Saturday 8:45 PM 1/16/10

Email Update to Tri Training Team:

So, Jennifer is going to start exercising, mostly using the elliptical, every day. I heard that John joined his local Y and is swimming, using the track, and biking daily. Great! Sara is seeing her personal trainer weekly (and suffering for it), buying the "Slow, Fat, Triathlete" book, and heading out to the sporting good store for some swim supplies. As for me, I'm hoping to write you ever week or two to tell you how things are going for me. I'm thinking that will be one more thing to help me keep focused.

But, before I do that...
1) The official YWCA Women's Triathlon opens registration for this year's event on 2/3. That's only a few weeks away.
2) Again, the distances you have to shoot for are
Swim - just under .5 miles
Bike - 15 miles
Walk/jog/run - 3.1 miles.

So, I'm losing weight still, slowly, but I am. Mentally, I'm breaking it into small goals. And, I have less than 5 pounds to go to hit my first goal. Cool! To be really transparent, I'd tell ya all how much I weigh, but hey, I'm posting this on my blog, so I'm not going to feel bad about not going there. The food thing is hard for me. That's the hardest thing. I think I am understanding, really understanding now, what I need to eat for nutrition and health. But, life-long patterns are hard to break. And, it's hard to find the time and energy to make that way extra effort to have the stuff I should be eating prepared and ready to go. However, I am making progress. The understanding is huge, and I continue to make changes here and there. My goal is to more often than not eat Zone meals and snacks, or at least Zone friendly. Toward that end I am thinking about what I want and what's available in the moment, and moving closer to Zone Friendly - which usually means increasing the protein (vegetarian version) and the vegetables, and decreasing the starches. I'm also trying to eat more fruits, drink more water (which I like anyway), and less sugar laden coffee drinks. I bought myself a notebook to keep track of what I eat. Now, just need to use it.

As for the trainings. Well, I could be all negative and tell ya all how I'm not even in sight of my goal. Or, I could be all positive and tell ya all that I am still swimming twice a week, still see my trainer once a week, and added a bike in the basement last week and that and a walk on the track this week. I think I am setting myself up for disappointment to keep telling myself I need two workouts a day. I'm not close to there yet, so let's start with one every day, and then I'll get up to two most days. Realistically, I will NOT have the time for 14 workouts a week. But, if I can get 10 in a week, that would be awesome!

I didn't actually see my trainer this week. I showed up, and he wasn't there. I was told he couldn't make it and he had left me a message. When I got back to my car after a short work out on my own, yeah, he had called my cell phone many hours earlier. I had gotten several missed calls at once and didn't realize it, checking only the most recent. You know, for me not checking all of the voice mails on my cell phone was an easy mistake, not that many people call me.

OK. Later.... I'm going down to my basement to bike.