Where has the time gone?

I haven’t blogged in a while……… I’ve been keeping up with my training plan. Life has just been busy and I guess I’m spending a lot of time thinking about race day and all that energy was preventing me from blogging.
I ran a 5k on April 14th in 25.29 (an 8:11pace) not bad. But, I know I can do better than that. I volunteered at the Ironman on April 15th. What an incredible experience. I’ll volunteer again next year. I don’t quite see myself doing an Ironman. Maybe a half ironman someday.

I’m still a pretty lousy swimmer. This past Saturday my friend Tammy’s son Ryan helped me. He’s in high school and swims on a club swim team. And well, Ryan is a pretty awesome swimmer and he’s only 15. He swims long distance.
We met at the pool on Saturday and he could right away see what I was doing wrong. For the first time it actually clicked. He explained what I was doing wrong and showed me what to do through various drills. Some people can be great swimmers- but not great teachers. I think Ryan has the gift of also being a good teacher. By the end of my lesson I could feel myself gliding through the water with much less effort. Before I was paddling so hard and not getting anywhere. I also do this pretty hysterical move with my legs. I have to practice practice practice. Bruce was able to videotape the lesson. Oh my……… seeing myself was pretty hysterical. It’s a good thing I can laugh at myself because I sure did get a lot of teasing from Bruce. He was actually laughing at me from the pool deck at one point. He exclaimed you really don’t know how to swim.
I’m going to meet with Ryan again next Sunday. Hopefully my practicing will show by the time I meet with him next Sunday. Here's Ryan and I after the swim.

Climbing a hill……
Okay, well we live in a hilly area. I thought I had a good handle on the hills. Well, that was until this past Sunday. It was silent Sunday in South Mountain Park. That means it wasn’t open to cars. A big group from Gage Total Training got together to ride in the park. We rode out to San Juan which is lots of rolling hills. I didn’t warm up prior to this so I felt pretty crappy during most of the ride. Then they were all riding up to the TV Towers. I wasn’t sure I was going to do this. But, Tammy and Bruce said come on let’s go and off we went. OH MY GOD. On the one hand it was good to see that my training has paid off- Bruce had to stop. I thought I’d meet him at Telegraph pass, but by the time we got there I was feeling good and decided to continue the climb to the towers. Slow and steady was the theme for me. At some points closer to the towers I was standing on my pedals very slowly turning 1 crank at a time. Tammy was a head of me and I just kept on focusing on getting to the top. We were about 100 yards from the top when the big group of GT3ers started their descent. They yelled for us to turn around, which we did. Down we went. Sometimes it was a bit scary but we made it in one piece.
I think the fact that Bruce was sucking wind finally pushed him to realize that the once per week workout schedule isn’t working for him.(lol) So we bought him a bathing suit, a cap, goggles and paddles. He’s going to start swimming tonight. I hope he sticks with it. I know he’ll feel so much better if he does.