What time does your alarm go off in the morning? I bet no matter the time, it always seems too early. Starting in January, I have been setting my alarm for 4:45AM twice a week and 5AM twice a week. Sometimes when my alarm goes off, I am so startled, I am not sure what is going on. But it does not take long for me to remember what day it is and why I am getting up. I just remind myself that I am training for Ironman and that getting up at 4:45 is somewhat mandatory. With a full time job and 14 hours a week of working out, one is forced to become a morning person which is something I never was until relatively recently. I blame this transformation from night owl to early morning exerciser on Mark England. He is the one who got me into my first road race back in 2006 which eventually grew from 10Ks to Ironman.
On Mondays and Wednesday, I get up super early to swim. I am in the pool by 5:30. On Mondays I do a coached swim that lasts 1 hour and is always a good, fun workout with teammates. Our coach is extremely knowledgeable about all things swimming as well as enthusiastic, funny, and creative. We do all kinds of drills to improve our swim stroke and swim fitness. People groan when she says "100 breathe away" or "50 nubby arm kicking" or the dreaded "breath away (dramatic pause) with fists." But although people grown, I am pretty sure they secretly really like these difficult drills. Why would they keep coming back if they did not like it? After all, it is hardly free. I think most of the "guppies" as we are called enjoy being challenged and know that the drills will make us all stronger swimmers. We put in the work because we know it will make us stronger. And many of my teammates are hardly guppies by the way.
My Wednesday swim is a very regimented workout that my coach gives to me. I print out my marching orders and bring it with me to the pool so I can keep on track. These workouts are usually longer than the Monday workouts and I have to stay on task in order to get the entire workout in before work. After swimming 1.5 miles or more in the pool, I always feel fantastic albeit starving. By the time I get to work, I am calm and ready to face the challenges of the day.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays I am doing Craig's cycling class at Richmond Cycling Corporation's Richmond Bicycle Studio. I really love the class. It is quite challenging although anyone can to it because it is up to the individual to gauge one's perceived exertion. You get out of it what you put into it. I feel like this class catapults my bike fitness skyward like a rocket ship. There is no way I could do these workouts on my own. I have tried to duplicate the workouts at home on my own and even though I am trying to go hard, it just seems that doing this workout in a group setting under the watchful eyes of Craig gives me the best possible workout. Plus the whole time I know I am also supporting RCC and the outreach they do. It is a win win situation. I feel good about the workout and I feel good about helping out the non-profit with my enrollment fee.
In addition to my early morning workouts detailed above, I have also been doing Physical Therapy every day. I do about 1 hour or more a day at home plus once or twice a week I go into the Physical Therapy office and do 2 hours which includes more exercises as well as ultrasound, body work by the PT, and I get to run on the Alter G treadmill treadmill. The Alter-G allows me to run at a certain percentage of my body weight. I started out at 75 percent and have worked my way up to 90 percent of my body weight. This gradual return to running helps ease my body back into it. So far, I have been very pleased with my PT at Advanced Orthopedics in the West End. I have been coming along nicely and today my PT said she wanted me to start running outside again under full body weight. I can't wait to get started although I will have to start out slow.
On the weekends, I have been doing PT, a third swim, and another bike ride. Sometimes I ride the trainer, sometimes I ride outside depending on the weather. Unfortunately, this weekend I will not be riding as I broke the shifter off my bike and it is in the shop getting repaired. In addition to all of the PT, swimming, biking, and running, I have also started back on my core work. Melissa has motivated me to do the P90X Ab Ripper with her. It is a killer workout and I expect to see results if I keep it up.
So is that enough? Not quite. I plan to add in a yoga class once a week to help me stay limber and to help strengthen my hips, glutes, thighs, etc. I seem to stay healthier when I follow a weekly yoga regimen and I just don't seem to be able to work it into the schedule without attending a structured class.
Finally, I wanted to mention that I have added two more races onto my calendar. I have decided to race the Monument Ave 10K, mostly because my work picked up the tab. Also I wanted to race again on my birthday so this year I will be doing the Kinetic Sprint Triathlon on May 12th at Lake Anna. This year my birthday falls on Mothers day (I was born on Mothers Day) so I thought it would be fun to have the whole family down to watch the race and then go out for a celebratory lunch. If there are any other triathletes out there who want to race with me, I would enjoy the company.
So that about wraps it up for now. January has been busy and February will likely fly by. Then there will just be one more month before race season starts for me. Comments welcomed and appreciated.
