Breaks

Taking a break from training really sucks.  Depending on how long the break is it can feel like your starting over.

3 weeks ago illness ran through the house.  First it was my wife and daughters, which meant coming straight home after work and taking care of them.  Then later in the week I wasn't feeling great.

Last week I got back to the running.  It was tough going though.  After being out just a week I lost all my motivation to even go to the gym.  I think the only reason why I forced myself to go was because my girls had swim lessons and I needed to waste time between work and when it started.

I ran my typical 5 k and surprisingly I wasn't any slower than I was before but it was rough.  I was tired, got shin splints, etc.  by mile two I was ready to quit.  Somehow my body always goes into automatic mode once I hit mile 3 though.  It wasn't until this past Monday that I really was feeling ok with my run.  I think I could have gone a lot farther but I had to get to lessons.

Again I'm on a bit of a break.  I have not been back.  I was either busy and starting Wednesday night I was not feeling well again.  I really hope I can get back soon.

Surprisingly I have not gained any weight back.  I have lost 3-4 pounds and really have been eating pretty badly the last few weeks.

As I mentioned above we have been sick a lot the last few weeks.  Poor Libby, our 9 month old) has had a constant cold just about all winter.  Normally I enjoy winter, but I'm so ready for it to be over if only so the four of us can get healthy.

Training plan

So I have been actively training for about three weeks now.  Jen has been on me to come up with some kind of plan.  She is the type of person that when she develops a goal she wants some kind of structure to obtain it.  Me, not so much.

I have done a little bit of searching on the internet.  I found a pretty good site at beginner triathlete.  It has a lot of articles and training plans.  The only problem is most training plans require a subscription. They do have a basic plan available for free.  It matches pretty close to what I am currently doing however.  Right now I am trying to loose some weight.  Once it gets nice out I will probably start doing something a little more formal.

Since I am already pretty strong in biking I have pretty much cut out the spin classes.  Currently the only class I am attending is Thursdays.  The instructor that night is a racer and his classes tend to be geared towards conditioning and strength.

Right now I have been concentrating on swimming and running, switching up every other day.  I'm also doing some weights.  I'm swimming about a mile and 5k running.  My next step is to start combining swim and run.  Last Monday I swam a mile and than ran a 5k. I was pretty surprised that I was able to do both still keep my average times.  Since I had extra time yesterday I decided to run a 10k. Again I was able to hold my 10 minute mile average.  I was pretty surprised with myself.  I was a little sore for the rest of the day though.  I was smart and took some aspirin before bed.