eight days of training complete

With this morning's optional strength training session at the gym, I've now completed eight straight days of Joe Friel's Your First Triathlon training plan, and I'm feeling pretty good about my progress so far.

My biggest concern going into the formal training program was that I'd flounder trying to swim laps in the pool. Truth be told, I'm really enjoying my swims (three sessions) so far. Thanks to the books I'm reading about the technical execution of the crawl stroke supplemented by great online videos like the slo-mo swim videos at Swim-City.com, I'm actually feeling good about my progress. I never imagined swimming could be so much fun and such a good workout.

I got my bike tuned up just before I started the training program, and all I've done is ride the bike on the trainer downstairs (it's been raining a lot). Looking forward to better weather ahead so I can get outdoors.

And my running feels really good, too. What with the relatively short workouts (20 minutes or so), I've been able to work on my pace more and am happy to feel so good after 2.5 miles of running. If you'd asked me whether I'd be saying this just a month ago, I'd have groaned at the thought.

One of my big lessons in the first week of training is that I really need to pay attention to eating enough while I'm on this schedule of daily exertion. I think I'd been going light on the intake when I was exercising every other day (thus, the great weight loss), and when I started working out daily, I didn't modify my diet. So I spent a lot of last week hungry, tired, sore and cranky.

I've learned my lesson and am now eating more of the right foods (proteins and carbs) and I'm feeling great this week. Hooray! The cost is that I'm not seeing the pounds slip off like I used to, but I can feel my body tightening up where it used to be flabby, and I can see my form shifting as I add muscle where there used to be fat.

The only bummer? My clothes are again too big. The swim suit (with a 36 in waist) I bought in November is now too large. And my "new" jeans (size 34 waist, down from size 38) are too big! Poor me, huh?

Looking forward to this next week of workouts. My big test comes this Friday when we drive down to Disneyland for a three-night trip. I'll have to get creative on how I keep up with the training schedule. Something to think about during my swim training in the morning!