My secret weapon

I have such a rocky, love/hate relationship with swimming. I like swimming outdoors, and I like doing triathlons. The problem is, outdoor swimming is often not an option, so that leaves me with training at the YMCA. Swimming laps there is really not so fun. If I ever do a full ironman or I'm in some sort of situation where I have to do tons of swimming, I'm investing in those waterproof headphones.


My open water swim on Sunday left me pretty uncomfortable about my international triathlon in less than a month. I failed to consider that it will be way too warm for a wetsuit, so I'll actually have to swim the whole .92 miles relying only on the power of my own body. Scary. 


I'd intended to try to maintain my swimming shape since the half ironman, but it's been two months, and I've done three swims. Major fail. I'm going to turn it around though, and I'm publicly pledging to do at least two swims a week until the tri. That's still a pretty pathetic amount of training, but it's better than I've been doing. 


I swam 2,000 yards Tuesday morning, and followed it up with Body Pump. Because getting strong will help me swim and bike up huge hills, right?

This morning I went to another bike speed interval workout at Lake Montebello. It's only about 6.5 miles away, so I rode my bike to the workout to get some extra miles in. 


A guy new to the group said he was going to ride with me. I usually just kind of do my own thing, since there's really no official "workout". Basically the group leader puts flags every quarter mile around the lake, and you do what you will with it. The tri club can be pretty overwhelming though, so I wanted him to feel welcome.


I'm pretty sure he was hitting on me. I don't have too much experience with this, especially from sober, reasonably attractive guys, but I got that vibe. I was sort of on the fence until he started telling me that he did this sport. I can't remember the name, but google images hooked me up.





What tipped me off was that he said I'd probably be good at it. I know most of you have never seen me ride, but trust me, nothing about my biking says I'd be good at taking it to the extreme level.


I wasn't exactly sure how to react in a situation where there was no possibility of receiving a free drink, but then he started getting really close to me. Like, I nearly brushed him with my arm at one point, which is a huge no no on the bike. I told him I was uncomfortable riding that close, especially in the narrow, crowded section of the lake. Apparently he was confused about the definition of the word "especially", because as soon as we got to the wider section, he was on me like white on rice again. I'm all for being flattered, but not at the expense of my life, so I saw the group leader stopped up ahead, and pretended like I needed to talk to her to get rid of him.


After that excitement, I rode home, and ended up with 27 miles. My legs were burning but I really wanted some brick practice, so I ran a quick 2 miles. It hurt. 


I've been struggling to wake up and feeling really tired lately, which makes no sense, because I've barely been working and spent a significant amount of time sitting around and relaxing. I think I've discovered the culprit. Eric bought these delicious gummy vitamins, but they don't have any iron in them. For a person like me, who doesn't eat meat unless someone else cooks me really super crispy bacon, iron is pretty important. But, knowing that, I just couldn't stop with the gummy vitamins, because I have the willpower of a 7 year old.

Which would you rather take?

This week I've finally started to man up and take the iron vitamins like a grown up. In my mind, it's going to help my training like crazy. Watch out, fellow YMCA swimmers.

What would you have done with the crazy scary close riding biking man?

Do you believe in vitamins? Aren't they supposed to be controversial over whether or not they actually do anything? I'm pretty sure that, like Tinkerbell, they will work as long as I believe, so I'm holding fast to that.