what a week so far.

This has been a tough workout week, but truly fun and rewarding. Monday I did a bike ride along the coast with a few teammates. It was my first time riding along the coast and it felt nice not to be in a car, driving past the bikers and feeling guilty for not enjoying the outdoors. We rode from La Jolla to Cardiff, and back.

The next day we met at the same spot and ran up the Torrey Pines hill, through the park a bit, and back. It was a tough hill, but I actually don't mind running up hills sometimes. After the run, we jetted to swim practice just in time for Coach's entertaining and informative lessons. Coach is just a very funny man, even without knowing it. I love his examples and movements he uses to demonstrate what we should or should not do.

Swim was tough for me. He covered a lot of techniques that made it seem so complicated, and it actually became harder for me to swim. I think swim is the most complicated sport of the three triathlon sports. The strokes are one thing. Then there's breathing, body rotation, elongating the arm, treading the water underneath, kicking in perfect harmony, and of course keeping afloat. Fortunately the wet suite will help with the latter at the ocean swims and actual race at Pacific Grove. I'm still having a hard time rotating my body while still keeping my head under water, but with practice I know I'll get it. Another thing I still need help with is breathing! I can breath fine in the first length, but coming back always feels harder because I'm trying to catch my breath and start to loose form.

Tonight was track. They were doing a three mile time trial for advanced runners. Now, I do not consider myself an advanced runner, but a teammate of mine who was thinking of doing it said, "Why don't you do it?" And I thought about it for a while as we did our warm up laps and thought, "What the heck." Jenny, who was also doing it, has the same pace as I do so it worked out. We ran pretty much the whole way together. It felt soooo much better than my one mile time trial where I jetted out like a jack rabbit. I kept a very steady pace the whole time and felt great afterwards. My time was 29:07. I really was not racing for time, but mostly to learn my pace. Now I wonder if they're gonna put me in advanced run? I really just wanted to see how I would handle it. I wonder if my time even qualifies for advanced run. All I know is I am really sore as I lay here typing.

Tomorrow is my first fundraiser. I'll let you know how it goes.