Swim: 6850 yards
Bike: 68.4 miles
Run: 15.7 miles
Total workout time: 7 hours 45 minutes
The weather was a little iffy this week with Muscatine getting quite a bit of snow over a 12-24 hour period:
My favorite workout this week was a tie between my swim on Wednesday and my run on Sunday. The Wednesday swim had a main set that consisted of 2x600 yards. I went into the set slightly irked that it was kind of a boring workout, but once I got going it felt really good. I focused primarily on maintaining my stroke count per length at 12. This forces me to stretch out a little longer each stroke and make each stroke really count. The past few months my swim stroke has been lackadaisical and usually been about 15 strokes per length so this workout was really good for me and my stroke. I soon hope to get the strokes per length down to 11. The 600's weren't particularly fast, but they felt long and strong and I held consistent laps at right around :40 per 50 yards. The Sunday run was my biggest achievement of the week. I have been struggling with my knees all year so the running has been minimal, if at all. The plan was to run outside with my new Yak Trax i got for Christmas, but the weather didn't cooperate as the temperature barely saw 20 degrees. I decided to grind out the run on the treadmill at the Y. When I started running, my 10 (almost 11!) year old friend Miles Utley came up and started running on the treadmill next to me. I didn't figure it would last very long as he is barely 4 feet tall and his feet have trouble keeping up with the treadmill. As I kept running, Miles kept running. He would take breaks approximately every 5 min to stretch or get a drink of water, but he ended up being on the treadmill for all 55 minutes of my workout. This 10 year old ran a total of 3.83 mil;es and for a total of 46 minutes! I was very impressed and extremely glad to have the company as it made the run fly by.
The hardest workout of the week was the Tuesday bike ride. I hadn't been on my bike in almost 2 months. I rode the rollers as it was the only training device available. The rollers make it difficult to adjust on your seat and when you stand you have to slow way down, so my butt started to get pretty sore. It felt ok leg-wise, but the butt was an issue.
God truly blessed me with a great family and friends for support through this journey. He has kept me strong both physically and mentally through 1 week, and I pray he continues to do so for many weeks to come. So 1 week down, 35 weeks to go!
Thanks for reading!