When we last left off I was feeling pretty confident about this whole triathlon training thing – and I still am! So I dove headfirst (literally) into week 2 of training with a nice quiet swim last Monday night.

Nothing like having the whole pool to yourself!

I’m so happy: I finally figured out how to avoid the witching hour when swim lessons end at the pool! In the past, I would arrive at gym just as the locker room filled with kids screaming at top volume, playing hide and seek in lockers, splashing each other with water from the showers, and generally causing unsupervised chaos in the locker room. So now I stay at work a little while longer, change into my suit at the office, and arrive to an empty parking lot and silent pool. Bliss!

So I did the 6×50’s on my schedule and rocked them hardcore. Seriously: the breaks I need to take between 50’s are a lot shorter, I don’t start spluttering at the end of the lap like I used to, and I’m generally feeling stronger with each stroke. This plan is really working!

Tuesday was 20 minutes of biking, so I hit the DeskCycle throughout the day and pushed to 30 minutes and 6 miles. It just felt right, even in skinny jeans.

Wednesday was a run day, and I surprised myself with that unbelievably fast 2.5KM I talked about in my last post. I’m not going to lie – I also downed a quick cup of coffee moments before the run while I watched the hotties on the NHL Awards, so my performance was somewhat enhanced by all that extra adrenaline. But what the hell, I’ll take a 9:38 first mile and 10:17 avg. page for 1.6 miles!

Thursday was another swim day, with a full 300M on the schedule. While I still had to hold onto the side of the pool after every 100M to avoid drowning, I tested myself by not pushing off the side (simulating that dreaded open-water swim I’ll face in 4 weeks) and still managed to complete 400M relatively quickly! Yes, I still need to take breaks every 50-100M, but with 4 more weeks of training I’m pretty sure that even if I have to float for those recovery periods on race day, I’m not going to die nearly as quickly as I initially thought! That is, unless a shark happens to catch me straggling at the back of the pack.

Friday was supposed to be a rest day, but a friend and I schlepped into Peddler’s Village and New Hope, PA and managed to clock almost 6 miles of walking! Not exactly restful, but oh so pretty!

The rest of the week’s schedule was kind of thrown off: I drove up to Connecticut and met my best friend of 25+ years for our annual girls’ weekend, and blissfully forgot all about training for 36 hours. We watched Chris Pratt’s thighs (err, I mean Jurassic World), hung out in the hotel hot tub, laughed until our stomachs hurt, talked about life, and drank wine until we passed out giggling in the same bed. She’s good for my soul, this chick.

Did I mention Chris Pratt’s thighs?

As a result, Saturday and Sunday were both rest days – but I hit it hard again on Monday by taking my bike ride to the DeskCycle. And yeah, about that “15 minutes easy” it said on the schedule…

Sorry – I accidentally biked a half marathon in 48 minutes.

To my credit, I felt like I had a little bit of a price to pay by skipping the whole weekend, but it was totally worth it!

Last night’s swim was a little tougher than I’d hoped it be though – I had 3x100M on the calendar but for some reason I couldn’t hold it together past the first 100M. I started spluttering after 150 and had to stop entirely at 200 for a full minute or two. I was super glad to have the pool to myself, because that last 100 was ugly. But it was done!

Now I’m looking forward to getting a run in sometime today, even though it only says I need to walk/run 2.5KM. I have a feeling I’ll end up doing more but can’t wait to run by feel and just fall into the groove again. I missed my long run this weekend and need that runner’s high again!

How’s it going by you? Any of you folks in the US looking forward to a long weekend? And Happy Canada Day to my friends in the Great White North!