Try a Tri!

Brynna isn't the only one around here who has been busy—Alex and I are training for a triathlon! Two triathlons, in fact—one near North Conway on May 31, and the other in Grantham on June 20. Both are sprint-distance triathlons, with 1/3-mile swims, 12-mile bikes, and 3.1-3.8 mile runs.

I have been thinking about doing a triathlon for awhile—I was a pretty serious runner in high school, and we've taken up road biking here in Minnesota. The big thing holding me back was not being a very good swimmer. Alex, however, swam in high school—but hates running—so we have been able to jolly each other along.

The main reason that we have taken up training now is that I am tired of being out of shape post-pregnancy, and it is much easier to fix that now than after my internship year begins!

So, for the last 8 weeks or so, we've been training about 5 days a week, including a couple days a week of "bricks," or two-event workouts. Jasper and Brynna do the running with us. We've been able to shift our biking outdoors over the last few weeks, thank goodness. And there's a wonderful salt-water pool at our gym.

The swimming has been the real struggle for me. I swim for 30 minutes, twice a week. At the beginning, my only goal was to keep moving for that time, which mostly meant alternating a length of crawl (25 yards) with a length of breaststroke. 25 yards of crawl was about all I could manage as I worked on my breathing. I also took swim lessons weekly in April, which wretchedly involved getting up at 5:30 AM, but helped my stroke. I've been slowly extending my crawl intervals, and tonight I was able to swim a total of 1200 yards (twice the distance I will have to do on race day!), alternating 100 yards of crawl with 25 of breaststroke. So, big improvements. I don't dread going to the pool anymore, since I feel like I am actually swimming and not just trying not to drown!

I run very slowly, still, and Alex keeps blowing by me on the hills when we are out biking. But, as I keep reminding myself, the only way to get fitter is to just get out there and keep doing it!