I was originally just worried about being able to finish the bike portion in the 4 hour time limit. Now I'm worrying, "What if I never get better at freestyle?" and "What if I never enjoy freestyle like I enjoy breaststroke?" I know I can finish the swim leg in time, but will I be the one idiot out there doing breaststroke and annoying all the other athletes.
Add to that my original nerves about the bike leg. I know I can finish the bike leg out of sheer will, but I am really unsure that I can complete it before the cutoff time. On my old bike, I made it the 15 miles to my parents' house in an hour and a half. That's 10 miles an hour. I figured that getting a new bike would make a big difference. However, I biked from Hinkley to home, 8 miles, on Friday in 50 minutes. Still 10 miles an hour. Granted, it's pretty much all uphill from Hinkley to home and I wasn't really pushing it, but I thought my time would improve some as a result of the new bike and couple weeks of additional training under my belt. I need to be riding at a speed of 14 miles an hour to finish the 56 miles in 4 hours.
So now, I'm nervous about both parts of the race. The problem with that is that I don't know which part to focus more training on. All of the training plans I've pulled from the internet are for triathlons. They have running as part of the training. So, do I turn the running workouts into biking workouts because my time is so bad on those, or on swimming workouts to try and become a freestyle swimmer?
The last thing cycling through my head is how do I allow myself time to train and get good enough to race without becoming a bad wife and mother? This morning, I had to cut my swim workout short because I had to get home to the kids and let David go to work. Then, I got off the bike trainer three times during a short 45 minute ride to get the kids breakfast, let the dogs out, and let the dogs back in. I'm frequently yelling at the kids not to touch the bike, as it's sitting in the middle of our family room/dining room area. Tomorrow, I have a meeting at 9am and another one after work until 6pm. I have to ride 45 minutes and "run" 30 minutes. So, do I swim 30 minutes in the morning (hardly seems worth getting up at 5 am, going to the gym to share a lane with at least 1 other person), swim 30 minutes after my 6pm meeting, or bike for an hour and 15 minutes?
Anyone out there wanna help me calm my nerves?
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