Lots to catch up on

On Monday I was at the swim training session for the triathlon. This was our last session in the pool. There seemed to be a lot of people in our lane. I think some of the women who were at the first session and then disappeared have made New Year's resolutions that involved showing up again.

I wore contact lenses in the pool today. I decided to try them out as I had visions of coming out of the water and not being able to find my bike. I hadn't realised that I'd walk out of the store with trial lenses. Well, it certainly added to the experience. There are all sorts of marks on the bottom of the pool. It makes it easier when you can see people. There's chicken wire on the roof.

We were swimming along when I got promoted to the second lane. I figured there really must be a lot of people in the lane for me to get promoted. Anyway, I wasn't too pleased as I've observed that the usual trainer for that lane is pretty ordinary. (Yep, she's a volunteer and I'm criticising, but hey, who wouldn't be disappointed going from a good trainer to a not as good trainer.) Luckily for me there was a second trainer and she really helped me improve my stroke. By the end of the session I was swimming much better than I had been.

After we'd warmed up those of us doing the short triathlon (200 m swim) were asked to swim 300 m without stopping. It's a 25 m pool, so that meant I had to swim 12 laps non-stop. I managed it and decided to try for 400 m. I managed that too. Yay me! It was good to know that I could do it. I'm going to have to try to do the same thing in a 50 m pool.

On Tuesday I was at the gym. I really should have gotten up in the morning to run, but I decided to squeeze a short run in between Personal Training and Yoga. I was at the gym for two and a half hours and had a great time. It was my first PT session back with Julia. She'd had a great holiday in Tasmania and has her parents on fitness programs now.

We did the same session we'd been doing before Christmas. I did the squats to 30 degrees and held each fifth one for ages. It seems really easy to do the squats but I started to feel it in my abs and back. I then did the chest press - 12 reps at 9 kgs and triceps push backs - 15 reps at 4 kg. Two sets of each. I struggled with the chest press but made it. I followed that up with the bent over row - two sets of 15 reps at 12.5 kg. I keep thinking I'm ready for the next weight, but by the 10th row my back is letting me know that I still have a way to go. We then did some abs exercises - that twist thing with the medicine ball - 2 sets of 20 reps with a 4 kg medicine ball with a set of leg extensions in the middle - one leg, then the other, then both. I managed 10 of them. Ouch. The second set of twists was hard work after that. Some stretching and we were done. Normally we wouldn't have done so much abs work but Julia gave me a 45 min session as she had a free half hour between clients. It was a nice bonus for me.

I had planned to do a longer run, but I only had half an hour before yoga. I started off at 7.5 km/h for 10 mins and then did three sets of 1 min intervals (9/6) followed by running until I made 3 km, and then a cool down. All up about 25 mins. I then changed my top for yoga. Fortunately it was on, which I was really pleased to discover.

It was a dynamic yoga session and we spent most of the time on our feet. I really enjoyed it. I felt like I handled the poses pretty well. I'm still having difficulty with some of the transitions, but I'm getting closer all the time. There was only one thing I had to skip because of my knee and I can't manage that one anyway. It's the duck waddle. I felt like I "got" the side bend today. That's the one from Warrior 2, for those of you that know something about yoga. It was a geat session and I felt so good after all the stretching.

This morning I had PT with Krissi. I'm going to blog about that separately as it was rather amusing.