The journey to Lavaman continues...

With 14 weeks down and 7 weeks to go, here is the state of affairs for this body:

Swimming—I’ve been working hard. Good news for me is that I’ve improved—a LOT! I’m not attending the Team in Training coached practices (too far to drive at night), so I don’t really know how I compare to my teammates at this point in time. I just know now I’m a whole lot more confidant that I can swim a mile in the ocean and live to hop on my bike afterwards. A couple of weeks ago I went to a swim clinic in Redmond--two full days of working on stroke technique. (And yes, I was rather prune-like by the end of the weekend). The class was small (6 of us) with 2 instructors. The best part of the two days was the several underwater videos they did of each of us. There’s nothing like seeing yourself on video to show you that your head wasn’t really low enough (when you could have sworn it was) or your arm wasn’t really high enough (when you could have sworn it was) :) It was a fun group of people and I am grateful for all their pointers since I was the only one there without any triathlon/half-ironman/marathon experience.

So last week at my swimming lesson I worked on sprints. My instructor told me to swim 10 X 50’s—all out, as fast as I could swim—with about a minute in between each. She said if I didn’t feel like barfing my guts out (her words) after each one I wasn’t working hard enough. That’s always encouraging to hear up front! I managed to keep the breakfast down, but Tina came pretty close to having some serious pool cleanup to do. Yesterday it was back to endurance work. Swam another mile without stopping (ok—I did have a couple 15 second breaks to gulp some non pool water). She said I took 10 minutes off my last timed mile. Yippee!

Biking—We’ve somehow been incredibly lucky with the biking weather. As Rachel pointed out, last Saturday was so beautiful. It makes the miles go by quickly when the sun is shining and the water is sparkly. I only got separated once from the group I was riding with after the long last uphill climb. I was just about to get the cell phone out to call for directions when a few teammates miraculously came up behind me. The only bad part of the day was hopping off the bike and trying to run for 10 minutes. It’s hard to get those muscle groups going after riding 28 miles.

Running—6 miles doesn’t sound like a lot, but when you’ve never been a distance runner, it feels like plenty. At the coached runs I always get passed by lots of people. I am getting better, though. 4 ½ miles has been my longest run at a good clip. I’m sure I’ll improve more in the next few weeks.

I keep thinking of how good the sun, sand, and 81 degrees will feel in Hawaii. Most inspiring to me has been watching the thermometer rise on my fundraising and reading the notes sent with checks and emails. I heard President Obama say recently (this may not be verbatim) “Don’t underestimate the power of a bunch of people joining together to accomplish amazing things.” No kidding!