Pre-training? Is still training.

I have a few minutes before dinner finishes simmering, so I thought I'd write a bit about the pre-training I've been doing over the last few weeks. One of the great coincidences of signing myself up for the summer session of Team in Training is that the beginning of my schedule fit right in with New Year's. This may be the most support I ever receive for a resolution... anybody know how I can raise money for cancer research and also quit biting my nails?

Anyway, pre-training is basically a recommended 4-week schedule that gets you started with all the swimming, biking and running before you actually start working with your coaches and team leaders. So since the first week of January, I've had a 6-day per week exercise schedule - 2 days of running, 2 days of riding, and 2 days of swimming with one rest day. I will say that I now have one more reason to TGIF. :-)

By far, the hardest adjustment has been the swimming. I've always thought of myself as a fairly competent swimmer. I grew up as a YMCA kid, took swimming lessons at the Coast Guard Academy (no, really, I did!), spent lots of time at the beach... But that first swim practice, I kind of freaked out. I don't know if it was swimming laps versus just horsing around or what, but I was a sight for sure. I kept shutting my eyes underwater (despite goggles), breathing out when I shoud have been breathing in, and I think I swam the whole time without putting my face entirely in the water. I had a knot in my neck the size of an egg when I got out of the pool - I think from a combination of the stress and the unnatural angle I was holding my head at. It was really hard to go back for the second practice, but I'm glad I did, because it was like a switch flipped in my head, and suddenly my breathing fell into line, the tension was gone, and I had a nice successful swim.

So compared to that, the running and biking have been a snap - at least I can breathe whenever I want! I thought that the 6-day schedule would be really overwhelming, but so far it's been surprisingly manageable. After that first swim, I haven't had any major soreness, and I think that switching between the three activities keeps things from getting monotonous. Until this weekend, the weather has also been a big boost - warmer temps and mostly sunny skies have pulled me outside for at least my Monday run and my Saturday bike ride. Today, though, it's snowing, so I guess winter is here. It was kind of neat to take a breather during my swim and look out the windows to the snow falling outside - I was really glad that the snow decided to show up on a swim day.

The timer dings, and dinner beckons. I'll write again in the next couple days - there's news on the Honored Teammate front.