Weather Woes

It has been a week since my last post.  I am sorry to anyone who checks this page.  It has been a struggle to get my outdoor runs in.  Wednesday I had a meeting so I was not able to go to the track.  Then Saturday was snowy so the long run was postponed until Sunday.  Of course Sunday is my Zumba class with Ryann, then this week was my first swim clinic class.

I don't have an issue with running in the cold weather, but I won't run when it's icy.  My klutziness knows no bounds, so I am confident that I will slip on ice. 

The recent weather has allowed me to focus on my biking and swimming, since I can do both of those things indoors.  For some reason, I'm able to ride on my indoor trainer without an issue, but I am a mess on a treadmill.  I can barely run a half mile on the treadmill before my head and body start telling me that I should stop. So now that I know I don't mind riding on the indoor trainer, am I still getting enough training for the half marathon?

As I mentioned, I had my first swim clinic on Sunday.  It was AWESOME!  I decided to register for the beginner level class.  I walked into the pool and I was really nervous.  Of course I had done some swimming classes back when I lived in Berlin, which gave me a little bit of confidence.  But the swim during the triathlon had really put a doubt in my mind about my swimming ability.  I needed to start at the beginning and really build my swimming habits correctly.

That was exactly what the swimming clinic did.  The first thing we did was split ourselves up into ability levels.  Lane 1 was supposed to be people who were very uncomfortable and Lane 6 was people who were really good.  I put myself in Lane 4 but Anne (one of the instructors) moved me to Lane 5.  We did a warm up where Anne and Pam (the other instructor) watched us and evaluated our stroke and breathing. Of course I was breathing all wrong.  I knew it and was so out of breath by the time I was finished with a few laps.

So Pam taught us breathing techniques to help get the breathing right.  As she explained, if we don't breathe right during swimming, we are wasting all our effort.  So after the breathing drills, we did some body rotation drills.  They were fun.

So by the end of the class, I was swimming WELL.  I was breathing properly and I was feeling the rotation that I was supposed to.  I really love the class.  I am going to try to fit a swim in this week before my next swim clinic!