Catching Up...

This one's gonna be quick....    I just got back from a few days in Washington DC for work.  I'm happy to say I got quite a few quality workouts in.  Here's how the week went.

Tuesday

Woke up in the AM and headed to McDermott pool to meet my coach Jacki for a swim lesson.  It was my first time at McDermott and I liked the pool.  It was nice and big and there were more lanes available which was nice.  Jacki and I spent the session continueing to work on body position in the water.  Still no arm movements.  We spent a lot of time working on refinining the rolling drill we've been working on.  I think I made some good progress in the class but it still feels like I have a long way to go before I'll have a complete freestyle stroke put together.  Which is ok, but I'm starting to worry I won't have it done in time for me to really get some distance training in with before my first sprint.  I need to be sure and ask her when she thinks we'll get to that point and reevaluate my training schedule accordingly.  I'm also desperate to learn some more drills so I don't feel like such a dork in the pool when I do my one drill and then leave.

I went straight from the pool to the airport.  And then once at my hotel headed down to the hotel pool which was easily 25 yards long and empty and practiced my new drill for thirty minutes and then sat in the hot tub for a bit.  So that was a good day.

Wednesday

Up at 445am and at the gym.  I did thirty minutes on the elliptical and then thirty minutes on a spin bike.  A nice cardio workout.  It was good to get on the elliptical and begin to feel whats its like to be in a running sort of motion again.  Speaking of which...   on Monday the third I meet with the podiatrist and hopefully get clearance to start running again.  Fingers crossed!

I then worked from 8AM-11PM.  long day!

Thursday

Worked from 7AM-6PM, and then went to the gym.  I did an hour of injury free stregth training!  It felt like a 'breakthrough' workout!  It was the first time I have been able to follow a strength training workout in a while and feel like I didn't aggrevate or hurt anything which was great.  I followed a new strength training routine from a new triathlon book I just bought that I really liked.  It felt challenging, and more importantly it felt like it was really designed to keep all my muscle groups balanced, and build a nice strong foundation to work off of.  My whole reason for getting into triathlons is to be a better balanced athlete.  No more just running, running, and running.  I really enjoyed the workout in the book so I'm looking forward to trying to do it two times a week.  The book also has two other routines as well meant to build towards so I'm looking forward to trying those out in a month or so. 

After the gym I went upstairs to change clothes and then got in the pool for 15 minutes of the drill, and then 20 minutes in the hot tub.  good stuff!  All this was followed up with some stretching and some liberal use of "the stick" and I felt really good afterwards, and even felt good the next day.  The nice thing about a workout designed by a triathlete coach is that its designed to not leave you feeling thrashed and too sore to do other workouts the next day so that was great.

After the gym I headed out to meet up with some coworkers and drank far too much wine.  Considering I haven't had a cocktail since the two beers post marathon, and before that it had been months the wine went straight to my head!  But it was worth it as the company was great.  And we all have to splurge every now and then.  No more alcohol for me though till after my first tri.

Friday (today) was a long long day that started early and ended with me flying home.  So no workouts today.  But I did get my bike prepped for a 50 miler in Newport tomorrow AM so I'm looking forward to that.  So now your all caught up!