Sunday, May 22, 2011
My legs are soooo sore after yesterday's bike. I'm definitely surprised because it actually felt quite easy.

After another pitiful softball game, I drag my boyfriend to come with me to do my weekly long run. It's is so difficult. It's hot and humid, so I'm drenched in sweat a minute after I start jogging. It's feels excruciating and interminable. We run on the Erie Canal path, which is nice, and at least it has a little shade. Every minute of the run, I'm hoping it's nearly over. I jog at a nice slow pace, with short spurts of running at a moderate pace. I do eight of these spurts over the 40 minutes of running. We go over 3.3 miles in about 50 minutes. I only had to do 40 jogging, so I walked the rest. My boyfriend still walks beside me as I jog, which makes me feel really slow. I am completely exhausted by the time I finish.

Tuesday, May 24, 2011
I took yesterday as my day of rest. I wake up absolutely aching from the weekend's workouts. Everything seems sore: my legs, my arms, my back. It hurts to do anything!

Today, I'm feeling a bit better. Still sore and tired. I go out for my bike ride this morning, and nearly eat the pavement. I am so shocked because I have no idea what happened until I see my handlebars to the side of the bike and my wheel still straight. Somehow, the handlebars got lose, and the slightest movement gets them seriously off alignment. I ride my bike the short distance to the hardware store to have them tighten the bolt around the handlebars. They do, but that's not the issue. So I bike down to the bike shop, all while the handlebars keep getting seriously misaligned. I get there, forgetting that it's only 9:30am, and realize the shop doesn't open for another half hour. So I ride around the parking lots and a couple quite streets for about 20 minutes. I go back to the bike shop, and they fix my bike in literally less than a minute. Well, at least it was an easy fix.

Now, I can begin my actual bike ride. Unfortunately, from the bike shop back to my apartment is all up hill. It's a real challenge. I don't have to walk my bike at all, which is a consolation. But I do stop for a little bit and gulp down water. I finally make it back up to where I live and then ride out to Oran and back. This whole process takes about 35 minutes. At least I fit in my workout , and I'm feeling exhausted.

I still need to do my 15 minute jog, so after I gulp down the rest of my water, I head out jogging at a painstakingly slow pace. I run for 15 minutes. About half of the route is uphill, and I'm struggling to keep jogging. It was a really, really tough 15 minutes. It seems that my workouts are getting harder instead of easier. It's definitely discouraging. As I'm doing my run, I keep thinking to myself, how am I supposed to do an Iron Girl, when I'm dying after a 15 minute run. I feel out of shape and exhausted.

I have been eating a lot of junk food the past couple weeks. I was eating really healthily for a few weeks and feeling great. But I can definitely tell the junk I've been eating is hurting my training. I feel so out of shape. I need to get back into the healthy eating habits.

Wednesday, May 25, 2011
This is the first group swim practice I've been able to attend because they're all in the evening when I'm working. My schedule was switched today, so I'm excited to be able to swim with the group.

It feels good to get in the pool with the group and get critiques on my form. It is also really good to be at practice and learn what the drills are...apparently I was doing a few of them wrong. The practice is really easy. I focus mostly on trying to breathe on the left side because that's my weak side. But I feel great after my practice. This was the motivation I needed to keep going this week.

After I get home from swim practice, I decide to go for my daily run. I run for about four minutes, then get distracted by a book sale on the street, so I stop for a minute. But then, I get back running. I run for 15 minutes straight. I went further than I normally go. I feel great. I'm definitely feeling like I can do this!

Thursday, May 26, 2011
It's back at the running group. It is really hot and humid out, and I forget my water on the kitchen table. We work on short strength intervals. We run one minute as hard as we can, then a minute thirty, then just thirty seconds. Between each one, we get a 30 second rest. We repeat the whole thing before a rest. I am totally wiped out! This workout is really hard today. I was feeling motivated yesterday, but today is a bit discouraging.

Friday, May 27, 2011
One of the girls from my running group, who is also doing Iron Girl invites me to go on a bike ride with her, her friend and her daughter. I jump at the chance to actually ride with people! We decide to go for a 20 mile loop just outside of Manlius. It's a nice slow comfortable pace. We stop at the general store and get ice cream. When we're there, I look at my watch and realize it's 11:30 and I have to be at work at 1....And we're ten miles out! So I apologize, and say I have to book it back home so I can shower before work. I have to push myself to the limit to get back home quickly. I make it home by 12:15...just in time to shower and get to work. Whew! That was crazy, but I feel great!

Saturday, May 28, 2011
Brendan, our coach, has decided we need to begin our rides at 7am instead of 7:30am. It doesn't sound like much, but it's awful. The last couple weeks, it's been really tough getting up at 6:15 to get to the bike by 7:05 to leave enough time to put my bike together. Now, I have to get up even earlier to make it to the bike group. Plus, I don't have the luxury of going to bed early because I work until 10pm. Saturdays are soon going to become worse than Mondays in my book, I think.

I twist my ankle before practice, when I slip on some condensation on the tile in my house. It hurts like heck, but I'm already up and don't want to miss practice. I put my brace on and join the slowest group to try and take it a bit easy. We still ride about 11 or so miles at a nice pace. It feels good to get out and really ride with the group.

After our group ride, we do the "circle of death drill." Nice title. Actually we just ride in a circle on the grass and the coaches keep moving the circle in tighter and tighter until there's only one person left in the circle. I win my group! Woo Hoo. Then we have a championship face off between all the winners. I get knocked out early on and nearly fell off the bike. But it is fun anyway. It's been a good week of training!