Day 12

Ahh nothing like an Inglorious Bastards/Twilight meme.

But I digress...

Day 12 was my last open water swim before the Steelman next weekend. It was my best (and longest without a break) swim to date. We started off with a 250 yard loop and took a quick break and then did a 500 yard loop. I did much better this time with sighting where I was going. In open water there is no line to look at like there is at the bottom of a pool so the only way you can see where you're going is to actually look up. That took some practice but after 2 days at the pool I was much better this time around.

Swimming in open water does take some mental focus because it can get kind of boring especially since there isn't anything to look at to distract you. I'm glad I had these open water practice swims because I can't imagine having the Steelman be the first time I was in open water.

9 more days until the big day!

Tomorrow's workout is going to be moving all of my stuff out of my apartment and into my new one. Should be a good workout too considering I'm moving from a third floor apartment to a second floor apartment in a different building.

Day 11

Day 11 was a quick run (only about 1.5 miles) because I went to go see Inception (ridiculously awesome movie)

While I was Running though a kid ran up next to me and lengthen my strides to get more power out of each step. In my head i was like "Yeah ok whatever kid. Hit puberty before you start giving me advice." Well as it turns out he was right. I started lengthening my strides and felt like I was going faster without putting forth that much more effort.

It just goes to show that even 12 year olds know more about bare-foot running than me.

Day 10

Well its official. After today I'll have to start using my toes to figure out what day I'm on.

Today was another swim. I did 1100 yards in the pool only resting every 250 yards or so. Other than that not much to report.

Long days=short posts

Day 9

Day 9 ended with a nice 2 mile run through the neighborhood. I've noticed that running hills with the VFFs are a lot easier than in regular shoes. I've also noticed that my calves feel a lot harder than they used to.

I know I'm repeating myself a lot but the VFFs are amazing shoes.

I'll be really interested to know what I weight on day 30 (right before I leave for college). I'm only weighing myself monthly so I can measure noticeable changes and not just fluctuations from day to day. I'm in completely new territory in terms of exercising from here on out so I really can't predict any results.

Post your guesses of what I'm going to weigh at the end of day 30 and whoever is closest wins a candy bar. Remember I started at 230lbs on day 1.

Swimming tomorrow.

Day 8

Holy crap I had a good swim tonight. Everything clicked. Normally during my swims I swim a lap and take a break because I am so out of breath. Two laps without a break was pushing it. However, today I found my groove and finally figured out how to pace myself.

I was able to do 5 laps (250 yards) at a time without taking a break.

Even after each 250 yard set I was still feeling great and breathing normally. The Wilkes-Barre Triathlon (in which I am only doing the swim) is looking a lot more doable. That is a 1500m swim (about 30 laps I think) and I was really worried about being able to even finish that until today.

Oh and fyi the Steelman is only 800 yards so I have that in the bag.

Awesome day.

Tomorrow might be a late night run.

Day 7

Wow day 7 is over. I honestly never thought I'd make it this far. In my entire life I have never worked out for 7 days straight. Its a pretty good feeling.

I went for a 3.1 mile (5km) run today which was the longest to date in my VFFs. My feet are a little sore but overall I felt pretty good. It was wet and nasty out but thankfully that cooled things off so it wasn't too bad out.

The Steelman is in 2 weeks. I'm starting to get nervous.

Day 6

Today was hotttttttttt. Around 95 degrees. So what did I decide to do? Go biking on a highway of course. My Mom and I decided to check out the bike course for the Steelman Triathlon to get a good feel for how it was going to be race day. I was pleased (sarcasm) to find out that the first quarter mile was a massive uphill. After that it was just rolling hills which weren't too bad. It was a little frustrating to know that for every downhill there was going to be an equal uphill because the course was one big loop.

The bike I'm using is my Dad's racing bike for when he did triathlons a couple years ago. The seat is a racing seat and therefore very thin and rock hard so my butt is killing me. (insert crude joke here)

I think tomorrow will be a run just to complete the triathlon for the weekend