Monday, April 24, 2006

No swimming?

For a variety of reasons, mostly due to my husband being out of town and there still being a high incidence of flu around here (so I don't want to put my girls into the YMCA child care yet), I probably won't be doing ANY swimming this week. So far this year I've swum 1500m or more for 15 out of 16 weeks, but now it looks like it will be 15 out of 17 when this missed week is over. I'm a little anxious about that, because swimming is my weakest discipline and I need the time in the pool, but I'll still have three weeks to prepare for my first triathlon of the year.

I'm hoping to balance it out by putting in some extra time with upper body freeweights (blasting my deltoids to hopefully give them a strength boost) and some additional core work and bike trainer time. Not exactly the same thing as getting the swimming workouts done, I know, but it will have to suffice!

While my bike mileage outdoors isn't yet as high as I would like (even though I've had 6 rides over 22 miles in the last 17 days), my consistency has been good on the bike (with a nominal amount of bike training in every one of the last 16 weeks), and from my 10K PR last weekend, along with 16 consistent weeks of training in that department, I think my running is reasonably solid.

And oh yeah, even that sucky calorie-counting thing is going quite well (even though I hate it). I'm down 4.4 pounds in 4 weeks, and 14 pounds from the beginning of this year. For me, that's fantastic progress, and every ounce that I lose sensibly should give my speed a boost on race day.

It's just that monster-in-the-water thing that worries me. :-)

2 comments:

Ann (bunnygirl) said...

Nancy, if you have stretch cords at home, or if you can get some, check out these swim exercises from Coach Gordo: http://www.byrn.org/gtips/swimcords.htm

I've done them myself and they really work for building up your swim muscles!

Nancy Toby said...

Oooh, thanks for the tips, good page! I don't have those, but I think I can simulate some of the exercises with what I have!