Well tonight is my first swimming lesson.  Hopefully the lessons will get me gliding through the water like a fish!  It has dawned on me that the cycling and running distances in the triathlons are actually not that scary and, with a bit more endurance training, definitely attainable. However, the swimming leg is very very far from attainable right now.  I can see many pool sessions, lessons and mouthfuls of water to come before I can confidently try for a tri.

Yesterday was a double bill, as they say.  I didn’t feel up to running on Saturday so postponed the run till Sunday.  Sunday ended up being a 36km cycle followed closely (within 5 mins) by a 10km run. So a good brick session after all.

I’m trying to get the calibration of my shoe pod more accurate at the moment.  I think its been over measuring by about 3-5% so have altered the calibration by about 3% down. I did a number of sections on the run and then measured them on GMAP Pedometer. The first one was right on the money and the subsequent ones slightly out, but over all the distance was under-measured which is better that over-measured.  I may trim it down another 1% just to be sure 🙂

A friend from work has laid down the proverbial gauntlet, with a time of 1:46 in a half-marathon form yesterday.  Palma looks like a flat enough course so a good time should be possible (depending on good running weather)- although the last 10km are zigzagging through the town which will probably slow things down somewhat.

Well this morning I got up and headed to the gym.  I was in the pool by 0815 for a 30 mins swim session at the Brit… yeah yeah, not much swimming, but its the best I can manage 🙂

After the swim was a 30 min cycle at 100+ rpm with a HR at around 65-70% of max. There was no music playing the in gym so was quite a boring session really.  After that I did a quick 10 min session on the elliptical machine, again around 70% of max HR.  I ended the session with a 5 min effort on the rowing machine at 80-85% max hr.

Glad I managed to get up and do the session before work.  Certainly nice not to have a after-work session looming. I need to decide if perhaps doing the full session before work is a good idea.

This weekend should be a about a 90min ride and an hour run.

Well the lunchtime swim didn’t happen… sometimes work just gets in the way of a good day 😉

 After work, ended up in the pool for about 30 minutes.  Didn’t feel as tired after swimming as I have done in the past; I figure this means I am getting more “swimming fit”. I must admit I didn’t feel like I had good technique today which is worrying- bring on the swimming course next week!

After the pool session I did 30 mins on the stationary bike (cadence of around 90 and HR roughly 75%-80% of max) and then 15 mins on the treadmill – again HR around 78% max.  Knees were twinging a bit which doesn’t bode well for the upcoming half marathon…  off to put some ice on the knees and take a bit of rest.

Tomorrow holds a “spinning session” – 65-75% MHR with cadence above 100… and another swim.  I’m trying to keep to the “base” phase of training from the book “Iron Fit” at the moment. The running sessions are way down on what I was doing a few weeks back, but I figure that’s not a bad thing given 1) I’ve got some aches while running 2) I need to get both my swimming stamina and skills up to scratch pronto!