Water and Bicycles and Pavement OH MY!

 In my previous blog I discussed the food side of my goal to get in shape before buying my wedding gown for my Summer 2014 wedding to L.  Now I want to discuss the exercise portion of my plan.  I have always been a swimmer.  My mom put me in baby swim lessons at only months old and since that time I was in swim lessons and swim teams until I was a junior in high school and got sick of the water politics.  When bullying in the pool was an acceptable form of showing your swimming "abilities", I knew I was just not cut out to be a part of it any longer.  But my love of the pool and swimming in it never died and when coming up with a fitness goal I decided that swimming needed to be a big part of it.  I thought about how much I have always wanted to work up to running a 5k and realized that a triathlon would be a perfect fit.
  I started researching triathlons for beginners and found this site: http://www.beginnertriathlete.com/cms/article-detail.asp?articleid=36 and knew I was on the right track.  After reading up on triathlons and different levels, I knew I wanted to start with a Sprint Triathlon in which you swim 800 meters, bike 14 miles, and run a 5K.  The site even provides a free basic plan of training and I set up my own calendar to get started.  There are three swimming, three jogging, and three biking workouts a week and they highly recommend weight training for muscle strength as well.  I looked at the local pool's lap swim times and made a schedule around that.  Then I got a very affordable gym memebership here in town that provides child care as part of the monthly cost for my weight training and running days.
  Something I had to think about is that although swimming comes natural and I can pick up where I left off in a pool, I am not an avid bicycler or runner and I needed a plan.  I chose to do the Couch to 5K (here is the website for C25K: http://www.coolrunning.com/engine/2/2_3/181.shtml ) as my running training and decided on only outdoors running because I get injuries when I use a treadmill and I am under trained when I try to run outside after using a treadmill.   Next I needed to know the routes I would be taking to reach my distance goals for my runs and bike rides.  I decided to utilize the free and awesome site SparkPeople.  I already have a loving history with this free resource so I went back to track my routes.  After creating a free account, you click on "Track My Workout" and scroll down to the "Map Your Route" option.  Once there you can simply type in your starting address and click on the map to build a route (they even have a "And Back" box you can click if you do a halfway and turn around workout like me to save clicking double on the map).  Put in your minutes and weight, click the "Calculate" button and then the "Add to Fitness Tracker" and you just logged your run or bike route FOR FREE with almost exact mileage.  I call that a win.  The link to SparkPeople is here: http://www.sparkpeople.com/myspark/start-now.asp#wheel and they do provide food tracking and tons of other goodies if you have time to cruise around.
  Now to scare you all just a little with what my week looks like for training...

1. Monday:  My awesome teenage next-door neighbor comes over to babysit my litter of children and I head off for my bike ride.  The time I am to bike is based off of what week and day of training I am on.  This last Monday was the start of week three and I did a 29 minute ride in which I went 14 1/2 minutes one way then turned around and finished my time up getting back to my starting point.  As soon as my ride is over and I am back home, I then grab my swim bag and head to the pool for my swim training of building up to a 800 meter freestyle.
2. Tuesday:  I load up my litter and head to the gym.  We go over the happy and unhappy possibilities of how they behave in the child care area while Mommy works out.  They all agree that happy is much better than unhappy.  I check into the gym, drop off the kids to the nervous-looking child care lady and leave her my number.  I head off on my run outside and do the interval training of whatever day I am on in the C25K plan.  This last Tuesday was to jog 90 seconds, walk 90 seconds, jog 3 minutes, walk 3 minutes for 14 minutes.  I come back from my jog and do my upper body weight training from 15-30 minutes, I pick up the kids, and we go to a park where they can run wild and use up energy.
3. Wednesday:  Repeat Monday except with an increase in the biking time.
4. Thursday:  Repeat Tuesday except with an increase in the running time and I do a lower body weight training.
5. Friday:  Repeats Monday and Wednesday with yet another increase in the minutes and is the day in which pushes your boundaries.  The times are higher than ever and you have to push yourself that much harder.
6. Saturday:  Repeats Tuesday and Thursday with the minutes at the highest so far and is very challenging.  I do a full-body weight training at the gym.
7. Sunday: R.E.S.T.  Absolutely NO working out.  It is a day of rest and everything I have learned supports that your body requires time off to function at its best.  So R&R with my litter and L is what I focus on.

Now that sounds as intense as it feels to be honest.  But I want to show you what just three weeks has accomplished:
My before pic of me right after taking my CNA state boards.  You can see how chubby my face has gotten and that I fill out my scrubs a little too much.

My current pic of where I am as of today after three weeks of training and watching what I eat to the best of my ability and losing 3.7 pounds.  I am not as worried about weight because I am building muscle while I lose fat and muscle weighs more.