Training Days

Yesterday I went for a run outside.  First outside run this year!  Temp was almost 50 degrees and there was a little breeze blowing.  In all a very pleasant run!  It rained later in the day, so I was thankful to get the run in at all.  Otherwise it would have meant the treadmill. 

And as I ran, I thought about the treadmill.  I don't like to run on the treadmill.  I think it is because my running pace is not that perfectly constant that I can just set a speed and go.  I end up running too fast or too slow for the spinning belt, and spend a great deal of time futzing with the speed controls to try and avoid running into the control bar, or worse yet, sliding right off the end like those idiots you see on YouTube all the time.

But outside I can run as randomly as I want without worry.  And I tend to go farther and faster than I do on the treadmill.  Perhaps because I like being outside so much.  With 81 days until my first triathlon of the year (or roughly 1900 hours) I've still got a lot of training to do.  But I feel like I'm much farther along than I was training for my first tri last year.  And I have extra weeks this year to train!

I found a place to swim indoors that doesn't cost an arm and a leg, which is good, because swimming with only one arm and one leg would be much more challenging.  It is our local Rec center, with an Olympic sized pool broken down into two 25 yard/8 lane pools.  Plenty of space, and open late for family guys like me!  It felt good to be in the water again.  I think for this next year I'm not going to stop training between seasons.  It is so draining to "get back into it".  So I have a place to swim over the winter months.  I'll have to come up with some ideas for the running and biking in the cold though... Hmmm....

As for the bike, if the weather is reasonable, I might go for a ride this Friday!  Just a short six or seven miler to see how it feels.  But I am looking forward to getting back into training mode, and even more so to making it a part of year round life instead of just being seasonal.

More Later