so far, so good!

I wanted to get back into a regular workout routine, and so far.. the week is off to a great start.

Sunday - 20 minutes on the bike, 2 miles on the treadmill

Monday - 20 minutes on the bike, 1.5 miles on the treadmill

I'm trying to ease myself back into it... I don't want to start with too much/too soon because I know where that'll land me.... SHIN SPLINTS! ah. I have a lot of trouble with those in the past, so I'm trying to avoid them at all costs. I actually had custom orthotics made when I was training for my 1st marathon, but... they've seen their final day in my shoes. I need to get new ones, but it's a pain the ass to get them covered by my insurance. I need to get a "letter of medical necessity" from my orthapedic to give to the orthotic place.. even though I provided one the first time. It doesn't make sense that I'd need a new letter every year when it's something that needs to be replaced after a year or so. It's not like having them for a year changes the problems in the way my feet were built. Oh well - for now I'm running w/o the orthotics and we'll see how that goes. I have a brand new pair of my Asics Kayano's.. which were on the recommended list, so I'm hoping I'll be fine.

Today's workout wasn't much.. but it was HUGE at the same time. I've been trying for a long time to get into a morning workout routine, but I LOVE the snooze button. In the past, the alarm goes off... and, even if I'm wide awake, I just think about how I could sleep for another hour in the comfy/warm bed. It usually ends up with me being MORE tired after I finally get up.. and then angry at myself for not working out. With my schedule as it is.... swim Tues/Thurs, school Wed, and usually my PT job on Fridays - I really don't have time to workout (bike/run) at night. So.. here's to hoping today was the first of MANY morning workouts!! From what I hear... you get used to waking up that early after a while. I'll believe it when I see it! HA

Getting back into the swing of things...

On many levels.

It's been quite some time since I had a blog. Back in my undergrad days, I would enter my daily activities (for the most part) into LiveJournal -- but that died down shortly after moving off-campus. I'm hoping that starting & maintaining this blog will give me that extra bit of motivation to stick to my workouts & training plan (thought stream being that I'll feel guilty not having anything to update? ha)

So - not only getting back into the world of blogging, but I need to get back into working out. I've run two marathons (San Diego '07 & Disney World '08) and numerous half marathons (Fairfield, Hartford, Philly, Hyannis). Now, you'd think I was a very strong runner from that history, but I've been quite the slacker. The last race I ran was the annual Manchester Road Race on Thanksgiving (just under 5 miles) and I've only run a handful of times since then. With working two jobs & grad school part-time I found making up excuses very easy. BUT, this needs to change. I realize I'm a little late on the New Year's Resolution, but better late than never.

I really want to get into the world of Triathlon's next summer. I have been swimming since November (so not COMPLETELY slacking). I'm now in the 2nd session of the "Fitness for Life" swim class - which is basically lap swimming with a planned workout, twice a week for an hour. My record so far is 72 laps (1 MILE!!) in the hour, which I'm pretty happy with.

So - I've got the swim workouts down for now, although I will increase the frequency later in my training. Now, I need to jumpstart the biking & running. My first goal is to get back into a regular running routine and then add in the biking (for which, I need to buy a road bike!).

I haven't decided on a specific TRI distance and/or event as of yet.. it's really going to depend on where I am in a month or so when I'd need to start a specific training plan. There's quite a few local sprint & olympic distance tri's, so I'm sure I'll be able to get in a few. Although, I do have a small desire to go for the Half Ironman. I realize the "smarter" option would be to smart small.. but, I think if I really set my mind to it, I could do it. I mean.. I trained for the San Diego marathon in 4 months with my longest run prior to that being only 5 miles. So - like I said, we'll see where I'm at in a month or so before I make any decisions on distance / events.


Tonight : Swim for 1 hour (specific workout is provided to me there, so I can update that later)