I did a triathlon this weekend, guys! Ok… ok, endurance friends. Don’t hate me. It was an urban triathlon. You know, swim + run + walk to street festival for drinks. That counts, right?
I’ve been playing around with my fitness lately, and one of the things I tried this past weekend was a swim. My first swim in almost a year. Remember when I hurt my foot and I was going to make that a thing? Anyway, T is in the thick of triathlon training, and in the interest of filling my time at the gym while I waited for him to do his workouts, I decided to see what this whole “triathlon” thing is all about. I had no plan: some amount of warm-up + some amount of sprints or segments. Somehow, I was almost unbelievably consistent in my efforts. Am I a robot sent from the future to save mankind from fitness interval inconsistency? Quite possibly.
Swim Workout ~25 min.
[200m warm-up + 50m x 4 (51-52s each) + 100m x 2 (1:58min x 2)]
T had a scheduled bike session post-swim, so I decided that I would hop on the treadmill for 30 min, rather than head home and wait. My “transition time” in the locker room was a blazing 20 minutes or so – I rinsed the salt/chlorine mixture off and took my time toweling dry and changing. (#proathlete) Because I knew I would need some mental stimulation for this run, I set the treadmill to the “Random Hill” function, which I had never used before. Basically, you tell it how high you ever want to set your elevation, and how fast you ever want to run, and it just shuffles the pace and elevation around for however long you tell it 
to go. It was pretty much perfect for what I was looking for, and while it was incredibly hard to *not* adjust the speed/elevation at times when I started to feel fatigued, it was incredibly empowering to know that I pushed when my hips were ready to take a nap. When I finished my run, I walked over to T on the bike and told him how my one combined workout gave me a greater appreciation for his training, and how much I really respected him for the solid training he was able to log last summer. As tough as marathon training can be, and as hungry and tired as I can get after a long speed workout, those bricks are next level. Triathletes — I bow down. Shit is hard!
I sheepishly requested that we hit up Chipotle on the way home (we walked to/from gym, ~2.5-3mi, roundtrip). After inhaling some burritos, we cleaned up and headed back towards the gym to check out a local street festival (another ~2.5mi walk, roundtrip), enjoyed some beers in the sun, and walked to T’s (an additional 2mi). All in all, we logged about 8.5mi of walking on top of our other workouts!
My training for the past few weeks has been pretty sporadic. I’ve logged several run commutes now (including one rainy, and one tempo-paced), which have felt really exciting and fun, and have done more gym workouts due to heat or storms. This past week, I logged a run commute, a lunch run, two treadmill hill workouts, a swim, stair session, and bike session. My body is… confused.
I have about two weeks until my upcoming 10k trail race — my first at this distance — and I have very little intention of setting concrete goals. I’m also still trying to figure out Strava and my new Garmin (Forerunner 235), which would probably be going better if I in any way actually read instructions, manuals, etc. This week, I’m hoping to log at least one run commute (that might be a stretch), as well as an additional 1-2 runs this weekend. It’s been kind of nice to not be a slave to a training log, and just wind my way through the week doing things that make my brain happy (the occasional Thursday now involves some beach volleyball). In theory, I’d like to log some more traditional speed work between Big Foot and Big10k (my next race – early Aug). I also have a random 5k in there now (mid-July), which is basically my way of ensuring that I log at least one speed session in that time. Heh. Where is this summer going already!?
Butt Sweat + Cheers! 
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