EGG SHELLS.

That's what you get when you peel boiled eggs at 4:30 in the morning. Without your contacts in. Egg shells in your boiled eggs. Crunchy!

Today was spin class, and in keeping with triathlon training, that meant getting to the gym early enough for a short swim before class and then a 15 min. treadmill run after.

It was still so dark out, I had a hard time seeing if we had gotten any snow overnight. A quick check out the front door, where there are streetlights, told me we hadn't gotten anything. Anything much that is. Nothing on the sidewalks. Nothing on the roads. The only snow that seemed to accumulate was on the windshield of my car. I don't know how that happens!

This week I have concentrated on getting totally serious about the diet, weights, and brick workouts. Last week's two hard workouts pretty much left me wiped out for a couple of days, so I knew some drastic measures had to be in place for this week. Next week will mainly be tapering for the indoor tri, so I wanted to see how hard I could push myself and still recover. That involved the nutritional side and the physical side.

And this week did seem easier. Somewhat. During spinning, I did heart rate checks after each workout set and found my heart rate staying steady, even while putting forth a good effort. I remember last year, same workouts, and my heart rate would be 20 points higher. So my conditioning has improved finally. After the spin class, which was a good hard one, my legs felt just like they would feel coming off the bike in a sprint tri. So the first couple of minutes on the treadmill were just trying to get the legs moving and see how I felt. I decided it probably made more sense to do a steady effort than try an all-out sprint, except for the last 3 minutes. Holding a steady pace worked great, and by the last 3 minutes I was able to bump up the speed and finish with a 9:40 pace.

I know the real thing will leave me wanting to puke at the end, and I could easily duplicate that in training, but I figure its best to stay steady, keep my heart rate steady, and push at the end--and hopefully still not feeling like I wanted to puke. No sense in torturing myself every day!

I was talking to one of the young women doing the tri with us, and she said she has only been in the pool once and hasn't really been training. "After all, its just 45 minutes. How hard can that be?" I probably am obsessing or maybe overly dedicated to training, but I am amazed at these people who enter events with NO training. Yet, somehow, they always manage to pull it off. Me? I have to train specific for an event to feel confident. And then I still can't guarantee my outcome.

So right now, its all about getting ready for this event and increasing the load of the workouts. We'll see where and how this goes.